What's the difference in calling someone a whore?

The debate clip is found here

There is no difference. She is milking the Brown leak to get sympathy from voters.

Both candidates irritate me so much.

So, as best as I can tell, Meg is trying to say that when Paul said it about a group of people, it was a general derogatory insult hurled towards a mass amount of people. When Jerry’s aide said it, she believes that he was trying to say something about her sex life.

Personally, I don’t think there is a difference. I really don’t hear the term used to mean “woman who is too loose (sexually or morally) for my taste” very often. I do hear it used to mean “person whom I hate” a lot. I think it’s still loaded with tons of misogyny, but I don’t think most uses mean that underlying hatred of women and prostitutes.

I think Meg is just trying to spin it so that Jerry’s campaign hates women, while her campaign hates politicians. There’s less difference in the usage than there is between cream and ivory paint, IMHO.

There is no difference, she is just trying to make her opponent look bad by making him look like a misogynist or something.

Obviously the difference is that in one situation, it was said about her, and in the other situation, it was said by part of her team! see, that’s why the former is unacceptable, and the latter is a non-issue, go-lly!
I’m sure it makes sense in a politician’s mind. Not in mine, though.

@papayalily Does Meg have a reputation for being easy? I hadn’t heard that.
I know her husbands last name is Harsh. Really. How appropriate is that?

@filmfann No (I don’t think). It’s just the literal meaning vs the colloquial meaning.

Depends on if it was said with a sexual meaning or not. Obviously, calling Congress a bunch of “whores” isn’t implying that they’re sexually promiscuous. So it really depends on what was meant by calling her a “whore”.

In my lifetime, children would chant
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”
Apparently there is a generation of grown ups who never got the message.

@josie To be fair, I don’t think that she was offended, I think she’s just desperately looking for any kind of ammunition.

@josie Or they evaluated the saying and came to the conclusion that it’s an uninsightful childhood ditty. Broken bones can heal pretty quickly. Words can cause scars that create abuse victims and even serial killers.

As far as I am concerned, it’s all political kerfuffle with no importance to which one would make the bettter choice for governor. But to answer your direct question, Browm had the moral high ground on this one. He has no idea who used the word in his office. It’s garbled and in the background of a cell phone call he thought was over 6 weeks ago. Voice analysis failed to tall who said it. Brown apologize for the slur as soon as he heard about it. Whitman on the other hand knows who said it, and claims its perfectly OK for her team to call hundreds of people that. No apology or firing necessary.

@DominicX The word was used in the same way by both camps. Both meant it as a reference to a politician/s who has sold out principles for monetary gain.

Actually the term was meant to mean that they would sell themselves for the right price. Neither instance was intended to mean sexually promiscuous. But when you use it in reference to a woman it carries additional derogatory meaning. Sort of like using the word boy in reference to a less mature person but using it in reference to a black it carries more insult. It may have the same meaning but political correctness, history, and the person involved will give it more or less meaning.

Regardless it is a nit. Stupid but still insignificant in the overall scheme of things.

@Sarcasm I wouldn’t call it desperation; politics starts off playing dirty.

I just can’t seem to get myself too worked up about this one. As @Jaxk points out it was used as term for someone who would sell themselves out for the right price. I suspect that if we were privy to every conversation that politicians and their aides had we would occasionally hear them referring to other men as “whores” too.