How OK is cunt?

[Guest]

I know that we've done this before, but there are new members around, and I want to refresh my memory regarding the British and their aspect on this.

Someone very important to me, someone putting her whole soul into her job and going way beyond limits with the landmines which are young adults and their crazy, selfish demands, was called a cunt today.

Is there any time when it would be OK to call a woman a cunt?

Here, the one doing it, I suspect he picked it up from one of those British movies popular during a while, Snatch, Stich, that one with Brad Pitt talking like he had a mouthful of melting lava, whatever....

[Anton Gramscescu]

How OK is cunt?

As far as I know "cunt" is never ok when applied to a woman.

In the UK, "cunt" applied to a man is seen as rude, but fair game. On the other side of the Atlantic, the word is never applied to men.

[Incandenza]

How OK is cunt?

Applied to a woman, it's nuclear. Justification for a beatdown.

The best explanation of how the word is viewed in the US:

[radmonkey]

How OK is cunt?

I don't get why, it's just another word for a body part. How is it any worse than pussy, or put it another way, how is pussy not just as offensive?

I don't get why people act like words have magical properties. Like with cunt or nigger. They don't, they're just words. I've been called racial epiphets a few times and I've actually laughed out loud. I was just like "what, is that the best you can do? Oooh, I'm so insulted, yeah right!"

It honestly takes no creativity or insight, it shows ignorance. I mean, if someone made fun of my weight or the clothes or appearance in general I'd probably be more insulted. Or point our some other character flaw/insecurity, well that's actually something I'd have to reflect on. But like race? I'm secure about that, that's nothing.

I just think that when society says certain words are forbidden. Then it gives a words a power that they would not otherwise have. People act insulted because they've been taught to act outraged and be deeply hurt.
Not so much because it's a terrible word. Like if someone called me a "wetback" and I had no prior exposure. I'd just say "No it isn't, it's perfectly dry. What's wrong with you? What are you on? Could I have some?"

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

How OK is cunt?

ganja wrote:

Here, the one doing it, I suspect he picked it up from one of those British movies popular during a while, Snatch, Stich, that one with Brad Pitt talking like he had a mouthful of melting lava, whatever....

Multilingual chavs. You have to love Sweden.

[Guest]

How OK is cunt?

It's definitely high time we had the cunt debate again.

It must be all of two months.

[Bruno]

How OK is cunt?

I think cunt is 'just OK'. Not great or anything.

Oh who am I kidding.

[De Geas Clean Linen]

How OK is cunt?

Nah, saying 'vermin' is a lot worse...

[Brandenburger Toro]

How OK is cunt?

Stop being such a cunt, fartle.

[Bored Of Education]

How OK is cunt?

God grief, we should have these debates put in the rules.

Cunt is fine (if a touch over-used) if you are using twat, prick, tit, dick, knob, bollocks or any other genitalia-based expletive. If you don't use any of those, you aren't being a hypocrite if you are offended, you just have a narrow vocabulary.

If you use cunt, you can use it to either men or women. The only issue appears to be that, in the US, it appears to be exclusively used against women. To level the playing field, I suggest our colonial cousins start calling both sexes "cunt" post haste.

Personally, I would suggest that using the word "cunt" during intercourse may be a no-no but, you know, different strokes....

I actually find "chav" more offensive

Funnily enough, just yesterday, while reading Hamlet, I came across Shakespeare's cunt pun

[Tubby Isaacs]

How OK is cunt?

If you ever need an insult against a man, call them "son". I'm sure "chav" and "cunt" come nowhere near it. I got to use it on someone who tried to headbutt me the other night. The shithead had been under the impression he was my brother before that, so he took it very badly.

You can feel reassured that this insult meets standards of civilised behaviour which is nice.

[Bored Of Education]

How OK is cunt?

You managed to convince a man that he was first your brother and then your son? Was this in Somerset?

[HORN]

How OK is cunt?

Anyone else expect this to be a thread about Ganja's dilemma over his sexual preferences?

Uhm, no. Thought not.

[Tubby Isaacs]

How OK is cunt?

No, Bethnal Green. He was the fraternal one, in word if not in deed.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

How OK is cunt?

Bored of All the Beasts wrote:

I actually find "chav" more offensive

I disagree.

"Chav" in my post alluded to the offensive attitude described on ganja's post. It's rather descriptive.

If, like that crusader Rosie Kane, you're trying to imply there were classist overtones in my use of the word, you couldn't be more wrong. I know chavs with a lot of money. Unfortunately taste and manners are rather absent in them. On the other hand, I know poor people who are real gentlemen or ladies. If you can't call someone who behaves like a chav a chav you might as well create the Ministry of Words, to which applications must be submitted por approval.

"Cunt", on the other hand, is non-descriptive, and as such, doesn't add much to the message. On the contrary, it makes the user sound like a petulant child with Tourette's who's just discovered the naughty body parts. Either that or a yob. It's the equivalent of fart jokes.

[Brandenburger Toro]

How OK is cunt?

If, like that crusader Rosie Kane, you're trying to imply there were classist overtones in my use of the word, you couldn't be more wrong. I know chavs with a lot of money. Unfortunately taste and manners are rather absent in them. On the other hand, I know poor people who are real gentlemen or ladies. If you can't call someone who behaves like a chav a chav you might as well create the Ministry of Words, to which applications must be submitted por approval.

"Class isn't about your income, daahling."

[Wyatt Earp]

How OK is cunt?

Insert witty username wrote:

If you can't call someone who behaves like a chav a chav you might as well create the Ministry of Words, to which applications must be submitted por approval.

It's political correctness... gone mad.

[Wyatt Earp]

How OK is cunt?

One of the things IWN's wrong about on this thread is Tourette's Syndrome, actually. It's got nothing to do with petulance, and the sweary version is very rare.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

How OK is cunt?

Why on Earth... wrote:

One of the things IWN's wrong about on this thread is Tourette's Syndrome, actually. It's got nothing to do with petulance, and the sweary version is very rare.

Just a figure of speech, mind.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

How OK is cunt?

Why on Earth... wrote:

Insert witty username wrote:

If you can't call someone who behaves like a chav a chav you might as well create the Ministry of Words, to which applications must be submitted por approval.

It's political correctness... gone mad.

I could see that one coming from miles. Using moral blackmail to make a point is below your inlelligence. So is the assumption that any form of speech control by self-appointed language police based on who knows what authority must be desirable by definition on any instance, and anyone opposing it must be some sort of reactionary who needs to be shut down. Orwell would have a field day.

[Wyatt Earp]

How OK is cunt?

Except:

1. "Chav" is more complicated in its connotations than you make out, I think, as are most terms that conflate social class and virtue (such as "noble").

2. No-one's proposing a ban, and your gag to the effect that they were was worth, I thought, a gag in return.

3. "Moral blackmail" would be hyperbolic even if it wasn't wide of the mark, which it is.

[Brandenburger Toro]

How OK is cunt?

Pish.

This is the same self-serving crap people always churn out in defence of these terms.

"Oh, no, I mean the deserving poor."

"No, not black people, just, you know, Welfare Queens." (alternatively; "no, see there's this Chris Rock sketch...")

"I've no problem with people being gay, it's when they have to broadcast it."

This chav shit, like it or not, is class hatred. It's conveniently not about economic class, but cultural class, which makes for an easy but utterly disingenuous denial of the charge. But that's what it is. It's exactly the same trope as "deserving poor", and it's fucking loathesome.

No amount of crapping on about the vocabulary police or utterly, utterly missing the point of Orwell changes that.

As should be clear enough, "Pish" is to IWU, not Wyatt.

[Stumpy Pepys]

How OK is cunt?

If you use cunt, you can use it to either men or women.

I'd be fascinated to know who on the board calls their girlfriends and female friends 'cunts'.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

How OK is cunt?

Of course, you would know better then me what I mean when I say "chav". After all you are someone I don't even know who happens to have self-appointed special mind powers. Mind-reading is not a valid point in any serious debate. Ever. "You're saying you mean this, but I know people like you and I know you actually mean that" doesn't cut it. It's the lowest form of ad hominem attack.

To suggest that all people below a certain income level are somehow bound to become obnoxious, anti-social delinquents - which are the qualities commonly associated to the chav concept, is insulting beyond words. Its natural conclusion is that the "working classes" are somehow unable of moral judgment, since they seem to be unacountable for their actions and even the most righteous among the poor are inexorably lumped together with the the most brutal of scumbags on the sole basis of their income level.

The fact that you seem to be so oblivious of the concept can only be explained by the hypothesis that you have lived a sheltered enough life as to never have witnessed anti-social behaviour.

I would also like to know, since my argument has been called self-serving, what personally interest I might have in acknowledging the existence of rude, uneducated youths.

[Bored Of Education]

How OK is cunt?

Do you call your girlfriend or female freind any derogative name? Bitch, for instance, which is a much more gender specific insult but seems to be considered less offensive.

As you asked, I am sure that I have called my wife "cunt" in the 21 years that we have been together and I am sure she has called me a cunt. It hasn't been a huge deal because (a) they are just stupid spiteful words said in argument and (b) we are, you know, adults and (c) we are probably chavs.

Chavs is a word for the group of people that the ignorant feel they put down because they can't with black people anymore. It is class war, pure and simple. Chav is never used about anyone apart from the working class.