Neither Miley Cyrus Nor Taylor Swift Are “Sluts”
Wow, what an amazing week it’s been to be called a slut!
Adding to the discourse of slut-shaming, Ken Baker of E! News recently posted a message addressing the media’s supposed hypocritical treatment of pop stars Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift. Next to a picture of Miley, he wrote, “is called a slut or a bitch every day. has been with the same guy for more than three years and is engaged to him.”
OMG, good point, Ken! But wait…
Next to a picture of Taylor Swift, he wrote, “is called sweet, elegant, and inspirational. has been with more than 13 guys in the past three years.”
WAIT, WHAT, KEN? No, no, no, let’s back up this slut-shame train for a sec. Nothing pisses me off more than something that’s disguised as being progressive (ISN’T IT SCREWED UP HOW THE MEDIA TREATS MILEY?) but, in actuality, is just spreading another harmful misogynistic message about women.
Based on Ken’s message, one can safely assume what his message meant: WE’VE BEEN LABELING THE WRONG POP STAR A SLUT. QUICK, YOU GUYS, LET’S GET TAYLOR. SHE’S THE REAL SLUT HERE. SHE’S BEEN DUPING US ALL ALONG. HOW DARE SHE!
I saw Ken’s article on someone’s Facebook and some of the comments were disturbing. One guy wrote, “exactly shes a sell out, and has to slut it up to find inspiration for her songs. great role model #yeahright.”
Um, what? There are so many things wrong with this. Like, I honestly don’t even know where to begin. First of all, in his message, Ken is suggesting that a lady can’t be “sweet, elegant, and inspirational” if she’s sleeping with a bunch of different dudes. And apparently, people agree with him. Last week, I was in a magazine store with a friend and when she saw a picture of Taylor Swift, her face wrinkled up in disgust and she proclaimed loudly, “Ugh, she’s such a slut!”
Now, don’t get it twisted: I think Taylor is a complete psycho who, after dating someone for two weeks, will do something insane like buy the house next door to them. I find her love life to be sort of hilarious in the sense that she’s a young romantic who also happens to have a boatload of money, thus she can take her flings to an extreme. Like I’ve said in the past: Some people buy their BF’s a t-shirt to show their love. Taylor, on the other hand, buys houses.
But me poking fun at Taylor has nothing to do with me disapproving of her sex life. In fact, I love that a singer who’s so embraced by, well, practically everyone, can be seen galavanting around with a variety of different men. I mean, why shouldn’t she? If I were in Swift’s position, I’d try to sleep with all of the members of One Direction.
It’s sad to see the public start to turn against Taylor for having such an active dating life. It’s as if they feel let down by Taylor’s inability to hold down a relationship because it somehow conflicts with the pure romantic songs she writes and chips away at her credibility. In reality though, it shouldn’t matter. Who Taylor sleeps with or doesn’t sleep with doesn’t make her any less of a romantic. Furthermore, two wrongs don’t make a right! While it’s nice that people are starting to realize that calling Miley Cyrus a slut is bad news bears, that doesn’t mean we should deflect all of that sexist energy to Taylor Swift. How about we just stop judging Miley and Taylor for the penises they decide to put in their vaginas and just focus on judging them the old-fashioned way by criticizing their music and acting!