mainsqueeze's Diaryland Diary

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Cunt

We had a nice, long discussion about the word "cunt" in women's studies today. Those of you who know me personally know that that particular word is one of my all-time favorites, one that I throw around a lot more lightly than most people, especially most women. What shocked me more than anything was that there were girls-- women, really-- who couldn't even bring themselves to whisper "cunt." They referred to it as "the c-word." One girl said that her father had repeatedly called her a cunt while she was a teenager, and that was her explanation of the aversion to the word. Another said that it was "the dirtiest word, worse than the f-word, even." I love the word "cunt." I call my friends cunts. I call my good-natured coworkers cunts. I called my Mom a cunt once but she didn't take it very well, so Mom now gets called, affectionately, "bitch." I tried to explain, with my meager amount of experience over these eighteen & nineteen year old girls, that if you own a word, it doesn't hurt you. It can't. Ethan said, when I told him about this, that it is stupid to be offended or otherwise emotionally affected, by an arbitrary collection of sounds regardless of the meaning we grant to it/them. I agree, to an extent, but I can understand why some-- okay, most-- women and girls are more deeply affected by "cunt" than by "bitch." "Bitch" has become a word that is used on public television, in nearly any non-animated movie, and in most casual conversations, provided that the people speaking are not in the presence of nuns or their bosses. "Cunt," though, is the worst word-- a cunt is a woman who is overbearing and mean, self-serving and shrewd. A cunt is a woman who does not fit into the tiny little cubbyhole that we-- both men AND women-- have assigned her. I want to be a cunt. I want people to be so affected by whatever I do that they feel that the worst insult is the one that I deserve. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I am or want to be mean or self-serving, but I want to find my own place in terms of my gender and sexuality, and that is bound to upset somebody down the road.
After I finished telling my slack-jawed classmates why I love the word "cunt" and reserve it for the women closest to me, our professor said that he probably wouldn't mind being called a cunt by me because of the way it flowed off of my tongue. The cute, waifish girl next to me smiled and took a sip of her generic Slim-Fast. I hope that someday, she throws away the diet drinks and skimpy tank-tops, the Cosmo magazine and her copy of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus," and gets to love being a cunt as much as I do.

1:31 a.m. - 2006-09-14

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