If you like to swear, and who the fuck doesn’t, you will like this essay by Steven Pinker, who approaches the subject from historical, cultural, and biological perspectives.
He suggests that the act of sex can have so many hazards “including exploitation, disease, illegitimacy, incest, jealousy, spousal abuse, cuckoldry, desertion, feuding, child abuse, and rape” that it’s bound to be fraught with emotional connotations.
On the matter of the word ‘cunt’ though, he loses me completely. He notes that it remains one of the few words that still provokes genuine offense, like ‘nigger’ or ‘Jew.’ First of all, because I happen to be both a cunt AND a fucking Jew, I don’t even flinch at these words. Second, analyze this:
“Some people have been puzzled about why cunt should be taboo. It is not just an unprintable word for the vagina but the most offensive epithet for a woman in America. One might have thought that, in the male-dominated world of swearing, the vagina would be revered, not reviled. After all, it’s been said that no sooner does a boy come out of it than he spends the rest of his life trying to get back in. This becomes less mysterious if one imagines the connotations in an age before tampons, toilet paper, regular bathing, and antifungal drugs.”
Is Steven Pinker saying that in fact, the female V-area is repulsive in the absence of modern toiletries?!?
Ha! What a fucking pussy.
“Also, as linguist Geoffrey Nunberg pointed out, while you can imagine the dialogue “How brilliant was it?” “Very,” you would never hear the dialogue “How brilliant was it?” “Fucking.””
ironically, i have responded to the phrase “How brilliant was it?” in such a manner.
Ha! SAME HERE!
Ah, “cunt.”
This is so weird: Just yesterday, someone asked me, “How brilliant is Junya Watanabe?” and I responded, “Cuntastically,” as in “Junya Watanabe is cuntastically brilliant.”
He soooooooooooooooooooooo isn’t Dr. Stephen.
I will never listen to your recommendations again. Period. (Alec)