Forwarded to me by Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky, this posting on tumblr, with:
She: What’s the boy word for slut?
He: hey still haven’t come up with one yet. But I’m sure they’re working on it.
The issue has often been taken up by feminist critics.
Here’s the problem: English has several terms to refer to a sexually promiscuous woman — of which slut is the primary one — and they are all condemnatory, but terms for sexually promiscuous men (Don Juan, hound dog) are generally either neutral or even celebratory in tone.
Check my posting of 5/29/11 on “sluts”, about the phenomenon of SlutWalks, which are both demonstrations against sexual violence and attempts to reclaim the label slut.
