TVTropes: Slut Shaming

I have a tendency to link to TV Tropes when I think an article is even slightly relevant, and I've contributed to a lot of its pages. Every once in a while, I even go to the trouble of making a new article. With Choke Holds, Living Legend, and Corrupt Politician, I was just trying to fill a gap in the trope landscape. For example, Choke Holds used to be included in Tap On the Head, even though they're not quite the same thing, so I made a more precise trope that even went to the trouble of differentiating between blood chokes and air strangles.

Whereas with those I was creating variants of existing tropes, Soldiers at the Rear, Kick Me Prank, and Fixing the Game were more archetypal, less derivative. I was particularly surprised that there wasn't a trope for the kick me prank. So were others, apparently, but it hasn't really flourished; after all, it's something that shows up more often on kids' shows, I think.

However, the trope I think I'm proudest of is Slut Shaming. I wasn't the first to try and add it as a trope; lalaone asked, "Why was this cut out when I tried to add it, but when this person adds this it's ok?" My response was, "I really couldn't say; recall that things like this tend to get slammed hard by MRAs at the best of times. However, I put it through the YKTTW, got examples, got hats, edited this way and that, and added it. I hope it's here to stay. Perhaps in the interim the internet got a little more savvy about misogyny and religious prudery?"

It isn't the most active trope out there, though it gets the occasional edit. If you look, you'll see that most of the entries are from my library. I went into a bit of detail with Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series and the show How I Met Your Mother. Marshall's "I call slut!" from the episode with The Naked Man was what prompted me to go in and make the trope.

As for why lalaone's attempt got deleted and why the trope didn't already exist, take a look at this, the first comment to appear on the discussion page.

The article seems rather biased toward the proposition that being a slut is not in fact shameful. At the least the activity often(whether for men or women) requires getting people into bed by being a Manipulative Bastard, and betraying one's last partner.

Seriously, within minutes of putting up the article. I'm glad I put it through the full YKTTW process, getting additional examples, cleaning up the entry, and seeing lots of people agreeing it needed to be put up. It hasn't been taken down yet, and if it ever disappears I'll fight tooth and nail to keep it.

The internet really is a bastion of misogynist douchery, where white, male, and hetero privilege rears its ugly head any time something slightly out of the norm appears. Things like this need to be out there just so people actually take the time to think about them and maybe, hopefully, come away a little less biased, a little more informed.

"What the hell is slut shaming? Slut shaming is the unfortunate phenomenon in which people degrade or mock a woman because she dresses in tight or revealing clothing, enjoys sex, has sex a lot or may even just be rumored to participate in sexual activity. The message that slut shaming sends to women is that sex is bad, having sex with more than one person is horrible, and everyone will hate you for having sex at all."
—JOS