It's always going to be some trashy part of her past, or something, because it can't be seen otherwise.
Exactly. I find it impossible to believe that Miller made Selina a whore for any other reason than because he was calling her a whore; Miller writes stories where everyone is "dirty" and "bad" in some way, because he's all about this fallen world, and the way he shows his men to be "fallen" is by making them hyperviolent and barely able to restrain themselves, and the way he shows his women to be "fallen" is by making them behave in stigmatized ways sexually. (Sarah Essen is the closest thing to a female lead in Y1, and she's a homewrecker.) It's a pattern with him. And she has not had a writer since Miller who's been able to see it any other way, either. It's like Ollie Queen: Cheater - that's not even what actually happened, but two decades of stupid writers have been using it to degrade and insult the character regardless, and *make* that wrong take canon. It's not fair to him, and Grell should not have saddled him with it, particularly not if he intended to present it in such a glaringly inaccurate way. And I say that as someone who loathes the character.