You Dirty Sluts

[monster]

Originally Posted by glatt

I think they are very different.

Bitch is always a woman or an insult to a man by calling him a woman. You can be a bitch one day, and then not be a bitch the next. It's about attitude. Or maybe you are always a bitch. But then that's just the way you are. (Not you, Monster.)

Slut is someone who is promiscuous. But in a bad way. And using that word is making a judgement on the worth of the person forever. They are unclean. In the gutter. The lowest.

There's probably an element of cultural difference here too. A slut can just be a slovenly woman with no reference to sexuality, so it just doesn't have the strong slur to it for me. I often refer to myself as a slut in the messy/poor houseworking sense. I just checked the Oxford and the slovernly aspect gets far more coverage than the sexual one and is the first meaning given. Also Brits are generally less hung up about sex and booze (and more hung up about guns and violence)

I also noticed "slut wool" being given as a term for "dust bunnies"

To me, being a dick and being a bitch are two completely different behaviours that have very little to do with gender. And they're both just words, neither is really worse than the other.

[Ibby]

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by classicman

The closest I can think of is Ed, used to be Ulbermann maybe. But no, neither went that far.

When Air America was on, Ed Schultz was the centrist. I haven't seen his TV show; maybe he's bumped it up a bit for them. At that time, maybe Randi Rhodes was the most extreme one in the lineup. At one point she called Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton whores. She was later fired by Air America, though there's dispute over whether that was the real reason.

[Lamplighter]

Randy Rhodes - yes.

What about Phyllis Diller (in her time)

[classicman]

Originally Posted by monster

To me, being a dick and being a bitch are two completely different behaviours that have very little to do with gender. And they're both just words, neither is really worse than the other.

They're used in exactly the same way here, at least.
Neither is that overtly offensive. They describe a behavior (ie: being a jerk) more than anything.
Slut is a FAR worse word bordering along the "c" word.

[Aliantha]

bitches are just cranky. sluts are dirty.

Sometimes I tell my boys they're behaving like bitches - implying that I think they're being cranky women. It usually helps.

[DanaC]

I think our equivalent to slut in terms of offensiveness would be 'slag'

[Aliantha]

We call them sluzza's over here. But sluts and slags as well.

To be honest, I really don't like any of the words. I just think it's another labelling word that inflicts negative feelings, both on the user and the receiver. I feel kind of like I need to wash my mouth out just for thinking the word as I'm typing here. (yes I come from a family of mothers who still wash their kids mouths out with soap. No wonder Aden has such clean teeth)

[lookout123]

Originally Posted by glatt

Well then I'm completely opposed to that. Give the troops entertainment, but not politics.

Rush Limbaugh routinely mocks the commander in chief. How can they justify broadcasting that over official channels? He foments insubordination. That's just nuts that he would be carried.

Please. Armed Forces radio is supposed to broadcast a cross section of what is happening on radio in the US. Ideally what they broadcast is something the troops and other listeners want to hear. Based on the generally right leaning make-up of the military, it makes perfect sense for them to carry Rush.

I don't care for the guy and I've never really listened to his show, but reaction this is getting is just stupid. He called a woman a slut while ranting. Dumb move in my opinion, but so what. He isn't a journalist. It was just as dumb and just as much of a non-issue for me as when Schultz called Laura Ingraham a slut. Whatever.

The woman is revelling in her 15 minutes. She went before congress and boo hooed about poor law students not being able to afford contraception. Fuck off. We all have our crosses to bare lady. If between you and your partner you can't afford a condom, then you're too damn stupid to be having sex anyway.

and No I do not have a religious opposition to birth control. I have a deeply held dislike for people who believe it's someone else's (meaning you and me) to pay for things they want.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by lookout123

She went before congress and boo hooed about poor law students not being able to afford contraception. Fuck off. We all have our crosses to bare lady. If between you and your partner you can't afford a condom, then you're too damn stupid to be having sex anyway.

Did you ever actually listen to her testimony? at ALL? or are you talking out of your ass?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/boxofficebuz...dra-fluke-48z2

“Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who, like me, are on public interest scholarships, that’s practically an entire summer’s salary. 40% of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggle financially as a result of this policy.

“And some might respond that contraception is accessible in lots of other ways. Unfortunately, that’s just not true.
“Women’s health clinic provide a vital medical service, but as the Guttmacher Institute has definitely documented, these clinics are unable to meet the crushing demand for these services. Clinics are closing, and women are being forced to go without the medical care they need.

“A friend of mine, for example, has polycystic ovarian syndrome, and she has to take prescription birth control to stop cysts from growing on her ovaries. Her prescription is technically covered by Georgetown’s insurance because it’s not intended to prevent pregnancy.
“Unfortunately, under many religious institutions and insurance plans, it wouldn’t be. There would be no exception for other medical needs. And under Sen. Blunt’s amendment, Sen. Rubio’s bill or Rep. Fortenberry’s bill there’s no requirement that such an exception be made for these medical needs.
“When this exception does exist, these exceptions don’t accomplish their well-intended goals because when you let university administrators or other employers rather than women and their doctors dictate whose medical needs are legitimate and whose are not, women’s health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her body.
“In 65% of the cases at our school, our female students were interrogated by insurance representatives and university medical staff about why they needed prescription and whether they were lying about their symptoms.
“For my friend and 20% of the women in her situation, she never got the insurance company to cover her prescription. Despite verifications of her illness from her doctor, her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted birth control to prevent pregnancy. She’s gay. So clearly polycystic ovarian syndrome was a much more urgent concern than accidental pregnancy for her.
“After months paying over $100 out-of-pocket, she just couldn’t afford her medication anymore, and she had to stop taking it.
“I learned about all of this when I walked out of a test and got a message from her that in the middle of the night in her final exam period she’d been in the emergency room. She’d been there all night in just terrible, excruciating pain. She wrote to me, ‘It was so painful I’d woke up thinking I’ve been shot.’
“Without her taking the birth control, a massive cyst the size of a tennis ball had grown on her ovary. She had to have surgery to remove her entire ovary as a result.
“On the morning I was originally scheduled to give this testimony, she was sitting in a doctor’s office, trying to cope with the consequences of this medical catastrophe.
“Since last year’s surgery, she’s been experiencing night sweats and weight gain and other symptoms of early menopause as a result of the removal of her ovary. She’s 32-years-old.
“As she put it, ‘If my body indeed does enter early menopause, no fertility specialist in the world will be able to help me have my own children. I will have no choice at giving my mother her desperately desired grandbabies simply because the insurance policy that I paid for, totally unsubsidized by my school, wouldn’t cover my prescription for birth control when I needed it.’
“Now, in addition to potentially facing the health complications that come with having menopause at such an early age – increased risk of cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis – she may never be able to conceive a child.
“Some may say that my friend’s tragic story is rare. It’s not. I wish it were
“One woman told us doctors believe she has endometriosis, but that can’t be proven without surgery. So the insurance has not been willing to cover her medication – the contraception she needs to treat her endometriosis.
“Recently, another woman told me that she also has polycystic ovarian syndrome and she’s struggling to pay for her medication and is terrified to not have access to it.
“Due to the barriers erected by Georgetown’s policy, she hasn’t been reimbursed for her medications since last August.

[Ibby]

Yeah. Surprise. She wasn't talking about government paying for anything. She wasn't talking about needing it just for preventing pregnancy. She wasn't talking about herself or her sex life. She was saying that letting insurance providers (that is to say, employers, not the insurers) refuse to cover, or try to put up stumbling blocks to obtaining, medically legitimate treatments, for "moral" or political reasons, is unacceptable.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Ibram

IS there anyone as extreme as Rush on the left? Not just someone who's really far on the left - I mean EXTREME, as in,
repeatedly and unabashedly calling a woman ~snip~ a slut,

the partisanship isn't the issue. It's the offensiveness and disgusting personal attacks.

Originally Posted by Ibram

They're both loud and bombastic, and tend to have a rhetorical style similar to Rush's,
but neither are particularly extreme by my reckoning. What exactly makes them extreme,
other than being loud and slightly angry all the time?

[Ibby]

Yeah. But he didn't double down on it for two more days.
I'm not a big fan of Ed, but he's no Rush.

[classicman]

But he did call a woman a slut.
They have that in common.
Unfortunately, I do think he tries quite hard at emulating Rush from the left.
If you go way back to when he was on Air America, he was totally different.

[monster]

Originally Posted by classicman

They're used in exactly the same way here, at least.
Neither is that overtly offensive. They describe a behavior (ie: being a jerk) more than anything.
Slut is a FAR worse word bordering along the "c" word.

Dick vs Bitch. Not here (SE Mich) at least. I suspect more of the US too. Being a dick requires no intelligence whatsoever. And often doesn't need a third party. Bitchery requires a third party and is often based on intelligent/insightful observations. Not always. neither are specific to the gender exhibiting the behaviour, although it is possible that one gender is better at one and the other at the other. or not.

I get that slut is a bad, bad word here. It just isn't to me. but then, as I said, I don't really have problems with any words. If they're used appropriately, I'm all good.