Skanks

[Dave Wilton]

> > Evidently at UCLA "slut" has become sex-neutral, and there have been
> > a number of instances I recall (I still notice them) in the popular
> > media (movies, magazines, "Friends", etc.) in which men are
> describes
> > as, or more usually called, sluts for being promiscuous
> (another term
> > that was applied exclusively to women/girls back in the day but has
> > now gone co-ed)--"Why, you slut!" (often used ironically).
>
> The "neutralizing" of "slut" is a new one on me. . . but then
> I don't watch
> things like "Friends", and it's been a while since I've been
> in groups that
> use "slang".  So there's a lot I don't know.

I've noticed this use on "Friends" and other comedies, but it seems to me
that it is done for comic effect. One usually doesn't refer to men as sluts;
that's why it is funny. In the absence of other evidence (which might be
there for all I know), I wouldn't take such use in comedy as definitive
evidence of a neutralizing (neuterizing?) of the sense.

I have heard "slut" used among gays to refer to promiscuous gay men,
however.