I was thoroughly disappointed by the article. In fact, having spent the past few weeks marking argumentative essay after argumentative essay, I'd give this one something in the vicinity of a flat C.

The problem is that Ms Scutt spends considerable time giving us a history of recent uses of the 'C' word and almost no time at all supporting her thesis: that it is somehow sexist. I think there are grounds for the 'sexism' argument where the history of usage is concerned, but that is largely irrelevant. Is there a misogynistic intent when a speaker uses the word? Does it reveal any undercurrent of misogyny in the speaker's mindset? I doubt it. I doubt very much that many users of the word intend to do any more than pack a verbal punch when they use it.

I have to say, too, that Squeers hits the nail on the head here. The benefit of social taboos lies in the power of breaking them. Using the 'C' word - especially in polite, poetry-reading company - packs a punch, draws attention and gets the speaker's point across very quickly. To remove such taboos weakens our ability to express ourselves effectively in certain situations.

C.unt is truly a venerable word that goes way back in the Indo-European family, and is probably cognate with many other words alike of a feminine and generative connotation, e.g.
- gen, as, your generate, generation etc, eugene etc.
- kin
- queen
- gyneca - Greek word for woman
- Chaucer's queynte - female sexual organ
- kunica - the first woman in Hindu mythology

It probably has echoes spread throughout the modern languages of the entire family from Western Europe to Myanmar and Lombok in the east.

A pity that the shallow-brained sniveling of Jocelynne Scutt should project her own sex-hating bigotry onto everyone else.

Great post, Otokonoko,

I don't find it an attractive word at all - and maybe it's the association that irks me, who knows - but it appears to me a brutish word totally devoid of elegance.
There's no doubt it possesses power, and describing it as a "verbal punch" is apt. I wonder how I'd feel if I came across it in a poetic instance? Its carnality seems almost too potent to accord with the words around it.

"What's wrong with misogyny?" After all it's not the C word so much as the misogyny it represents, for Jocelynne, she objects to. Violence is abhorrent and misogyny in males can lead to violence, but that aside; what's wrong with misogyny, intellectually--as critique? Are women above criticism? And why is "misogynist" spat by feminists like an expletive at men, while misandry is practiced by women like the merest banality? Are we not "mere males", constantly found wanting for not possessing the "social skills", or practicing the social "arts" as dexterously as women (who gossip endlessly and maliciously behind backs, mainly about women).
Back to my main critique. There are few things more confounding than a beautiful young woman utterly given over to a vacuous infatuation with the social universe opening up to her, and her place within it. A universe she submits to entirely and uncritically, declaring her mode of easy-interaction with it a verity in itself, and men, ergo, deficient and/or dysfunctional by the same terms. Lost on these refined women is the reality that the whole social dance is a charade (underwritten by Man's marshal propensities and his having secured it). Women then criticise men for not throwing themselves body and soul into the domestic "role" the way they do.
There's a long history in literature of men despising this aspect of women; that having procured security in a dangerous world, they then set about redecorating and indulging every pretence in denying it--denying that which in fact is merely held at bay. I dislike the fluffy fatuousness of women; their retail therapy and airs and graces and sundry illusions (piety, patriotism) they disproportionately wrap themselves up in, when in reality they're as irredeemably bestial as men. I think that's why I've always preferred down to Earth, lusty women to namby-pamby nitwits. I lost my virginity to a senior prostitute because much as I adored the female form I couldn't fathom the "depths" of the idiotic conversation one had to endure to win favour with her. Give me a mature woman any day, unshaven. But there aren't many left.

I have always found the use of cuunt by men to be misogynisitc - if they really want to insult another man they think it is best done by likening their target to a piece of female anatomy. An Ex of mine used to express his rage towards his own stuff-ups in terms like 'fuuking shytting cuunt'. In the heat of the moment was the worst think he could think of.

Great post squeers; don't know about the hair; Brazilians are smooth. You may be interested in "Look Back in Anger" where among many other diatribes Jimmy says:

"Why, why, why, why do we let these women bleed us to death?"

Some would argue that the whole play is one long misogynistic cri de cœur.

Alternatively:

"Sticks and stones may break my bones / But cuunts will never hurt me"