Are values no longer allowed to have value?

The other day I mentioned sluttiness in a post, and I supplied no context. I’m still struggling over the context of sluttiness, and I don’t want to get into moral judgments, not so much because I am against moral judgments, but simply because I don’t want to get into moral judgments. However, words do have meaning, and these days it seems that the word “slut” is being used interchangeably with or as a synonym for the word “whore.”

When I was a kid, there used to be a difference between a slut and a whore. Have times changed? I don’t know, but the word “whore”  traditionally meant prostitute, and unlike sluts, prostitutes don’t give it away. To paraphrase Lou Reed, everybody has to pay, pay.

In purely economic terms, by placing a higher value than free on the commodity that is sold, even the cheapest prostitute has higher standards than a slut. What I’m curious about is whether there are moral terms for evaluating this distinction. Which is more immoral? To give it away, or to charge money for it? Does anyone know? And if not, might that be the reason for some of the moral confusion? (Why, for example, does it seem more insulting to call a slut a whore than to call a whore a slut? Shouldn’t the reverse be the case?)

The problem is compounded by the fact that it is legal to give sexual favors away, but in most places it is illegal to sell them. Is this reasonable? It seems to me that giving away something that others will pay for is foolish. This means that whores are sexually smarter than sluts. As to just why the law would seemingly create a legal incentive favoring foolishness, I don’t know.

I do think that if someone is a whore, it is inaccurate (if not disrespectful) to call that person a slut.

It might even be cheapening to the world’s oldest profession.