Skanks

[Arnold Zwicky]

larry horn:
 >I don't have enough first-hand knowledge of the application of
 >either "skank" or "skanky" to know if it's universally female-only;
 >I was just struck by the fact that (at least among UCLA students)
 >when one sexually pejorative term applying only to women is
 >generalized, another one is born.  (The usual prediction would be
 >that even if "skanky" can be applied to men in some circumstances,
 >only a woman can be "a skank".  But it might be interesting to see
 >if these words--even the noun-- can apply to men within the gay
 >community.  I suspect that this was a factor in the growing
 >sex-neutrality of "slut".)

in my experience, "slut" is the everyday label used by gay men
to refer to a promiscuous gay man (for some value of "promiscuous").
i used it myself, in the newsgroup soc.motss, only two days ago.

i don't recall a parallel use of "skank" or "skanky", but i'll
ask around.  it's possible that these labels are used, but mostly
by young gay men.  we'll see.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)