s slut-shaming having a retro-moment? Or is it rather that, for the slut-shamed, it never really goes away? Monica Lewinsky, the self-declared “patient zero of losing my reputation online”,, deals with reports of David Beckham’s alleged infidelity circa 2003. While the documentary doesn’t mention names, it led to the dragging back into the spotlight of Rebecca Loos, his former PA.
Is there such a thing for a woman as a post-slut-shamed life? Or are they doomed to stay forever struggling in the quicksand of their hyper-public humiliation? A case of once slut-shamed, forever slut-shamed. Like a virus you just can’t shake off. While increasingly there are women who refuse to be slut-shamed, it hasn’t stopped it happening over the years. Behold Amber Heard while in court with Johnny Depp. But there’s nothing new under the harlot-decrying sun. Even keeping it in multimedia times, in the 1980s, Madonna was slut-shamed by the pope and the Catholic church. Today,for “getting through a lot of men”.
Why does it matter? For many reasons, not least because the young are watching: the females grasping that they’d better comply or risk similar harsh treatment; the males learning that it’s acceptable to use sex to attack and humiliate women. Anyway, isn’t everyone just sick of it? The grim endlessness of it all. How women are not only slut-shamed, but turned into lifers, with no hope of parole.