Ever wonder how Samantha in Sex And The City got away with six seasons' worth of prolific shagging, and was only branded a slut like four times, max? Not that prolific shagging makes anyone a slut– it makes them a person who likes having sex – but given how frequently the term is bandied about as an insult to women who may or not have had sex at some point in their lives, it’s pretty unrealistic to assume that she would have spent 20 years getting her rocks off without so much as an askance glance.
But then again, a new study has revealed the not-so-shocking truth that women with big salaries 'get away' with promiscuity. In a survey of 5,000 adults in the US, psychologists from Brunel University discovered that in states where women are more financially independent, they also have the most liberal views on promiscuity.
As the author of the study explains, what it all comes down to is evolution. Fidelity in a woman was only so important in the past because men needed to know the children he was providing for were his own. But in instances where the woman is the main breadwinner, this instinct becomes less important. ‘When women and children depend more on men, it becomes more important for people to know who a child’s father is, and promiscuity makes this harder to know,’ explains Dr Michael Price, deputy head of psychology at Brunel University.
Not sure if we necessary buy the evolution explanation, which seems like a bit of a stretch, but there’s definitely something in the notion that women from higher socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to be slut shamed. More research carried out earlier this year revealed that women call each other sluts as a way to maintain their social status, and that, big surprise, high-status (read: upper-middle class) women were far less likely to be slut shamed than their lower-status peers, despite being more promiscuous. To haul this back to SATC’s Samantha, how do you think she’d have been viewed if she was a single mum who worked in a supermarket and lived in Queens, rather than a PR exec with state-of-the-art sex toys and 800-count Egyptian cotton sheets?
But why are we calling women sluts in the first place? It's a boring drum to keep banging, but no matter how much the gender gap shrinks, how many women are employed in senior roles and how much better the provisions for maternity pay become, men are applauded for promiscuity and women are vilified for it. In fact, Kim Cattrall turned down the role of Samantha in Sex And The City several times before she accepted it because she couldn't work out how to play a woman who had so much sex, so freely, without being judged for it or asking for approval. And it was only upon finally accepting the role that she realised quite how empowering the character was.
And the thing is, Samantha was cast almost 20 years ago. But when 'slut' is still an acceptable word to use for a woman who might deign to have sex as often as a man, she seems just as revolutionary now as she was then.
Picture: Li Hui
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.