Something appears to have gone wrong with my blog. Images aren’t being displayed. As a result, I’ll post about something that would probably be easier for you to read at work without an accompanying photo.

Today I’m going to talk about the word “cunt”. It’s a marvellous word. It has power. It offends. We keep it hidden away and save it for special occasions, like a favourite dress or expensive bottle of wine. It’s the Sunday-best of swear words. Few use it frivolously.

Several years ago, someone wrote a letter to Diva Magazine to reprimand them for using the term “cunt” instead of “vagina”. The editor then pointed out that vagina means “sheath for a sword”. Understandably, reference to the female genitalia as a mere “sheath” for anything in a lesbian magazine would have been ridiculous. Cunt remained.

Other words for a lady’s private parts are embarrassingly docile. They make it sound like a fluffy animal, preschool child’s cartoon character or nasty injury. Yet none are as provocative as cunt. It seems taboo to use a word that doesn’t defuse or disarm this dangerous body part, rendering it either a harmless creature or unpleasant affliction. Is a woman’s cunt really so frightening?

As an insult, this word is the most brutal in the English language. There are no penile euphemisms that shock and wound like a well-aimed cunt. Unlike in the USA, it’s a unisex insult in Britain. To call a man a cunt will cut him more deeply than any other term of abuse. Why is this? Are female genitals so much more offensive than those of the male?

Last month, I posted an article about the power of the nude woman in art:

“There is power in the taboo of the naked female form. For centuries, our unclad bodies have been used as symbols to shock, to arouse and to protest, and often in art, a nude is more than just a nude.”

It seems that the word used for the very core of those bodies is similarly intoxicating.

*edit* – just found an interesting article on the etymology of “cunt” here.