{"id":15182,"date":"2020-01-28T16:26:27","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T00:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=15182"},"modified":"2024-05-15T08:10:14","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T16:10:14","slug":"opinion-call-me-c-t-the-stigma-behind-the-worst-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/opinion-call-me-c-t-the-stigma-behind-the-worst-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Call me C–T \u2014 the stigma behind the \u201cworst\u201d word"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hannah Greene\u00a0<\/strong> | Sports Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

Content Warning: This is an opinion piece that contains \u201csensitive content\u201d 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cunt<\/span><\/i>. Say the word in your head, how does that feel? And again\u2026 This time say it out loud. Feels like a bad word, right? \u2014 that\u2019s because our society has built a stigma around the word cunt.<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

In the beginning <\/span>cunt<\/span><\/i> 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, \u201ck\u2019at,\u201d meaning \u201cthe body of her,\u201d giving the power of the word to womxn \u2014 to the Hindu goddess Kunthi, pronounced \u201ckunti,\u201d who was the Mother to many gods, one of the most respected characters in the Mahabharata, and to this day a common baby name.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the past, the use of the word cunt was given to womxn and mothers with the highest regard \u2014 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\u2019s genitalia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moving into the Middle Ages, we have the wonderful Christian clergymen to thank for banishing the idea of womxn\u2019s empowered bodies and preaching the idea that womxn\u2019s genitals were a source of \u201cunspeakable evil\u201d \u2014 ending womxn\u2019s freedom of expression around sexuality and power, and the creation of the redefined word that must not be spoken\u2026 cunt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because of these vernacular changes, most people refer to womxn\u2019s genitals as \u2018vagina\u2019 (even though that is just the inside of the vulva, what we see \u201cdown there\u201d), and generally speaking this may not seem particularly bad. However \u2014 the Latin roots behind the word vagina literally translates to \u201csword sheath.\u201d Not misogynistic whatsoever, right? Wrong. Why is such a sacred place on a born female\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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. <\/span>Cunt<\/span><\/i> embraces the entire female as a whole, including but not limited to, our genitalia, the vulva, labia, clitoris, vagina \u2014 accounting for her power and her pleasure. <\/span>Cunt<\/span><\/i> 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cunt<\/span><\/i> belongs to all womxn, it is our word, it represents our power and strength, it honors Hindu goddess Kunthi \u2014 and represents our freedom to do as we choose with our own f—-ng cunts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contact the author at hgreene18@wou.edu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hannah Greene\u00a0 | Sports Editor Content Warning: This is an opinion piece that contains \u201csensitive content\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":10277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"modified_by":"Jared Montgomery","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}