I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry

9Jul/1054

I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry

I'm sorry that I should have to be sorry, and if there's a reason to be sorry, I'm sorry; but if I feel that I really have no cause to be sorry, then all I can say is: I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry. I've received a bit of stick recently for a couple of things I've said and done, so I thought I'd clear the air with you, if that's all right with you. If you find it boring, I'm sorry for that. Well, I'm not sorry, because I'm doing it anyway, but you get the general idea.

Swearing in general I've done before. I don't apologise for that, really. You might see it as some kind of lalochezia - reading the tabloid press is a bit like hitting your thumb with a hammer - before you know where you are, a massive screaming swear has come out of your lips. It's just a thing that I do. I know not everyone likes it, and quite often nowadays I try to do posts without swearing every now and then - I did yesterday, and they got 6,000 pageviews. So it's not like I need to swear to get your attention. But it's part of my personality, my real personality as well as my written-down one, so I think that's not going to change in the near future.

I don't think I'm above criticism. I get a lot of criticism every week, and I don't really mind. Water off a duck's back, and all that, except it's criticism off a rubbish blogger's back; but you get the general idea. A lot of it you see in the comments under stories; some of it you don't, as it turns up in my inbox. Sometimes it's in CAPS LOCK and I have fun staring at the angry letters, marvelling at the way in which my silly words have such an effect on another human being. If anything, I always end up saying sorry. I really do. I've said sorry so many times to readers who appear to have been genuinely offended by what I've said, even by accident, and I always say sorry when I feel that I've upset someone - even if I didn't mean to upset someone.

Of course there are some people who deserve to be upset, in my opinion. And I'm not sorry if they have ever been upset. If Richard Littlejohn, for example, has ever got the impression that I think he's a sub-human piece of shit, then I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry, because that's exactly what I think he is - although as I said the other day, cloaca is a particularly apt way of dealing with such a vile orifice of a man.

There I go again, though, using the word 'man'. It's a good example of my unexamined privilege. As a male, you see, I don't realise that I'm unwittingly accelerating the language that has been used to destroy women for centuries; I can't help it. It's just the way I am, and I should really just accept that whatever I say, it's going to be misogynist, because sometimes I am going to use gender-specific words - you know, referring to a man as a man, for example. What a horrible man, sorry, person, that makes me. Why I even keep on writing anything is beyond me, because from time to time I'm going to refer to things from a male perspective and use words that refer specifically to men, meaning that I am hateful scum.

Well look, I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry. From time to time I am going to use gender-specific words and phrases. I am going to use certain words. Yes, I said goalkeeper Rob Green was 'man enough' to get over his blunder; but I meant 'man' as in 'Rob Green is a man, not a boy', and believing that he is in possession of a penis and a pair of testicles, I thought it might be fair enough to say he'd be man enough to get over it. Oh no! My bad. Apparently that meant that I thought courage and phlegm were distinctly male characteristics rather than female ones. I didn't think that, of course, and I didn't intend to give that impression - and, for what it's worth (which is apparently nothing whatsoever compared to the immense value of the unexamined privilege that weighs me down and crushes me) I don't think that courage or stoicism or phlegm or anything like that are particularly male qualities - it just so happened that Rob Green is a man. He really is. I thought that might be all right, to say something as innocuous as that. Stupid me. Bad me. Wrong me. Apparently that makes me the villain, the enemy, the scum.

The funny thing is I spend most of my time on here saying that the so-called PC Brigade haven't gone mad, and that political correctness is actually a good thing. And I do. The more churlish of you might revel in the thought that I have therefore been hoist by my own petard (is 'petard' a masculine word? Best not use it just in case) by receiving criticism for my use of apparently anti-feminist language. But I stick by my principles. I think political correctness is a good way of being polite and trying not to cause widespread offence - not that offence is something that's necessarily taboo, as I'll come to in a minute - and a good idea to use to try and stop conversations from annoying others. PC hasn't gone mad. It isn't the case that you can't say anything nowadays without the PC diversity Nazis kicking you in the bollocks*for not being as exquisitely inclusive as you otherwise might have been.

But fucking hell. Sometimes it gets a bit wearying, it really does.You try your best to try and be a decent writer, to fight the good fight and all that, but some tiny little apparent error in what you say, and all of a sudden you're a villain. I mean, really? What pisses me off the most is the impression I get that people aren't even offended by these errors, or slips, or perfectly legitimate sentences of mine (whichever way you want to look at it) - they just delight in the idea that they've seen something they regard as being a mistake so they want to put a great big red ring around it and tell me off. I can understand people who are offended by things and like I've said, I apologise, but this isn't even causing offence - if anything I get the impression it causes delight for people to be able to say "Haha! I spotted you doing something incorrect, let me put you straight about this one!"

I'm nearly finished, honest. I just need to get this out of me, otherwise it'll sit there festering, and that won't be good for either of us, you understand. Let's talk about other offences I may commit. Yes, I do wish death on people. I do want people who cause death to others, and who legitimise the use of military force to kill others with lying sophistry and other justifications, to die. In the cas of those responsible for war crimes, I'd like to see them legitimately tried and imprisoned, of course; but in the absence of that, and I'm afraid there always will be the absence of that for our modern-day western war criminals, all I can hope for is a swift but painful death. I don't apologise for that and I won't. When Margaret Thatcher dies I'm having a big fucking party with fireworks, sombreros and confetti cannons, and you're invited - we'll do a big long fucking conga line down the street. Yes, I was pleased to hear Chris Hitchens had cancer. I'm not sorry about any of this, rather unpleasant though it is. You think I'm nasty; there are plans for parties in entire fucking football stadiums in Miami ready for when Castro dies. It's a natural human instinct to wish ill on those whom we despise, and I'm pretty sure people will wish the same on me if they don't like me, or at least do a little dance round the room if I fell under a bus. Ah well. That's human nature, I'm afraid; a pretty unpleasant and despicable part of human nature, but I think we've all got it. I just veil mine a little less discreetly than other people.

Finally, and thanks for staying with me this long if you made it this far, cunt. I understand that certain terms - bitching, cunt, hysterical etc - can be seen as denigrating women by their usage. However, I should perhaps explain. Left Outside writes a nice post about this yesterday, for example, so have a look at that if you like. I use cunt a lot because it's the most taboo word we have - other than racial slurs - and therefore the one that I want to use most of all to describe some of the people I come across while writing this blog, who are truly cunts. Motherfucker, sure, there's that option, perhaps the most taboo word in US English, and that may well be where I would go if I weren't English.

But I try to spread the swearing love around to other words too. I don't confine it to cunt, so I'm not saying that a cunt is the worst thing you can be - people can certainly be fucksticks, or cocks, or wankers, or tools, or knobs, or bellends, or tosswipes, banjostrings, or knackers, or arseholes, or bumgrapes, or whatever. You know, I don't really try to imply that the female genitalia is the worst thing you can be, because it obviously isn't - am I perpetuating that through the use of cunt? I don't think so. Cunts are lovely things, really, they give us life. We all came out of a cunt in the beginning. Maybe Tim's right and we should go for cloaca instead. But until that has a certain currency, I think I'll probably stick with cunt as my word of choice for what I call people who are cunts. It's what I grew up with and I personally don't think it targets women through anger, rage or hatred. Our no 1 swear is cunt. If it were 'ironing board' I'd call Richard Littlejohn an ironing board. You may disagree but at least I hope you can see that where I'm coming from isn't a place where I think that cunt does legitimise hatred or denigration of women above all else.

Anyway, look, that is all. The faintly dispiriting thing is that I know for sure that no matter what I write as my defence, I'll be seen as guilty by some. But all I can do is say that I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry. I don't go out of my way to be offensive or unpleasant - but somewhere along the line, whatever you write, you're going to upset someone, particularly if you're very honest with your readers about how you feel about things. To those who are genuinely offended, I am truly sorry. It doesn't mean that I'm going to change what I do, but I am sorry for any offence caused. For other matters of language, I can't apologise because I honestly don't think that a crime has been committed by me. And that's as far as I can go.

* I did that one on purpose. No, I don't mean that everyone has bollocks. No, I don't mean to imply that you've got bollocks. Unless you have, in which case, I'm sure they're lovely.

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C Scott
July 9th, 2010 - 08:59

It’s either right or wrong to be sexist, racist, homophobic etc. – ‘PC’ is a piece of right-wing backlash bullshit.
‘Man up’ (unfortunately) means being braver – that’s exactly how you used it.
*awaits further tantrum*

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- hellblazer
  July 9th, 2010 - 09:14
  
  Wouldn’t the first sentence work better as “It’s either right or wrong to use sexist, racist, homophobic etc language”? Just a thought. Purifying idiom might well have its place in society, if it can be done; but are we censuring the language or the person here?
  
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Billy Gotta-Job
July 9th, 2010 - 09:01

You are a total cunt! And I, for one, am proud of you. You are right to distinguish between outrage and mean-spiritedness. And those who think that for some reason they have the right not to be offended, I can only suggest that they fuck right off.

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Lue
July 9th, 2010 - 09:24

Solution: Go to any feminist blog (especially American ones; I like ‘feministe’) and marvel at how quickly any discussion, about anything (and they have some thought-provoking bloggers over there) gets derailed by snarky people engaging in precisely the sort of behaviour and nit-picking you describe.

Trans-gender, cis-gender, ablism, feminism, womanism, POC, etc, etc. These are valid and fruitful debates, and yet there is always someone out there poised and waiting to pounce on anything that they perceive as deviating from an accepted script of cultural sensitivity. It’s not conscious-raising; it’s one-upmanship of the highest and snobbiest order.

There is making people aware and then there is alienating people with your big ‘Respect the Feminism’ stick. And I speak as a devout feminist.

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- C Scott
  July 9th, 2010 - 09:52
  
  Not sure that discussion of the use expressions such as ‘man up’ and the use of ‘cunt’ as an insult is nit picking. Or should I just ‘grow a pair’?
  
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  - Anton Vowl
    July 9th, 2010 - 09:59
    
    I didn’t say “man up”! I have been misquoted. I said Robert Green had been ‘man enough’ to admit his mistake. By which I meant adult enough, not male enough. But go on, just pretend I said the other thing, it’s easier, isn’t it?
    
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    - C Scott
      July 9th, 2010 - 10:12
      
      Fair enough, you’ve been misquoted. No need to address criticism, however unwarranted, with such snidey meanness.
      
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    - C Scott
      July 9th, 2010 - 10:23
      
      I fell into the same trap as your initial critic in assuming your ‘man enough’ meant ‘man up’, as is so often the case. Apologies for that.
      
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  - Lue
    July 9th, 2010 - 10:42
    
    I’m all for discussion. I was simply providing an example of the way discussions in other parts of the blogosphere – specifically those that provide a space for discussion of the terms that you describe, and their usage, and their cultural impact – are frequently closed down by the cherry-picking of terms out of context, so that the cherry picker can reassure themselves that they have pointed out someone else’s shortcomings and thus proved that they are perfection itself.
    
    A debate about the use of ‘cunt’ as an insult is both thought-provoking and necessary. But picking the word ‘cunt’ out of this blog in particular, where is is surrounded by oceans of context that the blogger is pretty pro-woman in general, seems pretty nit-picky to me.
    
    Personally, I find the notion of ‘privilege’ to be a useful one, and perhaps one that Anton could incorporate into his writing. He is privileged: we all are. There is, however, a difference between drawing someone’s attention to that fact, and using it to close down discussion of the type that is urgently needed.
    
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- Safiya Outlines
  July 9th, 2010 - 15:25
  
  Those were my thoughts too. Honestly, click on Feministe and go on from there and you’ll soon toughen up.
  
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- Sunny H
  July 10th, 2010 - 00:50
  
  Lue is spot on, unfortunately. Sometimes it *is* actually PC gone mad…
  
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C Bailey
July 9th, 2010 - 09:34

Well, who gives a flying fuck, really? I don’t think it’s PC gone mad but Pedantry gone mad. Sometimes I really despair of my own sex. I mean if these so called Feminists are what they are then surely they should be focusing their time and energy on what’s happening in Iran right now rather than tripping up a blogger on their use of the English language, warts an all. We should be exercised by the ideas and concepts raised by the language used, no? Anton, swear away, what better way to shortcut to the anger you feel and convey with swears to the majority seething silent that you feed, bah!!:0)

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- chuffy
  July 16th, 2010 - 18:24
  
  yup, well said!
  
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Sarah
July 9th, 2010 - 10:00

For what its worth (and I may well be completely naive in the matter) I can’t see that ‘cunt’ is used with reference to any anti-woman connotations. If someone uses (For example) the N word – they are using it with the full knowledge of its racial implications and carefully selecting the word for that reason.

I honestly don’t believe that people use the word with any reference to the value of women, I think they use it because as you’ve said its the most taboo word we have.

I think the work you do on this blog is so fantastic. It also has a lot more impact than you probably imagine. If I have ever been made to feel discriminated against for being mixed race and / or female, Enemies of Reason has provided reassurance and the knowledge that there is more to England than the *cunts* on the daily mail comment board.

To even imply that you are sexist or a hypocrite seems to me to miss the point of all this work entirely!

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- ACG
  July 9th, 2010 - 13:12
  
  a great deal (from what i’ve found on my travels in the feminist blogosphere) of the critisism over the use of the word “cunt” seems to stem from the states, where it appears it does have a tie to gender which it simply doesn’t here. i’m not perticually keen on the idea that i should curtail my language so it fits the standards of what is, in effect, a different dialict to the one i’m speaking.
  
  i’m rather a fan of it as a swareword, it’s got a nicely impacting sound to it. i don’t even have that much of an issue with its literal use (in the right situations anyway) as hardly near any of the actually offensive terms for my bits, such as the ones tinpot lists below.
  
  so yeah, i say just ignore it, my eyes always roll a little when i see people picking out these kinds of things. i’ve defended plently of feminist arguments to my friends, but these are very much of the “you are not helping” variety.
  
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  - 2hats
    July 9th, 2010 - 16:16
    
    Yeah, “cunt” when used as an insult in America is almost exclusively directed at women. it’s always seemed a great deal nastier to me when Americans say it – there seems to be a real sense of misogyny behind it that you don’t get from its multi-purpose use in Britain.
    
    That said, I still understand why people, even in Britain, find it offensive that the worst single word you can call someone (short of a racial slur) is a word for the female genitalia. It does make me reconsider using it sometimes, especially considering how often I get on people’s backs for using “gay” as a general-purpose insult. So I dunno. Maybe the solution is to elevate “cock” to the same level of offensiveness somehow. You cocks.
    
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    - ACG
      July 10th, 2010 - 00:08
      
      i find “cock” perticually useful as a prefix, you can attatch it to pretty much any word you like for some fun creative swareing.
      
      cockbucket
      cockbiscuit
      cockmonkey
      cockweevil
      
      and so on.
      
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- chuffy
  July 16th, 2010 - 18:25
  
  yup. and well said again!
  
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- bulwer
  August 7th, 2010 - 05:57
  
  For fuck’s sake, can you please just say nigger? Yes, it’s a horrible word with a horrible history, with such power that most people would never direct it at a person – but why waltz around it with “N word”? You know which word you mean, and either the reader knows what which word you mean, in which case you have saved no offence, or the reader doesn’t know which word you mean (unlikely), in which case it merely sows confusion.
  
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Richard James
July 9th, 2010 - 10:09

Of course, one way to avoid all criticism would be to eschew language all together and blog via the medium of interpretive dance.

I’m surprised that hadn’t occurred to you.

You cunt.

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- Loulou1979
  July 9th, 2010 - 20:40
  
  like!L
  
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Miss Monkeh
July 9th, 2010 - 10:41

Really not a fan of the C word (Cloaca is much better) but I’m not going to fly into a frothy fit of rage if someone uses it. It is traditionally an anti-female word, though, so I’m not hugely surprised someone pulled you up on it (I’m not saying I agree with them; it seems somewhat pedantic when it’s quite clear you’re not using it in that context)

Not all us feminists are quite so kneejerk. In fact, most of us are quite nice.

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Banner
July 9th, 2010 - 11:26

Oh lord. I agree with Lue above – there is making people aware and then there’s being a zealot with no sense of proportion.

I dont get the issue with the word cunt. Is the widespread use of dick, cock, bollocks, etc evidence of pervasive misandry in society? No. It’s just people using words for naughty bits to be offensive, or to shock, or whatever. The reason cunt is the most taboo word is probably more to do with a heightened cultural sensitivity around female sexuality and sexual organs, than a contempt for it or for them. When religion was much more widely practiced and revered in this country, religious swearwords carried much more force, because you were profaning something sacred by using a religious word as a curse word. Thus it is with the word cunt.

Which is all beside the point anyway, because I don’t believe people use swearwords thinking about their literal meaning – they use them because they have currency as swear words because they reference taboo subjects, not because people viscerally hate cunts or dicks or bollocks or fucking or whatever. If people used things they hated as curse words, “DailyMail” would be widely used as one of the worst swearwords there is.

Gender-specific words add colour to the language. If you use “man enough” when describing a man, what’s the problem, exactly? Using words like “manpower” to describe a workforce of men and women – there, I see an issue. But “man enough”? When describing a man? Seriously??

Not to mention the fact that the content of your blog clearly demonstrates an active resistance to and dislike of sexism. I hope the people who are nagging you about using cunt and man enough and the like are letterbombing the Daily Mail every day and using the FeMail section as toilet paper, otherwise I respectfully suggest they might need to rexamine their priorities.

As for the rest – it’s your blog. If you want to swear, swear. I might not think it’s great that you wish death on people, but it’s your blog, and as long as you don’t actually go out and try to hurt people, or incite other people to hurt people, you’re entitled to say what you want and have your own opinions and feelings without needing to apologise for them. Why should you have to apologise? Personally, if I disagree with something someone says it’s not usually cos I want to force them to apologise for their opinions and admit my absolute rightness – it’s because I want an exchange of views, with hopefully a mutually better understanding of the issues at the end of them. If people are trying to hector you into offering an apology for having a different opinion to theirs, I say fuck ‘em.

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Gordon
July 9th, 2010 - 11:30

Interesting. I wonder to what extent the people who come to your blog to nit-pick over quasi possible subtle-misogyny complain about the overt in-your-face sexism/racism/homophobia in the tabloids.

This is your blog. Your piece of teh interwebs. You don’t charge people to read your opinions and you don’t (so far as I’m aware) hold any particular clout with politicians. The National Press, on the other hand, still holds a degree of influence over public opinion and political life. They SHOULD be held accountable for what they write. What a strange set of priorities some people have if they would rather call to account the wording of your blog posts.

I suspect this may be a case of ‘picking on the little guy’ … the tabloids would likely laugh it off and not even allow such comments to pass moderation. They would never dream of offering any kind of apology or defense of their position. Kudos to you for being ‘man enough’ to do it. But remember the saying … “Don’t feed the trolls”

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Tim Footman
July 9th, 2010 - 12:12

Thank you for teaching me the word “lalochezia”. I didn’t know it before, but shall attempt to make up for lost time.

I already knew cunt and bumgrapes.

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Dave Inn
July 9th, 2010 - 12:21

The word cunt comes from a wedge shape, whereas vagina meant sheath. I would say vagina is more offensive than cunt.

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Tinpot
July 9th, 2010 - 12:32

Other words for a woman’s genitalia are available, are much more offensive and derogatory to women, and crucially do not function as a term of abuse. Clunge, Minge, gash and so on. Cunt has a special place in the lexicon, in fact nowadays it’s very seldom directly used to refer to the vagina, but has almost totally been transformed into a term of abuse.

I’d say that there’s enough of a disconnect now for the word to be completely disassociated from it’s origin.

People are right to complain if a vagina is referred to as a cunt, that is particularly offensive and deameaning to women, even to hardened swearers like myself, but a cunt is a cunt is a cunt and should be called so.

To sum up:
Piers Morgan = cunt
vagina = not a cunt

Cloaca = A bad guy from Spiderman or some shit.

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- Petty on the inside
  July 9th, 2010 - 14:17
  
  For what it’s worth, it’s often used to refer to the vagina in porn/erotica. Yes, that includes porn written by cunt-owners*.
  
  * Just to clarify, I mean my fellow females, not some hypothetical persons** who might be keeping Richard Littlejohn and his ilk as sex slaves. In case you were wondering.
  
  ** or perdaughters [shoots self in the head]
  
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  - Tinpot
    July 10th, 2010 - 00:35
    
    Porn doesn’t count as language really though.
    That’s my point though, only the foulest horrible cunts, actually use the word to refer to a woman’s actual vagina, and only in the most horrible context of debasement,( or an occasional irony thereof).
    So yes, in that sense it’s a horrible word and those using it in that context deserve all criticism.
    
    But calling a bad person a cunt, doesn’t necessarily connect to this, and certainly in this case it far removed from this context (which again is more of a US cultural use than a UK/Ireland one)
    
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alittlebriton
July 9th, 2010 - 13:09

I love the word cunt – but I use it for my cunt. I don’t call people cunts because it seems weird to me that I should call them something I have and that brings me and my man pleasure and could, if it wanted to, shoot out a kid, and that by calling them that it makes it an insult.

But that’s just me. I have no issues with other people calling each other cunts if they want, because they might see the word as just an insult and nothing more. Basically, I don’t assume that my point of view is anyone else’s. I kinda wish more ‘feminists’ would do the same thing and realise that being a feminist does not mean hating on men.

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Eskimokate
July 9th, 2010 - 13:23

I’ve always kind of liked that cunt is the strongest swear word in the English language. Tis a rare instance of female genitalia being considered more powerful and aggressive than male.

Anyhoo, I’ve never found your blog sexist in any way at all. You very often highlight misogynistic/sexist crap in the papers and I consider your blog to be very pro-women. You’re a welcome refuge from all the sexist crap I encounter in the wider world.

Keep up the good work
Much love

K

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- Banner
  July 9th, 2010 - 18:11
  
  “I’ve always kind of liked that cunt is the strongest swear word in the English language. Tis a rare instance of female genitalia being considered more powerful and aggressive than male.”
  
  I like this idea. I never thought of that before.
  
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The Grim Reaper
July 9th, 2010 - 13:34

You’ve no need to apologise for anything, so far as I can see. If you think someone’s a cunt, call them a cunt. That’s what I’ve always done, and it’s served me well enough.

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Charlie
July 9th, 2010 - 13:57

People will disagree with you, it’s a fact of life and people should expect it.

Of course the problem is when they try to force you (logically or otherwise) to agree with them. There but for the grace of god go you.

So is the term “cunty-bollocks” offensive to men or women?

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- Eskimokate
  July 9th, 2010 - 15:54
  
  It’s offensive to neither.
  
  In fact, I think it may be my new pet name for my boyfriend.
  Well done you!
  
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j4
July 9th, 2010 - 14:25

As a woman I feel embarrassed to think that there are people out there who think they’re helping the feminist cause by kicking the good guys* in the nuts for not being afraid to call a cunt a cunt. Anton, you’re one of the best things on the internets — don’t let the cockroaches’ cloacas of the world grind you down.

Jx

* and when I say “guys” I actually mean GUYS WHO ARE MALE MEN WHO HAVE BOLLOCKS AND ALL THAT SHIT.

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Jen
July 9th, 2010 - 14:41

I read every post of this blog, enjoy it, appreciate the deconstruction of the tabloid press. And yet, I do not like the fact that you use the word cunt to describe people like Richard Littlejohn. I agree with you that he is absolutely vile, but reading the word cunt as insult pulls me up short when I’m reading a post. This is the effect misogynist language can have on women. It is misogynist; it is a term we use for women’s genitalia AND when we wish to point out we find someone absolutely disgusting, and abhorrent. A feminist saying it isn’t offensive doesn’t change or efface this association, which is implicit in every usage. If it it wasn’t it woudn’t retain the force it has, and so wouldn’t be your abusive word of choice.

Clearly you feel no other word expresses your contempt for people like Littlejohn. You justify it in this section:
‘I use cunt a lot because it’s the most taboo word we have – other than racial slurs – and therefore the one that I want to use most of all to describe some of the people I come across while writing this blog, who are truly cunts.’
So cunt is acceptable taboo, but racial slurs are unacceptable? You quite rightly don’t use racial slurs, the majority of people now understand the relationship between them, power and hatred. They are never descriptive of a race, they are insults. But you use cunt un-reflexively; these people are ‘truly cunts’, so how can you help but use the term?

I don’t think you are misogynist Anton, frankly I wouldn’t waste my time replying (and your describing a man as ‘a man’ doesn’t bother me one iota). I just hope you consider the effect using the word cunt as an insult has beyond cheap shock value, because you are obviously thoughtful. I’m not a prude, or conservative. But it should be enough to say Richard Littlejohn is nasty, vile, and abhorrent, and that it’s a disgrace that he has the opportunity to air his views in the national press. I think you lose it a bit when you call him a cunt.

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- Eskimokate
  July 9th, 2010 - 15:46
  
  Yeah but ALL the words for genitals of either sex are naughty words. To assume that it’s misogyny that makes cunt bad is just silly. No-one suggests it’s misandry that makes cock bad. And yeah, cunt’s the baddest of them all. But one of them had to be the rudest, and it’s just 50/50 chance which sex that happened to fall upon.
  For example, I would say that ‘twat’ is one of the gentler swear words. So if it’s hatred of females or female genitalia that causes the severity of a swear word then how do you account for the relative gentleness of words like fanny and twat?
  
  ( REPLY )
  - Jen
    July 9th, 2010 - 18:01
    
    Words are more complicated than that though aren’t they? What matters is how they’re used. Fanny and twat seem to me to be used in a similar way to dick, none of which are typically spat out with the same venom as ‘you utter *cunt*’. A person who is a ‘bit of a fanny’ is daft at best, not utterly contemptible. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a word originally used to describe female genitalia has come to mean just that. Anton uses it in this sense when he calls Littlejohn a cunt. ‘Fanny’ just wouldn’t cut it.
    
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    - Banner
      July 12th, 2010 - 22:48
      
      I think it’s less about women being viewed with contempt, and more about taboo, as I’ve argued below. What some people say about US usage demonstrates that the word can definitely be actively misogynist though – when the word is flung at a woman it certainly carries added weight. I think the same thing is true about words like “cock” when they’re applied to men though. I’m not convinced that straightforward misogyny is the reason why the word cunt is so powerful.
      
      ( REPLY )
- Banner
  July 9th, 2010 - 18:24
  
  I’m asking the following question as a genuine question, not to be snide: do you also object to male-related curse words, such as cock, dick, bollocks, knob, etc etc? Or is that not offensive because it’s not directed at women, or because you personally don’t have any of those things as part of your body?
  
  I don’t really understand this objection that the use of “cunt” as a swear word is misogynistic. If I say something is fucking annoying, then “fucking” is pejorative, but that doesn’t mean I’m deriding sex. The word is a swear word because it references something sexual, which has generally been considered taboo in polite society. Ditto mentioning sexual parts in public, so sexual parts, like cunt, dick, bollocks, cock, etc, are also swear words. A cunt happens to be a female part. It’s no secret that referencing female sexuality has always been more taboo than referencing male sexuality. So “cunt” is the stronger swear word.
  
  As Eskimokate says above, it’s actually a rare instance of female genitalia being considered more powerful and aggressive than male.
  
  I can understand the objection if you don’t like swearing full stop – if you think that kind of aggressive, coarse language cheapens the thing that it describes and makes the world a worse place to be, I get that. But I don’t understand if you’re making a special case for the word cunt.
  
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Carl
July 9th, 2010 - 14:49

Don’t be such a pussy, apologising for what you believe. Man up!

( REPLY )
Mike
July 9th, 2010 - 21:55

Just out of interest, what have you got against Christopher Hitchens?

( REPLY )
- Anton Vowl
  July 11th, 2010 - 17:41
  
  Well I used to like him – The Trial of Henry Kissinger is a great book. Then he comes out with awful atheist bollocks which makes me as an atheist cringe and think he’s a smug bastard; and then justifies exactly the same kind of slaughter-by-Government he criticised Kissinger for by backing the 2nd Gulf War. That’s it in a nutshell, really.
  
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jedbrown
July 9th, 2010 - 22:17

Just to clarify: when you said you were glad Chris Hitchens had cancer, you definitely weren’t mixing him up with the Mail columnist Peter Hitchens?

( REPLY )
- Anton Vowl
  July 11th, 2010 - 17:41
  
  No, see my reply below for explanation.
  
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Cristiane
July 9th, 2010 - 23:22

Yes indeed, in the US “cunt” is one of the few genuinely shocking swearwords left, and is almost always applied (misgynistically) to a woman. I realize that its usage in the UK is much less one-gender-sided, but it still makes me slightly uncomfortable to see it so casually used, but I would never complain about it. That’s just silly.

I couldn’t agree more with you on PC – what the hell is wrong with calling people what they prefer to be called? What does it matter in the grand scheme of things?

( REPLY )
Charlotte L
July 10th, 2010 - 01:22

Who on earth complained about the use of misogynist language on your blog, when being misogynist clearly wasn’t your intention? What a cunt.

( REPLY )
Stacia
July 10th, 2010 - 08:23

It’s your blog. It’s a good blog, I’ve read it for a long time, and I thought you knew the constant use of genital-based vulgarities or references to penis size made you sound like a 12-year-old. You’re a smart man, Mr. Vowl, and until this post I was sure that your “littlecock” type comments were a deliberate choice to be offensive. Now I find that’s not the case.

It should be a big clue to you that “cunt” isn’t some benign all-purpose swear word for every occasion when people are saying things like “only bad feminists would get upset at the word, I’m a good feminist because I’m female and don’t mind” or “these so-called feminists are always just trying to stir up trouble and get mad for no reason”. The word refers to women, and right here we have a lovely selection of comments illustrating that very fact. It sounds like a 1960s stag party around here, what with the “women and feminists ruin everything” comments.

And the hoops people jump through! Making up absolute lies about the etymology of the word instead of just opening up another tab in their browser and learning real facts. Saying that a word whose very definition is “female genitalia” doesn’t actually mean “female genitalia” at all. Aren’t these the exact kind of falsehoods, misrepresentations, and fudging of facts that you rail against when it happens in print journalism?

You criticize sexism in the print news yet suddenly you and your commenters are slamming feminists and women for being such a bother, calling them “wearying”, “tiresome”, “not helping”, “alienating”, “embarrassing”, and “zealots.” Golly, where have I heard that kind of rhetoric before? On the front pages of… something.

( REPLY )
- Banner
  July 12th, 2010 - 23:00
  
  I don’t think people are saying that women and feminists ruin everything – you’re completely mischaracterising the debate – and I don’t think people are arguing about whether or not the word refers to female genitalia; its literal meaning is clear and isn’t in question. The question is whether its use as a swear word is a function of misogyny, particularly given that similar male-related swear words exist without apparently being evidence of misandry.
  
  It’s perfectly possible to criticise the views or opinions of another feminist without being anti-feminist or anti-woman. There’s nothing wrong with debate and discussion.
  
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Tom Flynn
July 10th, 2010 - 22:51

I like reading you and I also like Christopher Hitchens. You’ve not mixed him up with Peter Hitchens have you? Or do you dislike the both?

( REPLY )
- Anton Vowl
  July 11th, 2010 - 17:38
  
  No, I know the difference. One is a cock-eyed right-wing neocon, the other is a slightly less cock-eyed right-wing neocon.
  
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Kent
July 11th, 2010 - 13:43

“You think I’m nasty; there are plans for parties in entire fucking football stadiums in Miami ready for when Castro dies. It’s a natural human instinct to wish ill on those whom we despise.”

Yeah it is, we’ve all done it, but wishing ill on those whom we despise is very different to celebrating their certain impending death, as you’re doing, unless you’re morally equating your emotional response to Christopher Hitchens’s writing with the way in which Cuban refugees formerly suffered under Castro.

( REPLY )
- Anton Vowl
  July 11th, 2010 - 17:43
  
  Not really, no. But I do despise him.
  
  ( REPLY )

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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and wage slave. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk

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