Quote:
"Toronto filmmaker Andrea Dorfman completed a documentary called [Sluts] a year ago in which 10 females talk about having been labelled the slut of their class. 'Literally, the 15-year-old had the same story as the 85-year-old,' says Dorfman. The film's older subjects, 'carried (the insult) around with them their whole lives. It affected their self-confidence, their careers, their self-esteem.' Dorfman, 38, says a girl who's branded a 'slut' in gossip—and she adds it's usually females who use the word against other females, competing for the attention of the still-more-powerful male—'is the receptacle of everybody's anxiety about sex.'"
-- Patricia Hluchy

Source:
Hluchy, Patricia. "In a four-letter word, a panoply of meaning: As with so many fraught or politically tricky words, context is everything when it comes to 'slut'." Toronto Star, March 25, 2007.