Hannah Greene  | Sports Editor

Content Warning: This is an opinion piece that contains “sensitive content” and the opinion of one womxn. Reclaiming such a word is the choice of each individual, and it is their decision on whether to identify with this word. In the interest of the topic, the word from here on will be used without censoring. 

Cunt. Say the word in your head, how does that feel? And again… This time say it out loud. Feels like a bad word, right? — that’s because our society has built a stigma around the word cunt. 

In the beginning cunt was considered a good word, representing empowerment and liberation among womxn and was used throughout history around the world. From Ptah-Hotep, an Egyptian vizier, a high official in Muslim countries, who had written cunt, “k’at,” meaning “the body of her,” giving the power of the word to womxn — to the Hindu goddess Kunthi, pronounced “kunti,” who was the Mother to many gods, one of the most respected characters in the Mahabharata, and to this day a common baby name.

In the past, the use of the word cunt was given to womxn and mothers with the highest regard — unlike today where the word is barely spoken and is considered vulgar and, by some, the worst word in the English language, considered an insult or crude way to describe womxn’s genitalia.

Moving into the Middle Ages, we have the wonderful Christian clergymen to thank for banishing the idea of womxn’s empowered bodies and preaching the idea that womxn’s genitals were a source of “unspeakable evil” — ending womxn’s freedom of expression around sexuality and power, and the creation of the redefined word that must not be spoken… cunt. 

Because of these vernacular changes, most people refer to womxn’s genitals as ‘vagina’ (even though that is just the inside of the vulva, what we see “down there”), and generally speaking this may not seem particularly bad. However — the Latin roots behind the word vagina literally translates to “sword sheath.” Not misogynistic whatsoever, right? Wrong. Why is such a sacred place on a born female’s body named specifically in reference to where a penis goes during penis/vagina sex? Why do we womxn have to use a word for our own body part that encompasses the protection of a sword, a penis? Because men rule our world and have chipped away at the empowerment, rights and independence of womxn for a long time. Thank you, men and Christianity.

It’s time we, womxn, take back this word and reclaim it as the powerful word it is, using its truth, respecting its meaning and taking the next step in defining our own bodies so that no one else can make the rules. Cunt embraces the entire female as a whole, including but not limited to, our genitalia, the vulva, labia, clitoris, vagina — accounting for her power and her pleasure. Cunt is not a bad word, cunt is a word that was taken away from us to soften our blows and our value in this world. 

Cunt belongs to all womxn, it is our word, it represents our power and strength, it honors Hindu goddess Kunthi — and represents our freedom to do as we choose with our own f—-ng cunts.

Contact the author at hgreene18@wou.edu