Here kitty kitty kitty kitty
Out of curiosity, since Jean told us Jon Stewart did a segment playing off the word ‘pussy,’ I googled his name and ‘pussy’ – and got a lot of hits, most of them not about that segment. They don’t support the ‘pussy just means kittycat’ view.
You already know my feelings on Stewart, particularly after that notorious appearance on Crossfire – but you’re being much to kind to call him a wimp, I’ve always felt that he’s a big pussy, period.
Wimp is too nice, you see; Stewart is worse than that; he’s a big pussy.
Thank you to the team at Josh Marshall’s liberal TPM blog for putting together this lovely clip of Cramer desperately stomping around various NBC studios, finding any and all operational cameras, and yelling at them about how Jon Stewart is a sack of shit. In one of these episodes, Joe Scarborough gets in on the act! They talk about how Jon Stewart is dishonest, mean, personal, a cherry-picker, an idiot, and a pussy.
I detect a pattern; do you? It looks to me as if tough-guy liberal-hating right-wing types love the word and fling it around like confetti because it means everything they hate about liberals – which is that liberals are weak, cowardly, sentimental, cowardly, manipulative, cowardly, and just all around generally like women. Which fits exactly with that comment about Mo, and doesn’t sound at all like cats or like sweet fluffy cuddly animals.
Initially, I thought it funny that this post actually contains the term “cherry-picker”. But then I remembered that cherry-picking is selecting evidence that actually supports your argument.
“Not only is Obama a total pussy who’s going to let Europe run roughshod over us, he’s also an iron-fisted tyrant who will crush anyone who doesn’t bend to his will.”
That’s what Jon Stewart said, parodying conservative talk radio hosts. I just thought it meant “weak, soft,” but possibly there are more nuances. Don’t know. My nuance-detector is starting to flake out.
By the way, there was another use in the movie I watched tonight–“W”–and yes, it was the contemptuous, misogynist use. There’s no doubt that use does exist.
The worst insult to a “real man” is to call him a woman or what is equivalent to a woman, a weakling, which is also equivalent in the macho mind to a male who takes the passive sex in sodomy, that is, a pussy. It all goes together: weak=woman=passive role in sex=pussy. The macho mind isn’t doing analytic philosophy looking for clarity of terms. For the conservative wing of the macho mind, Obama is thus a pussy, which is the most negative thing a male can be for said mentality.
Quite. And I have very belatedly remembered that there is a converse male-related term that is also part of this complex. Pussies don’t have balls. The two worst insults are basically the same insult – you don’t have balls, you’re a pussy. Both are fundamentally insulting to women, even when addressed to men. This has been known and discussed for decades.
Amos is spot-on, yes. Most of the smearing of male Democratic candidates by conservative pundits revolves around calling them women.
Yes, that does just about say it all, and with such anatomical precision! “Pussies don’t have balls.”
[irrelevant drivel about cats – ed]
Greg, dear, it really did stop being about cats quite a long time ago.
Greg, dear, I told you to stop commenting. You seem to have (conveniently) forgotten that you’re banned. Shut. Up.
The idea that ‘pussy’ (meaning a feeble man) is a shorthand for ‘pussycat’ doesn’t stand up to moment’s scrutiny.
Think about how we use the latter: ‘he’s a pussycat’ is an often affectionate way of saying that someone has a kind, gentle nature. That doesn’t connote weakness or cowardice; in fact, it’s often used in contexts where the individual in question comes across as being tough.
No: as Amos says, ‘pussy’ as weakling is a slur based on women, not cats.
Yes and I’ve been wondering – if pussy really did mean pussycat/kittenish, why is it not interchangeable? Why do we never hear ‘he is such a kitten that’ etcetera?
Why was Tingey banned?
MOST of the smearing of male Democratic candidates involves calling them women???
FFS.
Rose – a million reasons, going back literally years. Obviously I would prefer not to address the issue publicly but I can’t do it via email, because the email address he uses is shared with his wife, and if I attempt to tell him via email to stop posting, she shouts at me and shares information that I do not want to have, and then he tells me that I need medical attention. (And then he goes on commenting on my site. The mind boggles.)