Slut is a slang term used to indicate a person who has frequent sexual relationships with different people, especially short-term affairs. Coming from the late Middle English slutte (meaning "mud") the term is usually applied to women (and can be compared to the more negative slag), but is often used in the gay male and bisexual communities about people who are promiscuous in that they have, or are reputed to have, many sexual partners, or whose sexuality is voracious, indiscriminate, and shameful.
This term is often regarded as offensive, as in throwing mud, when used by others, but, in the gay and bisexual communities, may be used by the person concerned as an expression of pride in their status, or as an expression of enviousness in their "success rate" by others.
With polyamorous and non-monogamous people, in usage taken from the book The Ethical Slut, the term has been reclaimed as an expression of choice to openly have multiple partners, and revel in that choice: "A slut is a person of any gender who has the courage to lead life according to the radical proposition that sex is nice and pleasure is good for you."
In historical usage of English, however, the term merely meant someone untidy, and could apply to both males and females.
Music
- There is a German band named Slut
- There is an album by EBM band Transmutator called "Colony of Sluts"
See also
