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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 12:19 pm (UTC)Hmm. My best friend (a guy) calls me it from time to time when teasing me. Doesn't bother me any more than "bitch". Then again, it's not as horrifically thought of in the UK and Ireland as in the US (I know the director of American Beauty was bemused when four people walked out of the test screening after Mena Suvari's character called another girl a cunt.)
Re:
Date: 2003-06-18 12:30 pm (UTC)I've used it a few times in playfulness, usually oneline with another girl/woman. I've never cursed a woman to her face with it. Like all hurtful terms it's different if the situation is one you choose, between friends or family, because then you've taken the negative connotation out of it.