WST 3323 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Slut, Slutwalk, Toronto Police Service
7 Nov 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Sexuality and Gender Identity
9/19/16
Constructions of female sexuality
Dominant accounts of women’s sexuality
● The romance novel says...
○ Women are passive
■ Women are come on to, never the instigator or aggressor
○ Women are threatened
■ By relentless male desire
■ By threatening situations
○ Women are objects
■ Women are not the subjects in their own stories
○ Women are gatekeepers
■ Women are only there to agree to sex (making sure it’s not rape)
■ Women are not there to initiate and say they want sex
○ White?
■ Characters in romance novels are predominantly white
● The “slut”
○ A woman with characteristics other than what is in the romance novel is
considered a slut
○ Sluts are threatening
○ Sluts are deviant
○ Sluts are bad
○ Sluts are more likely to be women of color
■ They’re thought to be “exotic”
○ Can slut be positive?
■ SlutWalk
● “a transnational movement of protest marches calling for an end to
rape culture.”
● Started in Toronto in 2011 “after a Toronto Police officer
suggested that "women should avoid dressing like sluts" as a
precaution against sexual assault.”
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