BY ILANA ZEILINGER
I am 15 years old, and the word "slut" is already part of my everyday life. I remember the first time that objectionable word slipped out of somebody’s mouth, soaring in my direction. Piercing me. I could not feel anything, except for my stomach dropping.
I was 11 years old.
It was in the first weeks of sixth grade, experiencing the new world of middle school. Five days in to school, Roy Thorton asked me to be his girlfriend. Four days later, I was convinced I was in love, and going to spend the rest of my life with him. Three days later, after school, we held hands as we walked to the line of school buses, which would take us our separate ways home. We parted ways and got on our separate buses. Before I even reached my seat, the word stabbed me, and I was unarmed. Blinking back tears, head down, I sat in my seat trying to turn invisible.
Sluts were supposed to be girls who were dirty and easy. Girls who were not me.
As weeks passed, I herd the word more often. Sometimes used casually, sometimes used viscously.
Flash-forward four years and I hear it everyday. Not because I have casual sexual partners, but because it is the only word remaining, when people are at a loss for words. Many girls just like me have grown to internalize the word. We’ve come to embrace it in a carefree manner that pulls us apart deep down.
When a guy calls me a slut, it’s hard to object, because if I say, "No, I’m not," they will list reasons why, and it is simply hard to deny the term as a 15-year-old girl, trying to go through high school without a reputation.
What if I acted like whores are supposed to? What if I was a hooker? Would hearing the word hurt any less?
No.
"Slut" was invented to define people. Once you’re stamped with the word, that's all you become. Nobody cares to learn more about you. They think they know you once you’re branded.
I hear it regularly and vigorously.
I hear it in the hallway flying from the mouth of an angry boy who has just been rejected. Shouting it at a girl’s back. Back stabbing her.
I hear it in my painting class, as a cluster of girls crowd around an easel to talk about what some girl did at a party last weekend.
I hear it all around me. Like a ringing in my ear that doesn’t go away.
I know other people hear the ringing too. I know teachers here it in the hallway, and before class. I know parents act surprised when they hear it, but are they really? Adults are taught to teach us not to use language like this, and they do try, and instruct us early on. They are taught to vaccinate, and prevent disease, but they are not taught how to cure it.
Ilana Zeilinger is a teenager who lives in Washington, D.C. This is her first publication.