(Well, consider the title if this posting, which tells you that it’s going to get into some vivid descriptions of sexual parts and sexual acts — plus a photo that’s just barely WordPressable — and you’ll see that it’s not suitable for kids or the sexually modest; and from here on, you’re going to get the C-word raw and unconcealed, but your enthusiasm for this dirty talk will probably be diminished when it turns out that this posting is mostly about lexical semantics)
Some time ago, amid my regular budget of ads for gay porn, I encountered an ad for the 2024 Dragon Media Blue Collar Cunts dvd (a Joe Gage compilation, for readers familiar with the genre) sold by Gay Empire; on the cover of the dvd (which offers “over 2 hours of wall-to-wall action” — 2 hrs. 24 mins., to be exact), this shot from scene 1 of the film, a 3-man encounter with one guy sucking off two others:
Cropped, alas, for WordPressability, but it’s crucial that what the blue collar cunt on his knees is doing is sucking cock
Two senses of cunt are implicated here, both familiar to me (from almost 50 years of experience in the world of gay male sex):
— cunt: ‘a sexcavity’, any bodily cavity for inserting a hard dick in, for vaginal, oral, or anal sex (metaphorically, or by semantic extension, from cunt ‘vagina’) — sexcavity cunt
— cunt: ‘a sexually receptive person, esp. an indiscriminate one’, an all-around receptive, someone who takes dick, esp. in all available sexcavities (metonymically, or by personification, from the previous sense) — receptor cunt
As a guy who (in his long-ago sexually active life) enthusiastically sucked cock and loved to get fucked, I had two cunts, which the occasional crude companion would refer to as my mouth-cunt and my ass-cunt. (I was comfortable referring metaphorically to my anus, serving as a sexual organ, as my pussy or my cunt — metaphors are not identities, I remind people — but my mouth as another cunt was new to me. I got used to it.) And then from that extended usage, I got familiar with personal-reference cunt used not as an insult but as a descriptor for the legion of guys, like me, who are cocksucking pussyboys, taking dick down their throats and up their asses, as the opportunity presents itself.
With this as background, and inspired by the Dragon Media dvd, I went to see how GDoS dealt with the two senses of cunt described above. And discovered a fascinating rat’s-nest of senses, including a version of sexcavity cunt, but not receptor cunt, as in the dvd’s title.
The Cunt Lab. I have come to view the GDoS entry for cunt as a kind of laboratory for studying semantic change. The mechanisms relating the various senses include (to use traditional labels) several types of metaphor and several types of metonymy; several types of semantic extension (or broadening) and semantic specialization (or narrowing); several types of personification and several types of objectification; and some changes that don’t quite fit under these labels, imprecise though they are.
But this is not my area of expertise; I tend to use the labels loosely in trying to make sense, for my readers, of the semantic relationships between words that I talk about in my postings, but I’m acutely aware of the limitations of the terminology I use, and of the difficulties in determining what people intend to convey by their word choices in particular sociocultural or discourse contexts. So I’m suggesting that a lot could be learned by examining rich arrays of word uses like those for cunt, in careful detail.
So now to 11 of the senses GDoS distinguishes for cunt (which, it notes, has been taboo since the 15th century). I won’t be providing many answers, mostly asking more questions, in the hope that someone better equipped than I am will put some order into this array.
1 the vagina 2 a woman considered purely as a sex object 3 copulation with a woman 4 a fool, a dolt, an unpleasant person of either sex; a general term of abuse 5 a derog. term for a woman; occas. in male homosexual context 6 an infuriating object, often mechanical 7 (US gay) a term of address, used archly as an affectionate derog. term 8 (US gay) the mouth or rectum as a sexual receptacle 9 (US gay) the buttocks … 14 any thing, object or place 15 a person, usu. male, with no negative implications …
‘the vagina’. NOAD gives the technical definition of vagina only: ‘the muscular tube leading from the external genitals to the cervix of the uterus in women and most female mammals’. Now, it’s very common for vagina, and cunt as well, to be used for the internal tube in combination with the external genitals, technically the vulva (of which the clitoris is a part); or indeed for just the vulva, as in oral-vaginal sex (aka cunnilingus, that is cunt-licking), which is, strictly speaking, oral-vulvar sex (though no ordinary person uses that expression).
But there’s more. First, what’s visible from any distance in the female crotch is primarily the pubic hair, from which we get the slang terms muff and beaver; but they can be extended to the pubic hair plus the vulva (as in muff-diving for cunnilingus). Then, there are slang terms whose primary reference is to the (internal) vagina, though they can of course be extended: box, hole, crack. Finally there are the two primary items of vulvar slang: pussy and cunt. Not only vulvar; NOAD labels then both vulgar as well (so that’s a giggle). But (in the US at least) vulvar pussy is more like rude than truly vulgar (the James Bond novel and movie Goldfinger could get away with a character named Pussy Galore, but Cunt Galore would never have been acceptable), while vulvar cunt is not only vulgar, but negative in tone as well, conveying something between deprecation and disgust. (Note: there are more slang terms for the vagina / vulva; these are just a sample.)
All this is prelude to GDoS‘s sense 4.
‘unpleasant person’. As a general term of address. Cunt here is a personification, one that carries over the negative connotations of vulvar cunt. ( Here we need a lot of context for the cites, which are far from self-explanatory.) In AmE, personal cunt is strongly negative, a straightforward insult, comparable to asshole; but in BrE, where it is especially used by men to other men, it’s more muted; ‘unpleasant person’ isn’t a bad gloss for BrE personal cunt; ‘fool’ is another possibility.
(Note: personal cunt is by no means only an address term, but also has referential uses, as in (the invented example) That stupid cunt George gave me the wrong size wrench.)
Other senses. So: sketches for what needs to be done for two of GDoS‘s senses; now we need extensive studies of actual usage in context. This sort of analysis then needs to be carried through with all the other GDoS senses. Yes, it’s a huge project.
November 22, 2024 at 7:23 am |
In line with the different connotations of the BrE and AmE uses of the generic insult is the French con, which is a much milder insult than AmE “cunt”, and is probably best translated in that context as “schmuck”. (I remember seeing, back in the late ’60s or maybe early ’70s, a Jean-Luc Godard film – probably Pierre le Fou – in which Anna Karina repeatedly addresses Jean-Paul Belmondo as “tu pauvre con“, which the subtitles rendered as “you poor jerk”.)
November 22, 2024 at 7:33 am |
Your title reminds me of an incidence of silly taboo-avoidance that I think I’ve mentioned before, in the FX TV series “Rescue Me”, whose position on a cable-only channel allowed the use of words that were still forbidden on broadcast channels, but which stopped short of a few rods, notable fuck and cunt. The show took place in and around a NYC firehouse, and during the first season a female firefighter (played by the admirable Diane Farr) is added to the squad, to the dismay of the men, who do their best to make her uncomfortable if not miserable. In one scene, Denis Leary’s character asks her, mockingly, which is the more offensive term, “‘twat’ or the C-word”, but of course by using that euphemism he takes most of the sting out of the barb.
November 22, 2024 at 8:40 am |
The stance — which holds for a variety of cable channels — seems to be that some words are so offensive that they can’t be used in public. CUNT in the US and sexual FUCK (my GAY AS FUCK t-shirt escapes the ban), in particular. (In a related development, some channels allow PISS (sometimes SHIT as well) so long as it doesn’t refer to bodily functions. So: AmE I’M PISSED (OFF) ‘I’m angry’ is ok but I PISSED IN MY PANTS is not. Sigh.)
November 22, 2024 at 6:04 pm
One cable channel, not quite a basic channel since a lot of providers won’t pay the extra to carry it, but if it is carried it’s part of the basic channel, is TCM – Turner Classic Movies. They broadcast movies completely uncensored, carrying all the nudity and language that was in the movies as released. The premium movie channels (HBO/MAX, STARZ, Showtime, et al) do the same, but TCM is the only “basic cable” channel to do that.
November 22, 2024 at 12:33 pm |
A couple of thoughts – and I quite possibly be wrong on this, as this is by no means academic analysis. Back in 2008, I was in a company of a bunch of 20-something Australians and Brits (including one Aussie/American). The discussion drifted toward, “What’s the worst insult?” And both sides agreed that “cunt” referring to a man was the worst insult. And it wasn’t just “an unpleasant person”. It was closer to an escalation of “a fucking pain in the ass”, a vulgar hyper-nusance. The most obvious target of such an insult would be many of members of the incoming US administration. In reference to women, it seems to be more of a deprecation.
Second, having listened to a particular radio station over several years, I noticed that, at some point, they became much more permissive on “bitch”, “ass”, “boob” and “asshole”, but not on any word involving “shit” – not even “bullshit”. Other words – mostly vulgar versions of frontal sex organs – as still taboo, along with “tits” and, oddly enough, “douchebag”. In fact, there was once an on-air discussion on whether “douche”, “douchebag” or, even, “d-bag”, would be allowed on the air. The conclusion was mostly that “d-bag” was permissible but not the other two.
November 22, 2024 at 1:57 pm |
On your first point. Your observations suggest just how much variation there is in these usages — intricate interacting factors of region, generation, social group, sex, context, persona, purpose of interaction, and much more.
On your second point, it’s clear that different media outlets in different places have very different schemes for regulating problematic vocabulary, in ways that are presumably related to people’s actual usage, but these relationships are clearly not simple.