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timepiececlockIn lingusitics today we got to talk about swearing, and I found a book I decided was absolutely vital to my reading future: cunt by Inga Muscio.
My teacher read the introduction to us, and as soon as I stepped out of the classroom I jotted over to the library (where I am now) and picked it out. It's a cute yellow book with a big pink flower in the middle and the word "cunt" in nice, easy-to-read bold letters. It's a history of the word and an anlysis on the social aspects of the word in this day and age. I think it sounds amusing, painful, and fascinating.
I remember the first (and only, for me) time a person has called me a cunt. Don't you?
Seventh grade. Stupid jerk of a boy (of course) behind me, can't remember his name. I didn't even know what the word meant, but whoa did he spit it out like it was the most vile thing to ever sneak past his lips. I shrugged it off and called him a motherfucker and braindead asshole shit.
Weirdly, I learned what the word "cunt" actually meant much later from reading letters in a Playboy magazine. I've never called another woman a cunt before; I'm always quicker to use the word bitch. Not out of thinking hard on the subject-- that's just the word I revert to if I swear at another female.
I wonder, why is it that cock, which is the crude equivalent of a male's anatomy, seems to have only sexual connotation and not the overall demeaning and derogatory accompaniment that cunt has for women?
If I called a guy a "cock!" he wouldn't think I was calling him the worst name I could think of. But at the moment, sitting here in the library computer lab, it is hard for me to think up a cruder and more offensive word for a woman than cunt being spouted at me by a man. More offensive combinations, perhaps.
My teacher read the introduction to us, and as soon as I stepped out of the classroom I jotted over to the library (where I am now) and picked it out. It's a cute yellow book with a big pink flower in the middle and the word "cunt" in nice, easy-to-read bold letters. It's a history of the word and an anlysis on the social aspects of the word in this day and age. I think it sounds amusing, painful, and fascinating.
I remember the first (and only, for me) time a person has called me a cunt. Don't you?
Seventh grade. Stupid jerk of a boy (of course) behind me, can't remember his name. I didn't even know what the word meant, but whoa did he spit it out like it was the most vile thing to ever sneak past his lips. I shrugged it off and called him a motherfucker and braindead asshole shit.
Weirdly, I learned what the word "cunt" actually meant much later from reading letters in a Playboy magazine. I've never called another woman a cunt before; I'm always quicker to use the word bitch. Not out of thinking hard on the subject-- that's just the word I revert to if I swear at another female.
I wonder, why is it that cock, which is the crude equivalent of a male's anatomy, seems to have only sexual connotation and not the overall demeaning and derogatory accompaniment that cunt has for women?
If I called a guy a "cock!" he wouldn't think I was calling him the worst name I could think of. But at the moment, sitting here in the library computer lab, it is hard for me to think up a cruder and more offensive word for a woman than cunt being spouted at me by a man. More offensive combinations, perhaps.
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Date: 2003-06-18 11:53 am (UTC)fear the woman!
Date: 2003-06-18 12:06 pm (UTC)Ye gads, have I noticed that growing up. Earlier in the year I sat down and was reading a child's book where each two-page set was a short lesson/fable, personified in images by animals. There were 14 short stories or lessons, 6 positive (where a person is rewarded for cleverness/proper behavior), and 8 negative (where a person was punished for poor behavior or some kind of logical/ethical mistake). Of the 14 lessons, only 5 included animals protagonists that were characterized as female, and those 5 were all negative lessons. Pissed me off like you wouldn't believe.
You can see things like that all the time, if you pay attention. I didn't know that about hysteria; that's interesting.