wo out of five girls in the United States (about 42 percent) have had sexual rumors spread about them which suggest that they are viewed by their peers as sluts. In fact, Tanenbaum says that the term slut is a pervasive insult applied to a broad spectrum of American adolescent girls, from the girl who brags about her one-night stands to the girl who has never even kissed a boy to the girl who has been raped.ö This researcher says that the slut label doesnÆt necessarily have anything to do with sex and may simply be a means of bashing a girl who is different or nonconformist. At the same time, ôthe slut is thought to be 'low classÆ and 'trampy,Æ the kind of girl who wears gobs of makeup and whose voluptuous curves threaten to explode the fabric of her tight clothes.ö
Tanenbaum, who says that she herself was considered a slut in high school (an experience that caused her a great deal of pain), believes that ôbeing known as the school slut is a terrifying experienceö and the school slut is ôa pariah, a butt of jokes, a loser.ö There is little in this description of how a slut is perceived and treated that makes being a slut a liberating experience. Tanenbaum says that girls who are labeled as sluts in high school endure cruel and sneering comments and are often called a ôwhoreö or a ôbitchö and they are ôpublicly humiliated in the classroom and cafeteria. Her body
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