SLUT DIARIES: “Does He Even Know What THOT Means?” Why Words Matter.

Since 2012, a community of teen girls in NYC has been leading the charge to end slut shaming and transform rape culture through theater, writing, and youth-lead activism. The girls, all high-school students, and their mentors at The Arts Effect, an award-winning activist theater company, developed SLUT: The Play (written by Katie Cappiello). Inspired by real events, SLUT follows the story of Joanna Grace Del Marco, a 16-year-old girl who is raped by three friends during a night out and fights to rise above shaming and victim blaming directed at her by those in her world. The critically-acclaimed play and accompanying workshops have toured the country engaging middle, high school and college students in conversations and protest around sexual shaming and rape.  Their efforts have sparked a national StopSlut movement lead by young women and men.

The team is partnering with the Feminist Press to release its first book on February 10, 2015– SLUT: A Play and Guidebook for Combating Sexism and Sexual Violence, edited by Katie Cappiello & Meg McInerney.  SLUT: The Play and StopSlut Workshops will soon be touring to Boston, DC, and the San Francisco area.

@StopSlut | StopSlut.org

Sarah Armoogam is a leader of the StopSlut movement.  This is her story.

My friend Laurie liked a boy named Jose, and he liked her back.

Okay, whatever. So like, anyway everything seemed fine.

After a couple of months, Laurie started liking this other boy named Julio. So then Jose found out and he did not like that she liked someone else. I mean, she has every right to do whatever she wants, right? So back to what I was saying, Jose found out about Laurie liking another boy, and he did not like that.

Well his way of “solving” the situation was by yelling,” THOT ALERT!! THOT ALERT!!” and he’d make siren gestures and noises every time he’d see Laurie. “THOT ALERT!! THOT ALERT!!” day after day, and Laurie would just take the pain. “THOT ALERT!! THOT ALERT!!”

Soon enough, a lot of people got in on it. They would come tell me stuff like,” Sarah… your friend is such a slut!” or “Sarah your friend is a thirsty hoe!” or “Sarah your friend is such a thot!”

I didn’t know what to do most of the time. Laurie could not take it anymore, so she came to me and started crying. I personally went up to Jose, and said, “You have no right to say that about her… you need to stop.” And well, he did. Jose stopped after I had to say something, but rumors still go around school about Laurie that she’s a slut and a ho and a bitch and all this bad stuff.

Sometimes I don’t even know what to do. When this stuff happens, I’m usually good at speaking up about how I feel. This was different. This was… verbal abuse. Well, it was verbal abuse. Just because Laurie started liking someone else, she’s automatically a slut, hoe, bitch, thot, thirsty, and desperate? This situation started out as something so small, something as small as an eleven-year-old girl liking someone and then liking someone else. That’s it. Then the situation sparked into something else, something different. I didn’t know what to say to her.

I only knew what to say when she cried. I had never seen someone cry so hard, so sadly. Jose was one of my close friends. So was Laurie. I never ever thought that something so cruel and mean would come out of his mouth. Ever since then, things between me and one of my best friends have never been the same. I feel like he doesn’t know what he said, y’know? When he started calling her those names, I don’t think he realized by saying that, he was looking at her in a sexual way.

It’s weird that anyone my age would do that, because we are still so young. He doesn’t realize how much of an effect he had on her life. I bet Jose doesn’t even know what thot means. It means: That Hoe Over There. Yup, that hoe over there. And we are only eleven! Eleven! Eleven small years on this Earth and he’s saying very wrong and sexual stuff about her.

I hope Laurie understands that what he said isn’t true and that Jose probably had no clue what he was really saying about her.

Sarah Armoogam is 11 years old and in 6th grade at Louis Pasteur Middle School. She is a member of The Arts Effect All-Girl Jr. Theater Company and loves painting, drawing, animals, shopping, and her dog Buddy. Sarah’s heroes include her dad, who she says, “has been nothing but a great dad, and friend.” Sarah believes it’s important to put a stop to slut shaming because “women are powerful beings, and deserve as much respect as any other living thing on this planet, and slut shaming doesn’t give women and girls the reputation and respect that they deserve.”