General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What's a good substitute for "whore"? [View all]merrily
(45,251 posts)" I did not grow up in a culture that had whore being a gendered insult.
Yeah, you did. You just were so immersed in a culture that demeans females that you didn't give it a second thought, or even a first.
The fact that a term like "male prostitute" exists shows that "whore" and "prostitute," when unmodified, were implicitly understood to refer to females. So, to "ungender" those terms, one had to specify "male" unless the context made it clear, as when one would say, "John Doe is a media whore."
The change is not that the word suddenly became "gendered." The change is that you no longer feel free to use the word as an insult because people, mostly women, have been saying, "Cut it out. It's offensive to women and we will not remain silent about that any longer."
The language is full of other examples of words--and implicit thinking--that associate good things with men and bad things with females.
I find it really annoying when the way to claim Pelosi showed strength is to say "She had balls" and the way to claim Reid was weak is to call him a p**sy.