"Sluts" on the Small Screen: Female Promiscuity in Scripted American Television Series

Viewers spend years laughing, crying, celebrating, and mourning with their favorite TV characters, but when those characters are promiscuous women, different viewers may have very different reactions. Both sexual freedom and sexual shame run deep in the cultural waters, so as TV's promiscuous female characters navigate those choppy waters, what unfolds onscreen reflects—and ultimately shapes—perceptions of promiscuous women as liberated and adventurous, damaged and destructive, or even sick...