It is very unfortunate that those grown adults were slinging ugly words instead of minding their own business.
But babe, the issue here at hand is that you cannot expect the rest of the world to operate on your similar value system. There will be people who fall on either side of the spectrum, and now being in college, get ready to be subjected to a whole lot more of that. If somebody said it aloud, that means there are plenty more who silently think that. Are you gonna go and get upset about each of them one by one? Nope. You just ignore them because they make no bit of difference one way or the other, and you just keep on going where you need to be. You don't need to seek approval from people who are trying to salt your game.
I had a similar incident happen to me right here on MuT. I had posted one of my projects (I had made a bra from scratch). I was paging through all the comments, and one stuck out like a sore thumb. The poster didn't use the word "whore", but with the connotation, I took it to mean much worse, and the reponse to my PM only dug this person further into the hole.
My point is, there will be others who will look at you through their own frame of reference and make judgements based on that. When it starts to infringe on your personal zone, then you call them out on it.
Most of the times though, you just gotta let the f*ckery slide off your back. Tomorrow, they may not even remember who you are or what they said about you... don't spend any more time thinking about those people. One thing you can always keep with you though:
Remember how words like this made your heart feel. Don't bestow it upon anybody else.
