I want, badly, to write something coherent and witty about the various delusions that pour out of the Shrub’s mouth and are getting revealed to the public from Robert Draper’s upcoming book, but I can’t. Usually, I find delusional wingnuts darkly funny, but right now I keep thinking about how Bush’s delusions have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people—by the end of it, I suspect we’ll easily toll it up to over a million—and I just get depressed. Also, it’s raining, which makes my gloom worse.
So instead, I’ll take a page off Jessica’s blog and out of her book and mock these assholes instead.
THE men’s magazine which sparked outrage when it offered a $10,000 boob job as a competition prize has responded to its critics by launching a search for Australia’s sexiest feminist.
Zoo Weekly magazine angered health and women’s groups when it urged men to “win” their girlfriend a boob job by sending in shots of her cleavage.
The lad’s mag today revealed its new competition - a search “for the hottest girl in sensible shoes” - promising the winner a year’s supply of deodorant and a sexy photo shoot.
When I read this, I flashed on the part of Jessica’s book where she talks about her woman’s studies professor making a list of the worst names you could call men (pussy, fag) and the worst you could call women (cunt, bitch, whore), the general point being that the worst thing you could say about someone was that he/she is a woman or feminine. I’d suggest reading the book; I’m going on memory here.
I remembered that because this entire contest basically proves feminists right—running a contest like this is blatantly admitting that calling a woman “sexy” is meant as an insult, because you’re still calling her a woman, the worst thing you could be. Sure, to be sexy is to be a better shade of shit, but you’re still shit, and it’s obviously they believe that because there’s nothing about this that isn’t trying to be insulting.
Look at it this way: There are pleasant bathrooms and unpleasant ones. Most of us have strong preferences for crapping in nicely scented, clean bathrooms with really cool toilets with tons of gadgets on them and probably some soft music playing. We also have a strong aversion to bathrooms that stink or are broken or whatever. But at the end of the day, we still would call them all “bathrooms” and hardly think they should be the first room in the house. That’s where you take a shit, after all.
That’s what “sexy” means in this context—you might be very clean and pleasant and attractive, but at the end of the day you’re still a cum dumpster, and being called “sexy” is a way to remind you of that.
But Amanda, I hear you say, surely this is different. After all, people don’t carefully take one picture after another of impossibly perfect bathrooms to lust over, right? Wrong. And if pondering a picture of an impossibly perfect bathroom helped the slight-witted move their bowels faster, these kinds of websites would have the same sort of popularity that lad mags currently have.
This sort of thing is why I’m baffled by anyone who would genuinely think that feminism is anti-sex or anti-fun, because it’s clear to me that these sexist attitudes are what is anti-sex and anti-fun. They reduce sex to taking a shit, reduce half the human race to tissue paper, and reduce the concept of “sexy” to an insult. I want the fun world, a world where calling someone “sexy” is a genuine compliment, not a back-handed way of telling her she’s nothing but a cunt. I also want a world where people have higher standards for humor than mocking someone for wearing sensible shoes, as if that’s original. I mean, I know there’s something of an intelligence gap between the people who grasp what seems obvious to me (equality is more fun), and those who think that “feminists burn bras” is a howler, but still. Maybe we could get our arguments in a flashcard format and make them accessible to the illiterates who read lad mags?
Speaking of sexy (in the good, post-patriarchal sense of the word), I’ve been dying to link to this cool picture of Simone de Beauvoir getting dressed, taken by Art Shay. This is as good an excuse as any.
Notice her sensible use of shoes-while-naked.
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I want to print this post and mass-distribute it to all the female high school students of the world, so that the 16-year-old mes of this generation could take comfort in knowing that, yes, there is something incredibly fucked-up in the way everyone in your life thinks about sexuality and gender, and yes, the answers to your questions can be found in this thing called “feminism” that makes all your friends so uncomfortable when you mention it.
Ultimately, if someone has a poor view on sex and gender, the sex isn’t going to be that good for them, anyway. Poetic justice.
Sometimes the sheer stupidity of members of my gender just leaves me speechless.
I’m so glad that the internet has uncovered the funny, snarky feminists. I think they’ve always been there, but haven’t been featured in popular culture. I love a post like this - that explains why this “contest” isn’t the least bit amusing, but does it in an entertaining way.
This suggestion from FEMily! is freaking genius:
Any other contest-jamming suggestions for us Australian ladies?
“de Beauvoir”
Wow, she was seriously fucking tan!
Well said, Amanda.
I never have really understood folks like that, and I am obviously a man.
Some of these folks would be satisified with a blow up doll that was lubricated.
There is still such a psychological gap for some men, maybe all men to one degree of another, in seeing women as fully real.
How demeaning that must be to a woman who dates one of those jerks for him to come home and say, “Hi honey, I won you a boob job today.”
There is so much more work to be done toward equality, but many folks think there is equality now.
How many contests are there to get men a bigger dick surgically? Win your guy a prick job. There’s a contest. “Hi honey, I won you a prick job today. Your prick was so small, but I won the contest and you’ll be bigger after the surgery. Don’t worry if the silicone breaks. Ignore the risks.”
But that’s not the answer either, in my view. Objectifying both genders would be a pyrhic form of equality..
Just rambling.
You do great work. I come by from time to time to read you but I don’t think I ever commented before.
I enjoyed speaking with you at Ykos. It was fun.
Wow… so they go from hosting a contest that implies that the winner’s body is inadequate to hosting a contest that implies that the winner stinks… and figure, hey, everything’s fixed now.
Ah, I see. So people call in to complain that the boob job prize is thuggish and chauvinistic, so Merrill extends the olive branch by starting a competition for feminists to SELF-objectify. Got it. That is, like, SO much better!
Merrill is suck a prick. In his fantasy world of cock and balls there seems to be some new rule that to stick up for your rights means you must not want to appear attractive or flirt with men. No wonder guys like this think feminists are evil: they think we’re draining their pool of hot fuck-buddy candidates.
There actually may be a small bit of logic to this though. Assuming feminists actually practice some degree of self-respect, it’s unlikely they’d sleep with any dude who works at that magazine…. So….
Another interesting post Amanda and an indictment on Australian men’s mag culture. [sigh] still so far to go.
A minor point but something I’ve meant to comment on before. You mention Jessica’s book and the worst names for women. I think an interesting point for consideration (that by no means invalidates the argument) is the way that these terms have different meanings in other English speaking cultures. ‘Cunt’ for example is rarely used in Australian English to describe women (at least in my experience and Amazing Kim may have a different take). In Australian English it means something like ‘really, really, really evil bastard’ and is almost always used of men.
I’ve often thought it would be interesting to do a comparison across English speaking countries looking at ‘worst’ words ever since I came across Jessica’s argument. Alas, so many interesting things to investigate, so little time.
JC: What are the worst insults hurled at women in Australia? And the worst for men?
“This sort of thing is why I’m baffled by anyone who would genuinely think that feminism is anti-sex or anti-fun, because it’s clear to me that these sexist attitudes are what is anti-sex and anti-fun.”
Amen sister.
“Maybe we could get our arguments in a flashcard format and make them accessible to the illiterates who read lad mags?”
I’d say we have the culture jamming happening right here. Say we get 100 feminists all taking snarky photos of themselves holding up a word in a 100 word sentence that basically tells Merrill to go fuck himself. I’ll organise it - www.audreyapple.blogspot.com
Really, JC? I’m over in Australia and I’ve definitely heard ‘cunt’ used to refer to women as well as men, and oftentimes considered as the worst thing you could possibly call anyone.
Cooper, can you send a few of those copies back in time for me?
I got so frustrated with Male Roommate after I read that part of Jessica’s book, because he kept insisting that “cunt” didn’t really mean anything when used as an insult. Seriously, have you ever heard that word used objectively? Where does he think the word’s meaning comes from, if every use of the word is pejorative?
How many contests are there to get men a bigger dick surgically? Win your guy a prick job. There’s a contest. “Hi honey, I won you a prick job today. Your prick was so small, but I won the contest and you’ll be bigger after the surgery. Don’t worry if the silicone breaks. Ignore the risks.”
well, there’s a lot of spam out there promising similar results…..
Good discussion about this over at Larvatus Prodeo.
re: cunt - in some places it’s a term of endearment between men. though it’s pronounced caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant.
This is so telling. I guess when you spend so much time disapproving of women you get to thinking that the only live topic of debate is which women to disapprove of. These idiots think that the difference between them and feminists is that they disapprove of “ugly” women, while feminists disapprove of “pretty” women.
What a bunch of wankers.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while in terms of insults like “cocksucker”, “get fucked”, “fuck you,” “suck my dick”, etc. Being the fuckee rather than the fucker (ie, being a woman or a recieving gay man) is framed as being demeaning and insulting. No one ever says “Go fuck someone” or “get your cock sucked” or “reciever of a blowjob!” as an insult.
Realizing this has really cut down on the amount of swearing I can do. I mean, even “lick my box” is more likely to be taken as a come-on than an insult, and I don’t really want to frame cunnilingus as demeaning.
“Being the fuckee rather than the fucker (ie, being a woman or a recieving gay man) is framed as being demeaning and insulting.”
Last I looked, being called a “fucker” was pretty insulting. Kind of undercuts the argument that being called a fucker isn’t insulting, when being called a fucker is insulting.
And men who want to insult other men call them pricks, dicks, and tools a lot more often than they call them cunts.
Anyway, the most common fuck expression, fuck you, doesn’t mean anything at all.
OMG that first picture… it’s in catalan!!
That made my day, specially since it’ll be our national day next week (9/11, heh…)
..mmmh, OK. Too early in the morning. Stop rambling and get into the shower
“And men who want to insult other men call them pricks, dicks, and tools a lot more often than they call them cunts.”
I don’t think that’s quite universal.
it’s worth nothing though, even if men are often insulted by being called masculine/gender neutral things (pricks, dicks, tools, arseholes, bastards, wanker), it is very much rarer for women to be insulted by calling them men/genderless thing, than it is for both sexes to be accused of being female/in a “female” sexual role.
“How many contests are there to get men a bigger dick surgically? ”
Brother, sign me up. I’m curious; how many women here know about The Giver and Goatse.cx?
I dunno about insults… women can be dicks, men can be cunts, it’s all about what kind of asshole they are. However gender identification is inherent in the slang: Bitches and cunts are, imo, bad examples of stereotypical feminine stereotypes, be they male or female. Women who are dicks exhibit typical male tendencies (big egos, don’t fucking listen, hateful). A cunt is just an unpleasant son of a bitch. Even feminine insults are defined by their patriarchal negatives.
I used to get irritated at those “Bitch Inside” stickers… because what kind of dumbass wants to broadcast their being an asshole… but now I think they’re voluntarily inhabiting a stupid stereotype, ie. any woman who isn’t docile is a Bitch…. which is still stupid, but I don’t take it personally. Small steps.
The words are just bad words. There’s no content in them. Dickhead, fuckface, twat, fucktard, cocksucker, asswipe, tosser — they’re just naughty words, that’s all. (They’re not even so bad. I wouldn’t dare write the really offensive words here - you know what they are.)
In Quebec they say tabernac. Or taberfuckingnac when they’re really mad. Figure that one out.
Until the “Quiet Revolution” of the 1960s, Quebec society was very, very much under the oppressive, stifling thumb of the Catholic Church. In what is probably a not unexpected reaction, the swear words in “joual ” (Quebec slang French) are often based on items found in a Catholic church and associated with the Mass: “tabernac” (the Tabernacle), “calice” (the Chalice), and so forth. As for the “fucking”, “franglais” (a combination of the words “francais” [French] and “anglais” [English] is not uncommon, and very common in certain areas of Quebec.Exactly. It’s the idea of reclaiming the word. If women are going to be labeled bitches for not being submissive, then a woman can refuse to take it as an insult (in situations where she’s not worried about violence), and instead, take pride in it.
And NO, it is NOT meaningless that feminizing insults are thrown about among men who are very angry with each other. Prick, dickhead, and tool, as examples given earlier, are often bandied about between young male friends, as a way of saying “Aw, you’re being stubborn! (or not taking things seriously enough or too seriously)” Such an insult is often not meant to truly offend. Of course, people are always pushing the envelope and I’m sure there are people who use feminizing insults in a non serious way, but I think you’ll find that “Suck my dick, you sissy fag!” is much more likely to start a fight in 19 year old males than, “You asshole, stop being such a fucking prick.”
“OMG that first picture… it’s in catalan!!”
You beat me to it, xata!
i’ll agree with “clean”. but artificial scents make me sneeze, loads of gadgets on a toilet would just confuse me, and muzak in most any setting annoys the fuck out of me; i’ve never encountered muzak in a toilet, but i’d be seriously tempted to vandalize the speakers just to shut it up.
what this might say about my preference in sexual partners, i’m not sure i want to know.
oh, and de Beauvoir’s heels make my ankles hurt just to look at them.
you have “pussy” as one of the worst things to call a man and then say that the worst thing to say about someone is that they are feminine/a woman.
I don’t understand how “pussy” fits into this. It’s a gender neutral word. Please explain.
Did anyone else get the irony of the Google ads that latch on to this post?
As for Quebec, oui, on dit “christ de chalice de tondeuse de gazon”… which loosely means “the chalice of christ’s lawnmower.” I was made to understand that this is what you say when you hit a bad shot in golf. Something like…”wormburner”.
So yes, I suspect that it is in the english language tradition that the worst thing you can call a man is a bitch, or a pussy.
Guachi, I’m assuming you’re not a native English speaker and looked up ‘pussy’ and got ‘cat.’ It’s slang for vulva/vagina. It’s not what Tweety bird thought he saw.
I don’t understand how “pussy” fits into this. It’s a gender neutral word. Please explain.
guachi, are you serious? Here’s a hint: “pussy” and “cunt” both refer to the same body part. Not so much with the gender neutrality.
Well, it does on THIS planet.
If you mean that the average person using the expression doesn’t mean anything specifically sexual by it at the time, okay.
But it means “rape you.” It means that the speaker is calling the other person weak, unable to prevent the speaker from raping them, and you can’t pretend it isn’t a putdown or a negative statement, which, as the thread has been saying, that being the reciever (”fuckee”) is seen as a negative and powerless thing.
When you mean to put someone down and put them in their place, to attack and shock them, and to some degree hurt them (at least their feelings or their pride) and the phrase you use is sexual, it sure as hell does “mean something.”
I’d try to work up the energy to fight the usual people who pretend there’s not a lot of sexism and homophobia in a lot of curse words, but the trolls we got on this one are too lazy or stupid to even put up a good fight.
Especially when one considers that the combined notion of anti fun while having sex is NOT a feminist concept. “Just close your eyes and wait until it’s over” is what mother’s (at least in the west) told their daughters on their wedding nights.
If you were a woman and enjoyed sex you were evil, dirty, corrupt and immoral.
Feminism and it’s books like “The Joy of Sex,” the “G-Spot,” “Our Bodies, Our Selves,”etc. (the later book campaigned against by none other than Jerry Falwell) made the thought that women can and should enjoy sex acceptable and mainstream.
When a fundie woman talks about how much she enjoyes sex with her husband, that all is courtesy of the much maligned feminists and feminists movement.
i think it shows how ignorant people are allowed to be of any version of history other than the one that writes off women as less than human that they don’t even *remember* that it was feminists who decided that being anti-sex was no fun. it was tried, it failed. we’re over it. and yet, the ones who seem to be most anti-sex seem to be anti-feminist, curiouser and curiouser…
:-)
I few years ago I won a “Bitch” contest. Was and am actually quite proud of it, though I have to remember it has an entirely different meaning in my husband’s country.
I own the word and when sometimes thrown at me I thank the would be insulter for the assute observation and compliment.
That Sunday, I believe it was, I was watching the “Without Prejudice?” marathon. On the first show I watched the panel voted a woman off within the first seconds of the show based on her self introduction. This happens in the beginning of every show but the reason they majority of the panel voted her off is because she was “assertive” (my word), “pushy/agressive New Yorker” (their words)
Turned out she was a sergeant (I think) in the Army, a lesbian and only recently moved to New York, she was from the south.
Men can be assertive, women are pushy agressive bitches.
It took me several minutes of bewildered head-shaking to get past this line.
THE men’s magazine which sparked outrage when it offered a $10,000 boob job as a competition prize has responded to its critics by launching a search for Australia’s sexiest feminist….. The lad’s mag today revealed its new competition - a search “for the hottest girl in sensible shoes”
Can someone please explain to me what feminist and sensible shoes have to do with each other?
sylvie, I suspect it has something to do with not being willing to wear heels all the time, and since heels are SEXY, a woman who does not wear them all the time is a woman who doesn’t care if men find her SEXY every minute of the day, and so, since she is not centering her life around the wishes of random strange men she may walk past on the street, she is obviously one of those women, you know, a [whispered] feminist.
This is what I posted at 22:18 Tuesday on Jessica Valenti’s blog about the part of the topic above:
I have one word (nine letters) to describe this “contest”: appalling. I never knew that any magazine would stoop to this kind of low.
Several people above: Yes, men get called dicks, pricks, what have you. However, not always but sometimes, it’s said with a tinge of admiration: “Hey, he’s a prick, but at least he’s honest.” “He’s a dick, but he gets what he wants.” That doesn’t adhere when women are called cunts.
“Fuck you” = “rape you”? I never knew that one. I guess I always just figured “fuck” is the strongest cuss word there is, and attaching it to “you” simply expresses anger as directly as possible - so directly as to bypass syntax.
That’s what went through my head anyway.
I dunno - I think by the time a boy/man is old enough to buy lad-magazines, the damage (in terms of how they see women) is already done. (Or not done - I bought my share when I was, well, a lad, but I don’t bother with that now.)
I think the only (relatively) sure cure for guys like that is having a daughter.
No, Rick, calling someone a prick is not a sign of admiration. It means a person who is unpleasant and overbearing, who takes advantage, who is selfish, uncaring, dishonest, manipulative, and cruel. It’s certainly true that a person can be a high achiever and a prick, but calling the person a prick doesn’t indicate praise for high achievement.
Fucker is similar although it’s more likely to be applied to a person who has done a specific selfish or unfriendly thing. “You left without me! You fucker!”
In my own vocabulary I can’t tell you what it means to call a man a cunt, because I’ve never heard it. I believe it’s used in England (along with twat) but I don’t hear it in the US. And the last time I heard anyone call anyone else a pussy was when I was fifteen. It’s childish, and no one uses it, not that I know anyway.
And no, “fuck you” doesn’t mean “rape you.” “[Verb] you” is not an imperative construction in English. “Fuck you” developed as follows. A very bad curse used to be “God damn you” - a plea for God to send you to hell. The syntax is that the verb is in the imperative. Subject verb object. But taking God’s name in vain was very bad, so people began to say, “damn you” or “damn it,” with the “God” part understood. Over time the hold of religion weakened and the religion-related words weren’t taboo enough anymore to give people any catharsis by saying them, so cursing became about sex- a subject still subject to shame and taboo. And so they started to throw the word “fuck” around whether it made sense or not - often using it in place of other bad words. “I don’t give a fuck.” “What the fuck.” and “Fuck you,” in place of “damn you.”
So “fuck you” literally doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s just the bad word “fuck” stuck in a place that it doesn’t fit very well, in place of the formerly bad but now fairly tame “damn.”
No, Rick, calling someone a prick is not a sign of admiration. It means a person who is unpleasant and overbearing, who takes advantage, who is selfish, uncaring, dishonest, manipulative, and cruel. It’s certainly true that a person can be a high achiever and a prick, but calling the person a prick doesn’t indicate praise for high achievement.
Fucker is similar although it’s more likely to be applied to a person who has done a specific selfish or unfriendly thing. “You left without me! You fucker!”
In my own vocabulary I can’t tell you what it means to call a man a cunt, because I’ve never heard it. I believe it’s used in England (along with twat) but I don’t hear it in the US. And the last time I heard anyone call anyone else a pussy was when I was fifteen. It’s childish, and no one uses it, not that I know anyway.
And no, “fuck you” doesn’t mean “rape you.” “[Verb] you” is not an imperative construction in English. “Fuck you” developed as follows. A very bad curse used to be “God damn you” - a plea for God to send you to hell. The syntax is that the verb is in the imperative. Subject verb object. But taking God’s name in vain was very bad, so people began to say, “damn you” or “damn it,” with the “God” part understood. Over time the hold of religion weakened and the religion-related words weren’t taboo enough anymore to give people any catharsis by saying them, so cursing became about sex- a subject still subject to shame and taboo. And so they started to throw the word “fuck” around whether it made sense or not - often using it in place of other bad words. “I don’t give a fuck.” “What the fuck.” and “Fuck you,” in place of “damn you.”
So “fuck you” literally doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s just the bad word “fuck” stuck in a place that it doesn’t fit very well, in place of the formerly bad but now fairly tame “damn.”
Fuck these irregular verbs.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while in terms of insults like “cocksucker”, “get fucked”, “fuck you,” “suck my dick”, etc. Being the fuckee rather than the fucker (ie, being a woman or a recieving gay man) is framed as being demeaning and insulting. No one ever says “Go fuck someone” or “get your cock sucked” or “reciever of a blowjob!” as an insult.
It might be interesting to get another cultural perspective on this. As I understand it, “fuck your mother” is a worse insult in Russian.
I wonder what Arab society considers a really serious insult?
Bloix, calling someone a prick is not in and of itself a sign of admiration, but the constructions I used in my original post are quite common.
ui de xata res, si tinc un nas com un tranvia! XD
Hey it’s funny to find fellow catalans over here…
“Fuck you” does not mean “rape you.” It’s meaningless bad word. It’s history is this: it used to be that a very bad curse was “God damn you.” It was a literal prayer for God to send you to hell. This is regular sentence - subject, imperative verb, object. But was so bad that people were uncomfortable saying God’s name, and they shortened it to “Damn you.” There were similar curses, like “blimey” (God blind me). The subject of the sentence - God - is left out, but understood.
But over time people became less afraid of God and damning people to hell just wasn’t much fun. It didn’t violate a taboo that was strong enough to be exciting. So people started to use dirty sex words for cursing instead. Fuck, fuck, fuck. And sometimes they would put fuck in where it didn’t make sense, in place of older bad words. What the fuck. I don’t give a fuck. Fuck you.
So fuck you is just damn you with fuck put in the place of damn. Nobody is suggesting that God should fuck you, so the expression doesn’t make any sense. Not as meaning, not as grammar. It’s just a nonsense bad word.
Oh dear, I think I’ve posted my comment three times now. Fuck these fucking spam blockers.
I wonder what Arab society considers a really serious insult?
I don’t know how it’s spelled, but it sounds like “cous hee-LO,” and it means “You have a beautiful pussy.”
At my husband’s last job, one of his employees was from Saudi Arabia.
The more these conversations happen, the more I start to wonder if maybe generalizing about swearing customs is sort of impossible. Not to say that a lot of swearing isn’t sexist–it is (actually that’s the reason I abstain from the word “cocksucker” even though I like the ring).
But you have people who more commonly hear “prick” uttered with a note of admiration, and people for whom “prick” is one of the worst things you can call a guy, and I don’t think either group is wrong so much as these do change depending on where and with whom you are.
To contribute, because I think discussions of slang are fun, politically-minded or no, in my neck of the woods I pretty much never hear anyone get called “cunt” and don’t remember the last time I heard “pussy” used unironically (yeah, my friends have definite hipster tendencies in terms of their irony quotient), but “bitch” gets thrown all over the place–mostly for women, sometimes for men, occasionally but pretty rarely as in “dude he is so his girlfriend’s bitch”, every now and then as a verb. Boys we wish to insult are bastards (which is now also an interjection), dickheads, fuckers, fucks, (those last two are maybe mostly me–I have kind of a potty mouth). People of all genders can be assholes (but mostly boys).
Two more notes that I find especially entertaining:
1) I’ve never heard anyone outside of my immediate circle of friends use this, and could probably trace it to one specific friend of mine we all picked it up from, but if someone does something jerkish, we say, “That’s so dick!”
2) A friend of a friend recently coined a term that I find, while not entirely gender neutral, both appealingly vulgar and nonsexist: cockbite. I mean, I think we can all agree biting a cock is a bad thing, no matter the genitalia of the biter, no?
guachi, are you serious? Here’s a hint: “pussy” and “cunt” both refer to the same body part. Not so much with the gender neutral
Guachi, I’m assuming you’re not a native English speaker and looked up ‘pussy’ and got ‘cat.’ It’s slang for vulva/vagina. It’s not what Tweety bird thought he saw.
Sorry, you are both wrong. Are you not native English speakers?
“Pussy” the insult and “pussy” the female body part are derived from different words. “Pussy” the insult is a shortenend version of the word pusillanimous (cowardly). That word has nothing to do with gender. At all. I would think feminists would have learned that by now.
I don’t know how it’s spelled, but it sounds like “cous hee-LO,” and it means “You have a beautiful pussy.”
Weird - I assume it’s male specific.
“Pussy” the insult and “pussy” the female body part are derived from different words. “Pussy” the insult is a shortenend version of the word pusillanimous (cowardly). That word has nothing to do with gender.
Look up “descriptivist” vs “prescriptivist” some time. “Pussy”, as an insult aimed at a person, in the West is definitely associated with the vaginal meaning, regardless of where it might formally derive from. If I call you a pussy, I’m comparing you to a loathed female sexual organ, weak, effeminiate and worthless.
“Pussy” the insult and “pussy” the female body part are derived from different words. “Pussy” the insult is a shortenend version of the word pusillanimous (cowardly).
This comment wins the thread. We can all leave now.
When I was a teen I had a crush on a older boy whose parents were friends with my parents. We were all part of the “German” community in Denver. When this boy was in high school he used the word “fuck” as punctuation for every sentence. No sentence was complete without the word “fuck” some where in it. He use it as a comma, verbal pause, period, exclamation point, what have you.
Well we grow up and loose track of each other. But as my eldest son began he last years in high school I began to think of my friend more and more, and several times while thinking of him. Why? Because my eldest son used the word “fuck” as punctuation for every sentence. No sentence was complete without the word “fuck” some where in it. He use it as a comma, verbal pause, period, exclamation point, what have you.
Sometimes I’d have to excuse myself because I was almost busting a gut. My parents (and my husband) were upset that I didn’t get after my son more. I’d respond with “Why? XXX did the same thing! He’ll grow out of it.”
There is something verbally satisfying about the “F” and the “K” sound when cursing. So much so that we invent other words to use in place of “fuck” like “frack,” and “Frick.”
“Shit” is also a very good in verbal satisfaction. “Shoot” is often used as a replacement, and I’ve heard “sugar” used as well. Around hear we often use “Shmeg” which can be used in place of “fuck’ and “shit.” One might hear one brother telling another brother to “Shmeg off!” or “Shut the shmeg up!”
“Shmeg” is an actual word, well an actual word if you are a fan of a certain British comedy series, and we are. http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=284617
I guess my shmegging comment is in moderation
You ought to hear Robin Williams definition of “pussy.”
guachi:
Actually, “pusillanimous” is pronounced “PYOO-sill-an-i-mous”, which swiftly dispatches the idea that it could be the root of “pussy” (where’d the “yuh” sound go?). Moreover, neither the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary nor Webster’s nor the American Heritage Dictionary say anything about even a possibility of derivation from “pusillanimous”.
All three say that “pussy” meaning “coward” comes from a Germanic source. The path may be pussy-cat -> coward, or pussy-cat -> woman -> [effeminate man ->] coward, or pussy-cat -> vulva -> woman-like -> coward, or (oddly) pursy (meaning fat) -> not fit to fight-> coward.
However, it has evolved, as words do, to be associated with the female genitalia. I strongly suspect if you ask a person who has just used the word “pussy” to describe someone they see as a coward, they will not think of the obscure word “pusillanimous”: they will think of either the soft, easily harmed vulva or the cat up a tree, and it’s more likely to be the former.
So you’re wrong twice, I’m sorry to say: the word is neither derived from “pusillanimous”, nor associated with it in the popular mind.
To Bles at 13:
My point was not that ‘cunt’ is never used for women in Australian English, more that it is much more frequently (at least in my experience) aimed at men. If it is used for women (again, in my experience), it is used to describe women who are acting in a stereotypical male bastard way - which is telling in itself.
It may be generational or class based. I’m in my 30s and the people I’ve heard use the term are mainly older (ie older than me) white working class men. Perhaps younger people use the term differently. That’s one of the reasons I made the comment - I’m interested in differing uses of these terms across cultures but also across gender, race and class divides.
To dc at 11:
What’s the worst word you could aim at men or women? Hmm. Depends on context. For some people I know the worst insult you could hurl at them would be to call them ‘bourgeois’ - hehe. ‘Cunt’ is up there for men. For women probably back to sex shaming words like ’slut’ or the ever popular ‘bitch’. There are probably worse words but as I’m not in a position to get insulted very often I can’t come up with any more at the moment.
Other Aussies feel free to chime in and tell me I’m wrong - it wouldn’t surprise me.
“Poobumweehead is the worst” says Whatshisname next to me.
To me, “dyke” is a sincere compliment, but to others it’s the worst thing you could possibly say to a woman. My friends use all swear words in a joking manner, but probably refer to fellatio when intending to hurt.
For some reason, the term “catdick” was a useful motivator for my band’s drummer.
I think you’re right, JC, that insults are still divided in traditionally gendered ways.
It would be odd to try and shame a man by saying he’s had a lot of sex.
Anyway, like JC I haven’t heard too many lengthy insult exchanges; only interactions between friends in which they call each other vaginas or gay men, in jest.
Now I think about it, they’ve never done the sensible thing, combined the two, and called each other lesbians. Maybe lesbians aren’t feminine enough.
[I mean, even “lick my box” is more likely to be taken as a come-on than an insult]
Back after WWII, my very young grandmother would smart-off to my older grandfather (a patient, gentle man and my best friend) by saying, “Oh, bite my ass!” He said nothing, time and time again- it was just her way of being a rude little brat.
Finally one day, he had had ENOUGH. Their daughters, still too young for school, were starting to pick up on their mom’s behavior. She said it one time too many, so he put her over his knee and did just that!
She never did it again and fortunately, it became a silly family story.
(Apologies for the length and the lack of a good ending, but this post really catalyzed some things for me, and I wanted to share my thoughts, jumbled as they may be, before the number of readers of this post dwindles to zero)
Amanda,
You make a great point about how the word “sexy”, as applied to a woman, isn’t usually a compliment, but I think your analysis is slightly off the mark. In general (i.e., among the populace that hasn’t given feminism much thought), men who find woman sexy find them desirable, and wish to use them to achieve orgasm, and let’s be honest: which is more pleasurable, doing number 1 or 2, or having an orgasm?
Therefore:
Men who find a particular woman sexy do not fantasize about her as a bathroom.
Men who find a particular woman sexy fantasize about her as an awesome videogame.
Still degrading, without question, but not in the same way as “toilet” or “receptacle”* are. Those descriptions imply that men wish to strip the “sexy” woman of free will (i.e., rape her), but the wish is that the “sexy” woman wants to have sex with them. To further the videogame analogy, it would be unfathomable to consider whether the game wanted to be played (i.e., say no). In other words, the notion that the “sexy” woman has any agency doesn’t even occur to them.**
Audrey puts it better than I do:
So really, the first contest meant “sexy” as “most applicable to our readers fantasies”. It was meant as complimentary in the same way that you might say a pet is “good”.
As an aside, this obliviousness to women’s agency ties into Nice Guy ™ Syndrome: If I only behave politely to the “sexy” woman, she’ll “want” to have sex with me! It’s as if they’re looking for the secret password (another game).
It’s when these fantasies collide with reality, when the sense of entitlement to have these fantasies *be* reality is questioned, that things get ugly and terms like “toilet” and “receptacle” become applicable.
Continuing from Audrey’s post:
Basically, the first contest was about using “women” as a catalyst for male orgasms (i.e., “sexy” is regarded as a good and desirable thing, as opposed to a good and desirable person). Once some real women pointed out that, no, in fact they are not put on Earth just to help men achieve orgasm, the bubble burst, and the men behind this contest did what any group that has a sense of entitlement does: they went about trying to protect that entitlement by ostracizing those who question their entitlement. IMHO, that’s where things get nasty. That’s where the word “sexy” is used to mean “you’re nothing but a cunt”, and you can see the anger and loathing towards those who try to claim a woman’s free will.***
Moreover, that second contest wouldn’t be proposed if the editors felt that feminists weren’t in the minority, so it’s also an attempt to make feminists feel powerless.
*I know you said “in this context”, but you’ve used these terms in other posts that deal with the male gaze, so I think it’s fair to expand the context to how other men might use the word “sexy”
**I realize that it is a contradiction to say that the woman wants to have sex with the man but has no agency, but that’s part of what makes it a fantasy.
***There was an episode of Wide Angle on PBS the other day that also illustrated this dynamic: Brazil is instituting an Affirmative Action program in it’s admission program to public universities. A vast majority of Brazillians, both white and black, don’t believe there’s a problem with racism in Brazil, so the reaction towards the minority that keeps pointing out that, yes, there really is a problem has been extremely negative and even violent.
“it’s funny to find fellow catalans over here”
No soc catalana: el meu pare es andalus i la meva mare es dels Estats Units. Pero vaig viure set anys a Barcelona. Ara visc al Pais de Gal.les.
“de xata res, si tinc un nas com un tranvia!”
Ja, ja: jo tambe!
Um, is anybody else feeling horrified by Louise’s ’silly family story’? I guess it can be in play, play biting is fun, but considering that context, it is CREEPY.
If she was a rude little brat, the man should have done the mature thing, married somebody else his own age.