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In 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.