The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

You know how when you sign up for a newsletter like this one, you're sometimes asked for your name in addition to your email address? I've discovered that some people use the name field as an opportunity to communicate vile messages.

From October 8, 2025 through December 31, 2025, someone filled out the newsletter signup form on my website 144 times to slut-shame a specific woman I'll call Chloe (not her real name; she reviewed this content and gave me consent to share it with you). Each time, this individual included a message in place of their name.

The messages are ugly, hateful, and cruel. At first, they were composed of one or two words, but very quickly they grew into sentences with subjects and predicates. The person who wrote them suggested they were surveilling Chloe, that they would punish her for sleeping with someone she shouldn't have, and that she deserved to suffer. 

What I was witnessing was textbook misogyny—not in the colloquial sense of "hating women," but in the way feminist philosopher Kate Manne defines it. In her book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, Manne argues that misogyny isn't primarily about individual hatred or disgust. Instead, it's a patriarchal enforcement system that polices and punishes women who challenge male dominance or fail to subordinate themselves to men. Misogyny is a “shock collar,” Manne says, that keeps women in line. It doesn't require the enforcer to be male; in fact, women can be agents of misogyny too, as long as they're upholding patriarchal order.

The messages flooding my inbox weren't random cruelty. They were enforcement. Someone—regardless of their gender—had decided that Chloe had violated the sexual rules women are supposed to follow, and now she would pay.

At first, I assumed the messages were intended solely for Chloe. I figured the perpetrator thought I would blindly send out their vitriol in place of her name when I distributed my newsletter (e.g., "Dear Whore" instead of "Dear Chloe"). But as the odious messages continued to flood my inbox—I receive an email every time someone signs up—it dawned on me that the messages were intended for both Chloe and me. The perpetrator was also targeting me through my newsletter because I speak up on behalf of women maligned as sluts. Which makes me... a slut?

This is how misogyny's enforcement system works: it doesn't just punish the "transgressor." It punishes anyone who defends her.

I reached out to Chloe to alert her, and it turns out she doesn't know who the perpetrator is. This detail is significant. If Chloe can't imagine who would say such hateful things about her, it means the perpetrator is only glancingly connected to her personally—or not at all. This is misogyny operating at the systemic level. The enforcer doesn't need intimate knowledge of Chloe's actual behavior. They only need to believe she's violated the rules, and that someone needs to make her suffer for it.

The 144 messages, individually and collectively, are a chilling commentary on a widespread belief that women are dirty liars who deserve to be harmed over their sexual behavior, real or imagined.

On December 31, worn down after reading these repulsive and frightening messages (on one day alone in November, the perpetrator sent 20), I removed the name field from my newsletter signup form. The perpetrator can no longer send me and Chloe messages through my website. However, Chloe told me they are sending her similar messages from multiple other sites.

Chloe connected me with a detective she's working with who is trying to identify the perpetrator. The owner of the company that runs my website platform gathered metadata that may help identify their IP address. I provided the detective with all the messages and timestamps. 

During the several hours I spent last week scouring my inbox, the soundtrack running in my head was the words of Renee Good's murderer, Jonathan Ross, after he fired the fatal shots: "fucking bitch." Many of us were shocked to hear Ross express this contempt for a woman who refused to be subservient. But as I re-experienced the messages directed toward Chloe, I became unshockable. To cope with the virulence, I went numb.

I frequently receive hateful emails and comments on my social media content, including—most recently—a familiar amalgam of slut-shaming and antisemitism: "I would never give any fucking heed to Jewish whores about morality!" Being a Jewish slut apparently is worse than being a normal slut. But I've never been targeted by one perpetrator over an extended period of time. I can't imagine the fear Chloe is experiencing as a target of continued harassment.

Because I removed the name field from my signup form, I no longer have the ability to learn the names of the people who subscribe to my newsletter.

Postscript: I shared the content above with my newsletter subscribers in January 2026. I didn't publish it until July 2026 becuase I didn't want to do anything that could impede the investigation. I shared it in July 2026 because the perpetrator had finally been identified!

Chloe had reached out to a detective in her jurisdiction, and based on information she shared, along with information I provided from my website host, the detective matched their electronic footprints with their identity.

The perpetrator is the partner of a former colleague of Chloe's, who may have acted in collaboration with the former colleague. In July 2026, Chloe was preparing to press charges.