A paradigm
No no, I’m not starting it up again, I just want to offer a little illustration of what I’ve been saying, which is that the (putative) fact that ‘cunt’ does not refer to women and is not an insulting epithet for women in the UK does not mean that that description holds everywhere. I consulted Google blog search, and one of the first items was a rather truculent San Francisco blog…
This Just In: Jeanene Garofalo is a CUNT
Ugly, bitter, has-been Jeanene Garofalo spews more racist hatred on Olbermann.
Bitch still thinks she’s funny. But I guess we can remove the “still” – seeing that she was never funny.
What motivates a person like Garofalo to scream “racist” at anyone who dares object to her God Obama?
I trust I don’t have to convince anyone that that post conveys more than a whiff of misogyny?
I certainly hope I don’t.
She is a cunt.
And I am, and all women are, and fuck you, and fuck anybody who says that.
Boy oh boy, OB; you’ve really greated a rod for your own back.
Face it, you’re not going to change the course of the English language, nay, human nature itself.
Crude words with sexual connotations will continue to be used as insults and you can continue to get yourself in a tizzy, but you won’t change anything. Don’t sweat the small stuff. There are more important issues to be dealt with.
Woah there! I want to make clear I’m not saying it’s not an insult for women!
Obviously, I don’t think it is small stuff. I don’t think it’s as large stuff as other things, but I don’t think it’s small stuff, either.
That is the problem with the internet, of course. You can’t just smack someone in the mouth when they’re disgustingly rude. You have to be satisfied with holding them in utter contempt.
Well of course women can’t very well smack people in the mouth anyway. Either they get smacked back or they take unfair advantage of the rule against smacking back. Neither one any good. (I suppose women can belt each other, but…)
A gentleman will always accede to a lady’s request to smack someone in the mouth, of course… OTOH there are always kickboxing lessons…
Eagle bomber, stop missing the point. It’s not crudity or sexual connotations that is the matter with “cunt,” any more than it is with “fag” or “nigger” or “retard.” Bigotry is the problem, not crudity.
Sorry.
Okay. Dunt do it no more, as Alan Arkin said in ‘The Russians Are Coming.’
“Bigotry is the problem, not crudity.”
So, for the slower among us (by which I mean me), can I confirm some or all of the following:
1. The problem with “cunt” is that using it expresses bigotry, not (just) profanity.
2. People who use it might not intend to express bigotry, but enough people who hear it think they do[*], so the users should take that into account.
3. People who use it should *know* that those on the receiving end infer bigotry, and so don’t have any excuse.
4. Therefore those who use it are either bigots by design, or carelessness, or thoughtlessness. Or possibly just “*expressing* bigotry by design [etc]”
[*] Because that’s what the word “means”, for a suitable definition of “means”.
Can someone correct me where I’ve still gratuitously missed the point?
The problem with ‘cunt’ is nothing whatever to do with profanity, the problem is that it expresses vicious intense hatred of women.
People (like me) who hear it need to keep in mind that that is not always what is meant, especially in the UK.
People who use it should, ideally, be aware that that is, at bottom, what it means and expresses, and the fact that it has shed that meaning for some people doesn’t take the sting out for others. But that is ideally. People who don’t realize that aren’t usually to blame (but they are, at least somewhat, if for instance they’ve been told and just refuse to believe it).