The first time I used the c-word, I leveled it at my sister. Having just finished a run together and still blocks away from home, I was tired, sore and, for reasons I can no longer remember, very angry with her. As we bickered and exchanged tirades of insults, my frustration threatened to spill over — the low-hanging curse words proved too shallow to contain or convey it. I needed something more emphatic. Impulsively, I slipped past my normal boundaries, snatching “cunt” and throwing it out into the air between us, maybe just to see what she would do with it. And boy, did it dangle.
I felt inextricably bound to confess to my mother. That’s not to say my sister was personally offended by cunt, or that our vitriol was anything out of the ordinary. If anything, my hesitancy about using the word “cunt” stemmed from my lack of experience with it. Other curse words were thrilling when I first said them and then slowly transitioned into words within my vocabulary as I aged. But I was never exposed to cunt as a casual expression of frustration — neither in real life nor in media — and so it felt off limits in a way that basic curse words were not. When I used it for the first time in high school, years after swearing transitioned into my vocabulary, it felt amoral — like a betrayal of all women.
I don’t believe this is a unique experience. In England, Australia and other countries, a cunt can be your idiot friend or the driver that cuts you off. But, in America, it is taboo and considered to be extremely offensive even though cunt is not a slur and has never been weaponized to enforce oppression. Historically, it had a positive-to-neutral connotation and has been subject to pejoration, a linguistic process in which unassuming words develop negative connotations over time. Maybe unsurprisingly, feminine nouns are commonly the target, whereas masculine words undergo the inverse process: amelioration.
The origins of cunt are debated, but this much is clear: Its demonization is a reflection of societal misogyny and a fear of women’s sexuality. I found the linguistic roots of cunt to be surprisingly empowering. For example, Kunti is the name of a Hindu goddess of fertility and wisdom, known for her beauty and wisdom, who can procreate without men. Quaint, a possible euphemism rooted in the word cunt, according to The History of English podcast, enabled cunt to take on meanings like clever, unusual or beautiful. Even Shakespeare wordsmithed cunt. But the beginnings of pejoration can be found, with the following entry in Francis Grose’s 1785 edition of A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: “C**T: a nasty name for a nasty thing.” More than 200 years later, it is apparent that we have allowed the Groses of the world to redefine our cunts.
Dictionaries list cunt as extremely offensive, a term of abuse for women. For more than 250 years, between 1795 and 1961, most English dictionaries left it out entirely. Yet, regardless of how society feels about cunts, they don’t just magically disappear and words are still very much necessary to refer to that region. One would think.
I have spent my entire life using the word vagina. And while it is an excellent name for my birthing canal, rarely have I been referring exclusively to that when I used “vagina” in a sentence. The word vagina does not encompass any of the external parts of female genitalia — that would be the vulva. By referring to everything as the vagina, we are linguistically reducing women to their reproductive capabilities. And yet, I know that I will colloquially still reach for “vagina” instead of “vulva,” in spite of the anatomical inaccuracy because there is something too medical and formal about the vulva. Vagina is the word deemed mainstream enough to use, and I never questioned it.
I have since discovered the etymology of the word “vagina” leaves even less to be desired. Its Latin roots mean “sword sheath,” thus labeling cunts as penis accommodators. So, not only do girls lack words for the external parts of their bodies, but the word they are given defines them in relation to man. Cunt, on the other hand, encompasses the vagina and the vulva, the ins and the outs. This distinction is not just a matter of semantics, but rather a reflection of the societal shunning of female sexuality.
The avoidance of the vulva has real-life consequences. Many women are not comfortable with their own body parts, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are easy targets for mass manipulation. With trends like douching (which is now considered to be medically harmful), to labiaplasties (surgeries that reduce the size of the labia minora), women’s insecurities have been made quite profitable. Imagine middle school me’s horror upon finding out that “innies” and “outies” existed, and that one of those camps was definitely more desirable. Of course, I had never thought to examine which camp I was in. I was aghast at the prospect that my vulva could be failing a beauty standard I hadn’t even known existed, and if I had never considered the “proper” relative sizes of the labia minora and majora, who knew what else could have escaped my attention?
Obviously, these worries are not sex-specific and insecurities come with growing up. I digress to even say that I have spent many of my periods debating if I’d exchange monthly bleedings for a penis, and have decided I would prefer to stick with the menstrual cycle. However, especially in middle school, penises are everywhere — drawn on bathroom stalls, in the snow and on the walls because they are funny. Meanwhile, vulvas and vaginas are too shameful to discuss, much less publicly depicted. While I am sure this comes with its own host of problems, it does emphasize the difference in society’s treatment of sexual organs.
Calling my sister a cunt won’t change any of these matters, and I’ll admit that the context of that situation was certainly not a defiant feminist act of reclamation. Nevertheless, I can’t help but associate the linguistic stigma around cunt with its biological stigma. Perhaps my wariness around the word is a result of patriarchal views, but that doesn’t change the fact that cunt has evolved to become horribly offensive, especially to women. Thus, my sister is safe from that label for now. Instead, I could see “cunt” joining “slut” and “whore” in my vernacular — words that I use, but only ironically and in an uplifting way. It is because the idea of shaming another girl for her promiscuity is so ridiculous to me that I am okay with using those words. And shouldn’t I feel the same way about cunt, a word for our body parts that has been deemed “obscene”?
Second-wave feminists embraced cunt as a means of reclaiming power, with Germaine Greer encouraging ladies to “love your cunt.” She sought to transform its meaning into a positive declaration of women’s bodies and sexualities. However, she was largely unsuccessful, as cunt has remained taboo and thus retained its potency — a quality she now relishes. I am hesitant to reference her because, although her argument paralleled much of what I have learned, her radicality stopped short — she refused to consider trans women as women.
This distinction now seems ironic, as it is the LGBTQ+ community that is accomplishing what she couldn’t. Voguing, an art form that evolved from the Harlem ballroom scene, serves as an outlet for creative expression for Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ communities. The phrase “serving cunt” originated from voguing and has spread across social media. Similar to “slay,” it means exuding fierce and feminine energy, and is a state of being accessible to anyone, regardless of their gender identity. Thus, an insult that earned its cruelty from the patriarchy, from being hateful when directed towards women and emasculating when directed towards men, has been reclaimed to draw on its feminine association in a positive and inclusive manner.
Cunt is becoming more mainstream, and whether online or on campus, I am hearing it more and more. While it still hasn’t lost its shock value, I have noticed myself warming up to it. The increase in my exposure means I’ll be inevitably more likely to reach for “cunt” in the heat of the moment. As for my sister, perhaps she can take the moral high ground in our next tiff and choose how she wishes to interpret the label. People argue that it is offensive to degrade a woman to her body part — and maybe it is. But what I find most offensive is that the one time society acknowledges the system of the clitoris, vulva, vagina and cervix, it criminalizes her. And by being more open with our language, perhaps societal attitudes will follow.
Statement Columnist Molly Goldwasser can be reached at gomolly@umich.edu.