Oh Noez! What about Teh Menz? -Patriarchy isn't a dude's friend EITHER!

[Freeky]

That he engages in traditionally "male" behavior, including activities, hobbies, speech or whatever else is not necessarily him being a monkey or engaging in "privilege." I don't think I've ever seen p3nt be an outright chauvinist here, and in fact he has shown himself to have more depth of character than I've ever seen any chauvinist to have. That alone, in my opinion, absolves him in this conversation of engaging in "privilege." What I see here is that he is being accused of reverting to non-bipedal behavior just because his behavior is abrasive to you.

He was doing the same thing he did earlier in thus thread to Nigel, which he identified as letting his monkey show. And he was. He was framing things in an abrasive way that was aimed at Garbo. 

And he is priveleged enough to not have to think of every time someone uses that word that his bits are considered inferior bits.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2003/10/taboo_for_who

Interesting article on the topic from Kate Allen, a feminist living in London. I think it covers both sides of this discussion pretty fairly.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

Slightly related... I have taken to saying "I'd call you a cunt but you don't have the warmth or the depth" as an insult.

This amuses me.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Slightly related... I have taken to saying "I'd call you a cunt but you don't have the warmth or the depth" as an insult.

This amuses me.

Chauvinist!

[EK WAFFLR]

I love this thread. Very thought provoking!

When people call me a cunt, I usually reply with, why, thank you. They are wonderful, and I'm honored to be compared to one.

[Freeky]

I love this thread. Very thought provoking!

When people call me a cunt, I usually reply with, why, thank you. They are wonderful, and I'm honored to be compared to one.

Slightly related... I have taken to saying "I'd call you a cunt but you don't have the warmth or the depth" as an insult.

This amuses me.

these are awesome.

[Juana]

That he engages in traditionally "male" behavior, including activities, hobbies, speech or whatever else is not necessarily him being a monkey or engaging in "privilege." I don't think I've ever seen p3nt be an outright chauvinist here, and in fact he has shown himself to have more depth of character than I've ever seen any chauvinist to have. That alone, in my opinion, absolves him in this conversation of engaging in "privilege." What I see here is that he is being accused of reverting to non-bipedal behavior just because his behavior is abrasive to you.

He was doing the same thing he did earlier in thus thread to Nigel, which he identified as letting his monkey show. And he was. He was framing things in an abrasive way that was aimed at Garbo. 

And he is priveleged enough to not have to think of every time someone uses that word that his bits are considered inferior bits.

Privilege is not "privilege". Just sayin'. It's not a theoretical thing you can put in quotes. It's a factual thing nearly all of us have in one flavor or another.
Misogyny, indeed bigotry in general, is not always blatant. Racism is not always NIGGER CLEAN MY HOUSE. A lot of the time it's a white lady clutching her purse when a black dude comes by or PoCs always having a gang or crime related death in CSI. Misogyny is "man up and quit being a pussy", too. Because if you ain't acting like a man, there's something wrong with your behavior, and god help you if you're acting like a woman.

"Pussy" was originally to do with cats and kittens, if memory serves. You aint a big, rough, tough macho beast, you're a little baby kitteh cat makes more sense than you're a female reproductive organ.

Actually I mentioned the origin a few posts back.

Pussy as in the female reproductive organ comes from Saxon/Norse roots relating to pocket and vulva.
Pussy as in "Dude, you're a pussy" comes from Latin/Old French origins and is either a corruption of the word "pursy" (or pursy is a corruption of pussy), which means to be fat and short of breath, pampered etc. So calling a guy a pussy means he is weak... not a female body part.

There doesn't appear to actually be a connection with the pussy as in cat.

They have completely separate roots.

Oooh, right! Thanks.
I'm gonna take a second here to point out to everyone, then, that "pussy" and "cunt" have been associated with women for centuries, if not millenia. "Punk" has no linguistic roots linked to homosexuality and its time as a homophobic insult was brief (as per Faust's link).

http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2003/10/taboo_for_who

Interesting article on the topic from Kate Allen, a feminist living in London. I think it covers both sides of this discussion pretty fairly.

If someone, regardless or sex or gender, uses the word "pussy" or "cunt" in reference to an actual vagina, I see no reason to care. When used as an insult, I object to the objectification, the fact that men have linked cunts and pussies and vaginas (and therefore women and females) to weakness for, apparently, millenia, and the fact that calling a woman/female either of those words reduces them to a part of their reproductive tract.
(let's also take a second to jump back to Rog's post about cunt's origins in "Gropecunt" and then think about how prostitutes and promiscuous women in general have been treated)

I love this thread. Very thought provoking!

When people call me a cunt, I usually reply with, why, thank you. They are wonderful, and I'm honored to be compared to one.

You're adorable.

[Faust]

That he engages in traditionally "male" behavior, including activities, hobbies, speech or whatever else is not necessarily him being a monkey or engaging in "privilege." I don't think I've ever seen p3nt be an outright chauvinist here, and in fact he has shown himself to have more depth of character than I've ever seen any chauvinist to have. That alone, in my opinion, absolves him in this conversation of engaging in "privilege." What I see here is that he is being accused of reverting to non-bipedal behavior just because his behavior is abrasive to you.

He was doing the same thing he did earlier in thus thread to Nigel, which he identified as letting his monkey show. And he was. He was framing things in an abrasive way that was aimed at Garbo. 

And he is priveleged enough to not have to think of every time someone uses that word that his bits are considered inferior bits.

Privilege is not "privilege". Just sayin'. It's not a theoretical thing you can put in quotes. It's a factual thing nearly all of us have in one flavor or another.
Misogyny, indeed bigotry in general, is not always blatant. Racism is not always NIGGER CLEAN MY HOUSE. A lot of the time it's a white lady clutching her purse when a black dude comes by or PoCs always having a gang or crime related death in CSI. Misogyny is "man up and quit being a pussy", too. Because if you ain't acting like a man, there's something wrong with your behavior, and god help you if you're acting like a woman.

"Pussy" was originally to do with cats and kittens, if memory serves. You aint a big, rough, tough macho beast, you're a little baby kitteh cat makes more sense than you're a female reproductive organ.

Actually I mentioned the origin a few posts back.

Pussy as in the female reproductive organ comes from Saxon/Norse roots relating to pocket and vulva.
Pussy as in "Dude, you're a pussy" comes from Latin/Old French origins and is either a corruption of the word "pursy" (or pursy is a corruption of pussy), which means to be fat and short of breath, pampered etc. So calling a guy a pussy means he is weak... not a female body part.

There doesn't appear to actually be a connection with the pussy as in cat.

They have completely separate roots.

Oooh, right! Thanks.
I'm gonna take a second here to point out to everyone, then, that "pussy" and "cunt" have been associated with women for centuries, if not millenia. "Punk" has no linguistic roots linked to homosexuality and its time as a homophobic insult was brief (as per Faust's link).

http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2003/10/taboo_for_who

Interesting article on the topic from Kate Allen, a feminist living in London. I think it covers both sides of this discussion pretty fairly.

If someone, regardless or sex or gender, uses the word "pussy" or "cunt" in reference to an actual vagina, I see no reason to care. When used as an insult, I object to the objectification, the fact that men have linked cunts and pussies and vaginas (and therefore women and females) to weakness for, apparently, millenia, and the fact that calling a woman/female either of those words reduces them to a part of their reproductive tract.
(let's also take a second to jump back to Rog's post about cunt's origins in "Gropecunt" and then think about how prostitutes and promiscuous women in general have been treated)

I love this thread. Very thought provoking!

When people call me a cunt, I usually reply with, why, thank you. They are wonderful, and I'm honored to be compared to one.

You're adorable.

But punk did have five hundred years of use as whore, prostitute or harlot before becoming gay slur before becoming a music type.

All you cunts need to stop circle jerking your sausage in this here forum. Now to listen to some cunt rock.

[Placid Dingo]

In Aus, we use cunt frequently as a term of affection, usually for men.

"whats up cunt"
"just chilling bro. Hey, who's that cunt?"
"thats Dazza."
"he cool?"
"yeah, he's a mad cunt eh"

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

LOL. No shit, I hadn't even noticed that! But it's exactly what I said. The intention was hypothetical - "If you..." but there was no reason not to use "If someone"

I'm also aware that on a deep, dark level, which I'm only really aware of in retrospect, it was intentional. It was an attack. It had aggression behind it. Apologies Nigel, I'm letting my monkey show again.

Thanks P3nt. Apology accepted; I appreciate it, and respect you for it.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

For me this seems like a very complex problem. On the one hand, words are just words. Words are not the thing they represent. Censorship, at any level seems like a very bad idea... with one exception, self-censorship. That is if a person says to themselves "These words might upset someone so I'm not gonna say them" then that's cool. I self-censor many words... including some of the ones being discussed here. I don't think I've ever used cunt as a curse word or slur. I think its good to discuss "Hey, these words upset some people and here's why".

On the other hand, trying to accuse someone of having a specific psychological state because of the words they use seems absurd to me. ("OMGZ YOU ARE A RACIST, MISOGYNIST, BAD PERSON because there's some word in your vocabulary doesn't seem right to me.") Most of us humans learn the words used by the tribe around us. If the curse word X is used by everyone in a particular way and it finds its way into your language because you grow up around it... I don't think it says anything about the person, except that they grew up in a particular tribe where that term was used/accepted. Then there's the problem I see of people getting upset by words. They're just words. I recall some state dept. outlawing the terminology "Master/Slave" when discussing IDE disk drive arrays because it might upset someone. That seems completely absurd to me. If you allow words to have some kind of power over you, that seems to be a failing on your part.

As Discordians, many of us seem to try to break out of our own BiP, or at least bust a few bricks and bend a few bars. In this thread, I feel like both sides are banging their heads on the wall in some sense. On the one hand, rigidly holding to tribal slang, just because... seems like a brick in the wall. Yet, allowing the tribal slang to mess with you psychologically seems to be an equally hard brick to bang your head on. Demanding other people adjust their vocabulary because of your personal BiP seems equally confining.

[Cain]

Is this a case where e-prime would actually be helpful?

Why yes, I think it could be.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I just found Vex's post funny for the same reason I found the great Chicago debate about replacing "manhole" with "personhole" funny, back in 1997.

In any case, swearing is a personal thing.  It's like prayer, in some ways.  Provided that it isn't directed at a person, I fail to see what the problem is.  Even if it IS directed at a person, if it is used as a pronoun instead of a slam on perceived traits, I still don't see a problem.

Examples:

1.  This clutch plate is being a cunt.  <--- I do it all the time.

2.  That dickhole over there is the guy with whom you need to speak.  <--- no problem.

3.  You drive like a girl.  <--- Not good.

I thought V3x's joke was funny, on multiple levels, one of which being that it's absurd to the point of humor to imagine a culture in which popular sayings based on negative gender stereotypes are minimized or nonexistent.

That said, I think the point of the conversation is not that the people using these terms have sexist or misogynistic intentions, but rather that the culture which has produced them is rooted in patriarchy and devalues women and all things female. A culture which routinely and consistently associates negativity with femaleness in its language is a sexist culture. We all exist within it. I'm not saying changing the words we use in the answer, because the language will change when the culture changes. But being aware of it can really change your perspective.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I just found Vex's post funny for the same reason I found the great Chicago debate about replacing "manhole" with "personhole" funny, back in 1997.

In any case, swearing is a personal thing.  It's like prayer, in some ways.  Provided that it isn't directed at a person, I fail to see what the problem is.  Even if it IS directed at a person, if it is used as a pronoun instead of a slam on perceived traits, I still don't see a problem.

Examples:

1.  This clutch plate is being a cunt.  <--- I do it all the time.

2.  That dickhole over there is the guy with whom you need to speak.  <--- no problem.

3.  You drive like a girl.  <--- Not good.

I thought V3x's joke was funny, on multiple levels, one of which being that it's absurd to the point of humor to imagine a culture in which popular sayings based on negative gender stereotypes are minimized or nonexistent.

That said, I think the point of the conversation is not that the people using these terms have sexist or misogynistic intentions, but rather that the culture which has produced them is rooted in patriarchy and devalues women and all things female. A culture which routinely and consistently associates negativity with femaleness in its language is a sexist culture. We all exist within it. I'm not saying changing the words we use in the answer, because the language will change when the culture changes. But being aware of it can really change your perspective.

I think that is a fantastic observation, Nigel.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

No, it's privilege. You're a man who is unwilling to change his swearwords to stop insulting women and females because it's inconvenient.

Well, there's that.   

I can't think of a decent counterargument, so I'm gonna have to say that I was - as I said was possible - in the wrong.

And as far as theism/atheism goes, I think my reputation here is solid on the subject.  I don't understand why I would be lumped in with some asshole who fired you for atheism (I was fired once for not being a theist or enough of a theist by my boss's standards).

I should really learn to read the whole thread before replying. 

Then again, I never know if I'm going to get to read the whole thing, so it's probably better that I just keep on doing it this way.