Definition of cunt in English:
noun
vulgar slang
Can we reclaim the word cunt? Cunt is considered the most offensive word in the English language. Cunt was a cheeky old Anglo Saxon word used to describe female genitalia and pleasure. In 1230 you could walk down “Gropecunt Lane” in London’s red light district.
Cunt is a powerful word that got turned into something nasty as female pleasure became something to be feared and controlled. In 1785 the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue defined “cunt” as “a nasty name for a nasty thing.”
What does it say about what our culture thinks about female sexuality if the worst word you can insult someone with is female genitalia? What does it say about our gender relations?
Today we misname all the outer female genitalia by the polite and clinical word “vagina.” The original latin meaning for vagina was a passive sheath for a sword. Vagina only refers to the birth canal not the clitoris, foreskin, inner or outer lips. It is only one of our sexual organs not all of them.
It is ridiculous that we’re still so lacking in everyday vocabulary for the vulva. It is challenging to try to reclaim the word “pussy” and “cunt” when they are so often used as terms of abuse. If someone is called a “pussy” it means they’re cowardly, weak, or easily tired. The Collins Dictionary says pussy means: “(taboo, slang) an ineffectual or timid person.” It’s particularly used as a term to denigrate men as feeble, timid and ineffectual. Sayings like “pussy whipped” are used to put down a man that is supposedly controlled by or submissive to his girlfriend or wife.
The correct term for all the female external genitalia is vulva but it doesn’t refer to any internal parts like vagina. Cunt is the only word we can use for the whole of the female genitalia.
Cunt is a strong, active and sexually potent word.
What words do you use to describe the female sex organs? Do you use passive slang words like “hole” or “gash” that talk about having something done to it or it being penetrated? Studies have shown many people think sex is something that is “done to women.” Sadly our sex education for children is so inadequate that many use porn as sex ed. This can lead to confused ideas about sex and assumptions that the woman is a passive recipient. Porn is a performance and a fantasy. We don’t teach our children the critical skills to deal with watching porn. Children don’t realise that what someone wants to watch isn’t necessarily what they want to do when it comes to porn and sex.
Over the past few centuries the cunt and its receptive qualities became one and the same with passivity. This is a sad correlation. Think of how the act of eating is receptive but there’s nothing passive about the mouth and eating. The cunt is the same.
Our cultural narrative have misrepresented female sexuality as passive and docile but in reality women have unlimited orgasmic capacity that can often far outweigh men’s orgasmic potential. Humans are a very hyper-sexual species compared to other animals that only mate when the female is fertile. The only other animals that mate all cycle long like us are are our closest relatives. Bonobo female primates have insatiable sexual desires who mate with many males and females. The female primates libidio and orgasmic capacity outmatches any male primate.
Far from being a passive sheath for a sword, vaginas are active self cleaning organs with strong muscles that can clutch around a finger, penis or dildo and undulate around it. During orgasms the cervix dips down and “swallows” sperm. Vaginal orgasmic contractions can push out the sperm from one man and suck in another. The ovum actively “stretches” out and envelopes hesitant sperm. When women are fertile and ovulating, research has shown that they are more confident, competitive, their libido is higher, they wear brighter coloured clothes and smell more attractive to potential mates.
My school sex education only taught me about a passive vagina waiting to have a penis thrust in and out of it to deposit sperm!
However strong cunt muscles can “milk,” “suck the penis” inside, push it out, pulse around it, clench around it and actively create heightened pleasure for their partner and increase the intensity of their own orgasms.
The more we love our bodies, the less performance anxiety we can feel and the better sex, intimacy, connection and orgasms we can have.
As Germaine Greer said back in 1973, “Lady love your cunt!”
