The reason it makes people angry is that "creeper" has become the male equivalent of slut shaming. I was thinking long and hard about this and it suddenly hit me.
1) It entirely a judgement in the head of the person making the claim. There are no objective agreed upon standards for it, so there is no way to refute the claim. When someone calls another person a slut, they are using their own standards of sexuality, something about which there is no universal standard, and judging the person against that standard. Because the standard is the accuser's own there is no way to claim that they are objectively wrong.
2) Because of the above, it is entirely context dependent. As others have brought up, this means that the exact same behaviour from two different people can be called "creepy" in one instance, and desirable the next. Examine the difference in reactions between a person who does not fit the idealized marketing body type making themselves sexually avalable and a person considered "hot". I have seen women called slutty for the same behaviour that was proclaimed as "awesome" all because they were seen as less conventionally attractive than the other woman.
3) It immediately associates that person with a negative societal perception and group. Because of this both words have incredible power, although much good work has been done to dull the impact of slut but it is still damaging.
Due to all of the above, calling someone a creeper is an incredibly powerful way to immediately disempower that person, place them on the defensive, and quickly impact them in a negative fashion. We recognize that a combination of the above three points makes the word slut an incredibly negative word that should really never be used, and I'm sure we'll get there with creeper/creepy. But if you want to know why it makes people angry, well just remember that question the next time you get worked up over someone casually dropping a "slut" bomb on someone else.
1) It entirely a judgement in the head of the person making the claim. There are no objective agreed upon standards for it, so there is no way to refute the claim. When someone calls another person a slut, they are using their own standards of sexuality, something about which there is no universal standard, and judging the person against that standard. Because the standard is the accuser's own there is no way to claim that they are objectively wrong.
2) Because of the above, it is entirely context dependent. As others have brought up, this means that the exact same behaviour from two different people can be called "creepy" in one instance, and desirable the next. Examine the difference in reactions between a person who does not fit the idealized marketing body type making themselves sexually avalable and a person considered "hot". I have seen women called slutty for the same behaviour that was proclaimed as "awesome" all because they were seen as less conventionally attractive than the other woman.
3) It immediately associates that person with a negative societal perception and group. Because of this both words have incredible power, although much good work has been done to dull the impact of slut but it is still damaging.
Due to all of the above, calling someone a creeper is an incredibly powerful way to immediately disempower that person, place them on the defensive, and quickly impact them in a negative fashion. We recognize that a combination of the above three points makes the word slut an incredibly negative word that should really never be used, and I'm sure we'll get there with creeper/creepy. But if you want to know why it makes people angry, well just remember that question the next time you get worked up over someone casually dropping a "slut" bomb on someone else.