C U Next Tuesday (This Tuesday)

I CANNOT tell you why I was thinking of this today, but: I love the word cunt. I wish I could remember the moment when I first learned the word. (It may well have been from my mom.) While I basically think women can use it with impunity (haven't totally thought that through yet, there might be exceptions), I was wondering to myself what the circumstances are in which it's acceptable, to me, for a guy to use the word. Any guy I actually know can probably use it with impunity-- I think they've earned the right. If you're my friend you probably have credentials as a non-misogynist--perhaps you need them to even WANT to be my friend, if that's not self-aggrandizing. And I can imagine, again under certain circumstances, a guy I've just met actually endearing himself to me by saying "cunt," but thinking about it I'd have to already like him.

Here is my favorite instance of a guy saying the word:

In 2004, when the RNC was in New York, my friend Jake and I went to a trivia night at a bar downtown. We joined the team of these four boisterous Australian guys and this one woman from Texas. They were all very nice, but the Aussies were giving the woman a (friendly) hard time, I suppose because she was blonde and was showing (seasonally appropriate) cleavage, decorated by a cross pendant. While she and I had gotten into a little conversation about our differing views on reproductive rights, we were both respectful and listened to each other so I bore her no ill will, and felt a little annoyed at the Aussies on her behalf. So I leaned over to her and said, "You should just say the word 'cunt.' That always shuts guys up."

This was the wrong thing to say.

She was deeply taken aback, and insisted that if I had self-respect I would never use that word. I could NOT seem to get us out of this conversation--I tried to argue that I was coming from a different context (no man had ever called me that in anger), so while I understood her discomfort with the word, it had different ramifications to me. Et cetera. But she would brook no dissent. She was appalled that I would use the word and kept trying to talk me out of it, and I was a little too surprised to realize I should just change the subject. This went on until it was finally time to leave, and as soon as we hit the pavement, Jake said:

"That woman was a cunt."

And I remembered why I have loved Jake since 8th grade.

Of course, it's not all wine and cunty roses. I have one boy-related cunt anecdote that still makes me kind of upset, but it's not the standard kind. In high school, I was on the fencing team. It was co-ed--our league play was divided by gender, but in practices we all fenced each other, so it was really like one team. We had this one away game where the judge HATED us. Don't know why, but she made all sorts of bullshit calls to our detriment, I'm pretty sure we lost and we were all really pissed. Afterwards, while we hung around waiting for the coach to herd us back on the bus, she passed by us. We glared silently, and once she was out of earshot I said, "Cunt."

There was this guy on the team. He was the child of someone famous and seemed to pride himself on being an asshole, but he was smart and often funny so I liked and respected him alright. He stared at me and said, with great authority, "Girls can't say that word!"

I was stunned, I said nothing. But that was the prevailing high school attitude--BOYS could use the word (though they didn't much) but not me. Which, I suppose, is why so many of us feel that it's empowering to reclaim it. Lots of men think of it as the worst thing you can possibly call a woman* and, at least to obnoxious adolescents and their ilk, the idea that a girl might steal it from them, might be as vulgar as boys were allowed to be, might have the power not to be ashamed of their own anatomy, is truly horrifying. Not just horrifying: it infringes on their territory, robs them of their weapons. Who are these uppity bitches thinking they can take what's ours? This guy knew what he was doing, but he also meant what he said. Back then I knew what I believed but had no idea how to explain it, even to myself, so shocked silence and a profound feeling of betrayal--he was my teammate, I'd thought we were in this together--were the only responses I had at my disposal. These days I would probably just say, "cunt cunt cunt cuntycunt cunt."

All that being said, at this point it's just a word. A word I like a lot. I don't think I'm taking a feminist stand each time I use it--and, now that I think of it, I tend to save it for when it is really the perfect word--but the fact that it has this Reclaimed By Feminists status makes it less awful to say in other contexts. I might refer to someone as a cunt, but since I like the word, and after all cunt means vagina, it doesn't seem that harsh to me. It's stronger, and perhaps more specific, than calling someone a dick, but it's in the same family. Also, in the realm of the physical, I hugely prefer it to "pussy." In addition to being a really silly-sounding word, "pussy" seems to describe an object, something that is done unto--"cunt" is always a subject, something that takes on the doing itself, thankyouverymuch. I've relaxed on my revulsion towards "pussy"--mostly now I think of it in terms of the actual anatomy, probably due to a stage manager I worked with who asked, "how's your pussy?" when I had a UTI, and once advised me to roll my boxer shorts down a little "towards your pussy." So it took on the anatomical meaning, and cunt was the sexual beast between my legs. But, what with some guys' understandable reluctance to say "cunt" to a woman in bed, I'm pretty much fine with both. But cunt will always be more fun to say.

And I love guys who love when I say it. I had a long flirtation with someone at college (I do wish he'd just made out with me at some point, but I think of him fondly nonetheless) who was pretty cool--he for one thing thought it was hot that I'd played rugby. (When he found this out he got a grin on his face and said euphemistically, "That's...pretty cute.") Anyway, we ran into each other towards the end of our senior year when we were both wrapping up our theses and I asked if he'd finished yet. He said yes, so I shook my head at him in mock jealousy and said, in a low voice, "Yooouuu cunt." He said, "Did you just call me a cunt?!" I had, and he laughed. "That's awesome."

I agreed.


*Which it might well be, again it's all contextual.