Sometimes CUNT is the appropriate word. We’ve all met her, she has no respect for other people, she knows she’s better than everyone else, and she makes sure we all know it. There are specific moments when I want to call a woman a CUNT, usually when she does something that interferes with my happiness.

Now I want to know if it’s ok for a woman to call another woman CUNT? Is it like FAGGOT which apparently is ok if you’re a gay guy calling another gay guy a FAGGOT? Is it like NIGER, which apparently is ok if you’re an African-American calling another African-American a NIGER?

Could I approach a woman who wasn’t offensive and ask her to please call the offensive woman a CUNT for me? Do you think she’s do it for me or would she get mad cause I wanted to call the other woman that? Women can be such CUNTs about this kind of thing.

In my creative writing class we were given a story to read which contained FUCK several times. I can’t recall who the writer was at the time, but the use of the word FUCK offended one of the students so much that she came in to class early the next day and wrote several quotes from other famous writers on the board expressing their disdain for cursing. It led, ultimately, to an entire class talking about censorship and forbidden words. The argument of some, and I was probably one of them, was that the more we use these words in ways that are inoffensive (unlike this post) the less power and meaning they have in the real world.

I would like to think I’m right, but then my memory comes crashing back of walking down 17th Street in gay DC when I first moved to the area. I was minding my own business when car came driving by and the driver pitched his half-full beer can at me and yelled “Fucking Faggot!”. Had the driver had any real courage, he would have slowed down so we could discuss the implications of his being a close minded bigot – but alas, he and his buddies sped away.

So, yeah, I guess words can sting sometimes, not as much as half-full beer cans, but sting nonetheless.