(Grandad. If you're reading this, please choose another post. Any other post.x)
There is a thing that we all have access to, whenever we choose, which has the power to make us feel better in times of pain or stress. As with all things, some people use it more than others. Some, I can't help but feel, abuse the privilege. Some people rarely, if ever, use it. Some can't stand it. The thing is a word, and the word is cunt.
Personally, I use it very little from day to day, and never on social media. I understand there might be times when it is exactly the word you need to convey your thoughts, and then it is right and correct to use it, but generally I find other ways to express myself. There is little that upsets me to the point that that must be the word I use, and often it is funnier if I find some other phrasing to accurately portray my displeasure. I have friends, however, who regularly put their cunts out there. One in particular is always flashing his.
It's one of the first ways I discovered the joys of subversion. Having been angrily told by my Mum I must never say it (after I'd foolishly repeated a Roy 'Chubby' Brown joke in front of her), she sat me down a few days or weeks later and we listened to Derek and Clive. While it's far from Pete and Dud's best work, there is still an intelligence there belied by the language used, but the joke wears thin far more quickly than other, less immediately shocking skits of theirs. Even these two comedy giants, whose work I adore, at points fall back on the word as a crutch, and those sketches aren't so much funny as desperate.
Critics will say that it is just a word. But it isn't. It is a talisman. It's a special word. It is a word we have imbued with power through it's connotations. A cunt is a linguistic commodity, and as with other commodities, it is devalued in an over saturated market. A study has shown that swearing increases pain tolerance, but that its general over-employment may reduce its specific efficacy. As the king (or queen) of swear words, cunt is a real life Shazam!*, temporarily granting us super powers.
I think a cunt should be cherished, nurtured, protected, and only exposed to
the light of day in an environment in which it can be appreciated for
the thing of beauty it is. Familiarity, as I'm sure you are aware, breeds contempt. It would be a sad day, the day I wake to find a callous has formed on my soul where that word has traditionally rubbed. So please, next time you find yourself about to employ it, take a second to see if you can't find a more amusing or appropriate term. Don't be a...prat.
*To my comic nerd brethren. I would have loved to have used Kimota! as the word in the main body of this post, but it's even more obscure than the already obscure Shazam!. I haven't checked out DC's reboot, post 52. Thoughts?
