This originally appeared in my Broke-Ass City column for the San Francisco Examiner. A couple minor changes have been made. A few years ago I was invited to a dinner party in San Francisco by a guy I’d known growing up in San Diego. I hadn’t seen him in years,

I love language. I believe even the vilest of words and phrases can be employed rhetorically in a way that is both provocative and engaging. So when I say it’s time to retire the word slut it is not that I wish to censor the word or remove it from