I find the use of the word "pussy"

[cali]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Stinky The Clown (a host of the General Discussion forum).

to connote weak and cowardly, stupid and offensive. And sexist as hell. Many DUers use it. Can you who do, please refrain?

Enough is enough.

Cue the "you're just being so politically correct" crowd, and the "it's no worse than calling someone a dick" crowd.

Yes it is.

[Sherman A1]

1. I agree that the word is offensive

I can't necessarily recall it being in posts in the threads I have noted of late, but I may have missed it as well.

That said I must disagree with your comment that "it's no worse than calling someone a dick", I believe that both are unnecessary. But that is just my opinion.

[jollyreaper2112]

2. Yet again

Don't give us problems, give us solutions. Invent a better word that has just as visceral a feel to it.

Literally, cocksucker makes no sense as an insult. Sure, it's usually used as a slam by one man against another but could be a term of praise for a skilled fellatrix. Of course, I learned the emotional intent of the word from movies before I'd ever parsed it so it has a preverbal impact. When a goombah calls another mook a cocksucker, you know a wide guy's getting clipped.

Now what the Russians did was lock all their intellectuals in gulags for decades and this selection pressure brought about an enormous evolution in the art of Russian cursing. We have the seven dirty words you can't use on television and a few that are bad in a given context. The Russian options in contrast are legion. Every possible insult, slur, imprecation and aspersion is capable of being expressed with such erudite vulgarity that the ears burn like a shot of moonshine.

We had a good start with the redefinition of Santorum. That was poetry. But we must not stop there. We have the British loan word smeg that has seen little use. Other inventions like frak are silly. The Chinese loan words featured in Firefly never really penetrated since the show was canceled before its time and that's a gorram shame.

So, we need strong, eye-watering curses that attack someone for who they are, not what they are. Not aimed at sex, race or creed but the flawed and valueless soul shriveled and rattling around inside their disgusting flesh.

Any suggestions?

[Atman]

6. Skin tag? Anal cyst? Rush Limbaugh?

Those are all pretty disgusting. Oh, and don't forget Santorum!

[Zephie]

16. Or a continuous favorite...

Barbara Streisand!

[Smarmie Doofus]

60. And there's *more* where that came from.

Welcome to DU.

[Glassunion]

3. I understand for weak and cowardly. But what about for anger?

[BainsBane]

4. It is sexist, I agree

but this is a meta thread.

[Atman]

5. All our insults must be happy words!

"Pony."

"Ladybug."

"Rainbow."

[dipsydoodle]

10. Pony is UK slang for rubbish / crap.

[dawg]

13. "Pussy" *is* a happy word for me.

At least it used to be.

[Go Vols]

32. +1

[Champion Jack]

31. lulz

[OldDem2012]

7. So, you don't like the 1st Amendment either? As Spock would say, "Fascinating". nt.

[Sheldon Cooper]

8. Yeah, because DU is just like the United States government shutting down the printing presses.

'Fascinating', indeed.

[cali]

9. What's fascinating is how you can have no fucking concept of what the 1st Amendment means.

Wowzer. That level of..... is amazing indeed.

I didn't call for the government to prosecute people using the word, genius.

[OldDem2012]

27. You can use the word "f__king" but you don't like using the word p___y in your OP....

...you also like to apply labels and names to other posters who don't agree with your rather interesting thought process, even though doing so is a violation of the DU TOS.

I bet you don't like the word "hypocrite", either, but that's just a guess.

[godai]

50. Exactly n/t

[cali]

56. It's the inherent sexism in the word pussy that I object to

I explained that in very simple and easy to understand terms in the OP.

I love to fucking curse.

[lapislzi]

41. A request for sensitivity and respect is not the same as a call for censorship.

I self-censor all the time, because I am sensitive to the sensibilities of my audience. It's called respect.

Nice straw man, btw.

[OldDem2012]

44. Just stating my personal opinion. Is that now a problem on DU, too? nt.

[lapislzi]

45. No problem.

I was merely pointing out your logical fallacy, and how silly I thought your reply was. That's my opinion too.

[OldDem2012]

46. Your concern is duly noted and filed in the appropriate place. nt.

[alphafemale]

11. Does't bother me in the slightest. It is also ill used.

Pussy muscles are some of the strongest on the planet.

And aside from C sections all of humanity owes their lives to a pussy.

I don't relate the term to that.

It is just a funny, perfect word for a certain type of behavior.

And I don't relate the word to actual felines, either.

I also love the term "prick."

That is not associated in my mind with males in general or their favorite body part.

Or with thimbleless sewing for that matter.

[dawg]

12. I agree.

It's stupid and inappropriate. I try to use curse words only in the context of their actual meanings.

[Bad Thoughts]

14. There are many offensive words

However, words like "pussy" and "fag" have been honed specifically to belittle, and thus must be considered tools specially made to disempower women and homosexuals. At times, I would like to use one of those words to described people like LaPierre: they are cowardly. To do so would strengthen those words, and even if they could be used to denigrate LaPierre, I would be justifying their meaning against their original targets.

[LiberalLoner]

38. +1

[trumad]

15. Belongs in Meta

and this has been a word that forever has been deleted at DU.

[el_bryanto]

17. I generally agree - although i am interested in the comment

that it's no worse than calling someone a dick. Semantically it seems like exactly the same thing. You call someone a pussy to attribute to them negative traits associated with femaleness. You call someone a dick to attributed to them negative traits associated with maleness - i.e. aggressiveness, pushiness, jerkitude.

But of course it's not the same thing because one of the sexes has considerably more power than the other.

Bryant

[seabeyond]

20. you use the p word on a man to insult him, saying he is weak/cowardly like a woman. you use dick

on a man to say he is an asshole, and often with a smile on the face. men LOVE their body parts, and it is held up as the be all, end all. that is not how society views a womans body parts. they are used to insult and denegrate. there is a big difference between the two words.

[el_bryanto]

22. I think it depends on the person

When i call someone a dick it's because I despise him (it's usually a man) for being an asshole. To me there's nothing good about being a dick - but I can see how other people might look at it differently.

Actually, now that I think about it - Asshole is yet another body part, albeit shared by both men and women. I wonder how we came to the conclusion that that particular body part was the jerkiest.

Bryant

[Atman]

33. That is one of the silliest things I've ever heard.

You used "asshole" in there...what is that? Good? Bad? Dick can be bad, dick can be good. Where are you getting it? What for? Pussy can be good, pussy can be bad. Pussy can drink milk out of a dish and catch mice. It's a freakin' WORD. Get over it.

[lapislzi]

42. Keywords being "associated with"

You can argue both sides of that...that the stereotypes became stereotypes because there's a grain of truth in them. Or that the bias/association is horseshit, and disprove with myriad examples.

How do tropes become tropes? How and why do we call them out?

[TheCowsCameHome]

18. Many words may be considered offensive.

It depends on how they are used.

[Soundman]

19. Perhaps you should look up the origin of the word eh?

The word refers to cats, cats tend to be skittish and easily frightened hence the term pussy. Of course that wouldn't be nearly as inflammatory now would it? I wonder if the politically correct crowd could come up with a list of words that should be banned, so we don't upset the more delicate among us. I am guessing Fuck is ok though, correct?

[Sheldon Cooper]

21. lol

[gollygee]

23. What a stupid post

And bitch originally refers to dogs, but it's still inflammatory. Do you really think we aren't aware of the fact that "pussy" was originally about cats? Yes, and now it's about a woman's vulva, and when used about men it's homophobic.

Is it really that difficult to only use words that aren't sexist, homophobic, or racist? There are plenty of words left to choose from, and yes "fuck" would be among those.

[LisaLynne]

28. Well said.

[bigtree]

30. bullshit

Last edited Thu Feb 7, 2013, 11:05 AM - Edit history (1)

. . . refers to a male cow, right? Why not say 'cowshit' when we think something is phony or a lie? No, we use the MALE member of the cow family to explicitly describe lying.

No more saying 'bullshit!' It's sexist, degrading, cowardly . . . Let's be consistent here.


*IN OTHER NEWS*

Pussy Riot files case with top European rights court
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/07/pussy-riot-files-case-with-top-european-rights-court/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[gollygee]

39. It isn't used specifically about male people

Bullshit is used to refer to garbage spewed by men or women. But it's a good word for this subthread regardless.

Unless the fight for equal rights for both sexes of cattle is a big issue for you. I only worry about sexism wrt people.

[bigtree]

24. I thought it didn't start out as a reference to a woman's body part

. . .I remember it being short for 'pussy-cat' (as opposed to a tiger, for instance). I still think it means something akin to a pussy cat. That's been my understanding since I first heard the word.

I hate it when folks decide to ban words like this. Try dealing with the user's intent, rather than just deciding that they meant the worst of the term. For fuck sakes, find something else to whine about, and let folks decide for themselves what they mean when using the term. You don't own the dictionary. You can't dictate meanings of words to folks. Who the hell appointed you to the post of the word police?

What a crock of shit to put the worst interpretation on the meaning and usage of the word.

Put this shit-sniffing concern in meta.

[tjwash]

25. lol

You come up with the most entertaining threads

Start out with tossing a grenade of a pet hot-button topic

-
Monitor it tirelessly and often

-
And then the rest of the swarm just can't help themselves.


Well Done!

[gollygee]

43. .

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/jerk.htm

[KharmaTrain]

26. First It Was The C Word...

...now the P word. Geeesh...being sexist is getting to be harder and harder every day around here...

[Botany]

29. whatever

[Orrex]

34. My coworker has a pussy scab

He cut his hand and failed to disinfect it properly. Since then it has formed a scab full of pus, a pussy scab.

Pretty gross, if you ask me.

[Little Star]

35. I love this thread because of the lame comments that try to...

justify the use of the word. Winners all.

[Evoman]

36. Geez, it's not like she is trying to ban people What's wrong with being sensitive to a fairly large

group on DU. If you really need to use it so fucking bad, then go ahead. But if you aren't a complete fuckhead, what's so bad not using language that makes feel bad.

Everyday, we can choose to be kind and civil, or to be a trolling fuckhead. When it come to repubs, be the latter for all I care. But when another DUer, with a good heart, tells you she is offended by the word, why not be kind and civil to her?

[yardwork]

37. It's offensive when it's used to denote weakness, because it implies that women are weak.

Women are not weak or cowardly, so it is a slur on all women to use words like pussy in this derogatory way.

[Spider Jerusalem]

40. Personally? I really, really, dislike that word as a term for "female genitalia" as well.

[Tom Ripley]

47. I agree with you, and have never used it as a pejorative

[snooper2]

48. How about everytime somebody wants to use it they replace it with pendejo?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

51. So now it says Pussy in a thread title on the greatest page

Many more people have now seen it, as opposed to a few people seeing it in one little reply.

How is this helping your cause?

[zazen]

52. don't you think the connotation may be evolving?

I get your argument.

But, when I use/think the word, and I do with close friends (and we all consider ourselves feminists), it refers to a phenomenon that feminists began writing about in the 70s (there was a terrific chapter about this in an edited volume but the author's name escapes me) and is embodied most by the sort of guy who's a bad poet and/or drumming circle men's movement member and wants all sorts of support for his "sensitivity" while continuing to expect all of the privileges of traditional masculinity.

You know, the 70s bad troubadour type who is always looking to get laid and have his girlfriend do his laundry while he whines about how no one understands him. Most of the people reading that sentence will silently, immediately think: "oh, that guy's a pussy."

I think the evolving connotation of the term is actually more gender conscious and more accountable of men. It's not calling out a guy for acting exactly like a woman. In traditional femininity (which is problematic, but it's a recognized, active construct), women get special consideration for being weaker in some areas, but it's considered a fair trade, through all of the other sacrifices we make and strengths we have. This is NOT how a guy is acting when he earns the descriptor "pussy."

I think of a "pussy" as the guy who wants a woman to cater to his "sensitive, feminine side" while he continues to be the center of attention and maintain his traditional male privileges. Unlike a traditional guy who inhabits his privilege but at least "earns" some of it through honor, valour, strength, action (again, there's nothing inherently biologically male about this, but this is the perceived valence), a "pussy" fulfills neither end of the traditional male/female bargain. He's Dagwood, who's an incompetent wimp but gets to be the boss simply because he has a penis while all the tough, smarter secretaries do his work for him.

Of course most people don't consciously think this when they use the term, but my sense is that it has evolved in this direction over the past 20 years.

Ideally, we'd move beyond these rigid polarities (which aren't equitable anyway, since women still lose out in the traditional bargain, of course). But as they soften and shift, I think men and women have become aware of this type of guy, and that this indicates an increase in the expectation that men don't just get to have everything unquestioned.

And frankly, in an imperfect world, I'll take a traditional guy who fulfills his end of the traditional "bargain" any day over the troubadour type.

Is there a better term for this phenomenon? I don't know. My daughter tried to explain "douchebag" to me last year--another term begun as a female pejorative--and I just don't understand its connotation, but I think she meant it was a guy who was kind of manipulative, so that doesn't cut it.

But a "pussy" by the above definition? We all know guys like that, and as a feminist, I need a category for them, and I think pussy has evolved to describe them.

So I get where you're coming from, but it's possible the term may be less malevolent than it seems at first glance.

[marions ghost]

58. "pussy" in any context

is questionable. The group "Pussy Riot" ridicules it, putting it into an ironic perspective. That's about the only use where it makes sense to me.

I never hear people I consider smart (& or sensitive) using the word. It's a pejorative that is mostly used by macho guys or guys who want to appear macho. Teabaggers I'm sure, love it.

Maybe pussy will die a natural death. Not a very enlightened term these days. But you can't dictate word usage. It will either survive or it won't.

[seabeyond]

59. even that was created by men and used in derogatory. unfortunately.

Before learning more about the case, the first thing that made me frown was the fact progressives were hailing P Riot as the “new feminists”, despite that their name is fairly insulting to women. It is certainly not apolitical, since we are in a context in which pornography has deeply colonised our movement and the only groups that the media presents as feminist are those that either insult us or reclaim the very instruments of our subordination, that is, male sexual violence, PIV, pornified femininity and all the associated harmful cultural practices. These tactics of destroying the meaning of feminism form part of a general worldwide backlash against women.

I found it suspicious that P Riot was getting so much media attention, even for pseudo feminist standards. You can measure the degree of feminism of an action by how men react to it, and if men collectively cheer and celebrate it, then you can be pretty sure there’s something wrong about it, or that it doesn’t somehow support our liberation from men. And as far as I can recall, even the slutwalks didn’t get as much coverage or public appraisal. What was it that men liked so much about P Riot?

Well, under closer inspection I discovered that the high level of coverage was related to – though indirectly – promoting men’s right to women’s sexual subordination and the pornification of our movement. The arrested women actually form part (and are victims of) a mixed anarchist group called “Voina” (meaning “war”), founded in 2007 by two men called Oleg Vorotnikov and Leonid Nikolaïev, who regularly engage the women in extreme and degrading women-hating pornography as part of their public “political stunts”. Some of Voina’s men have actually already been incarcerated in 2011 for hooliganism – which is punished for 7 years of prison in Russia, but their bail was paid for by an artist named “Banksy” four months after their imprisonment. (More information can be found here and here)

“How to Snatch a Chicken: A Tale of How One C... fed the Whole of the Group Voina… in honor of their hero, a 19th century political philosopher/prisoner, Voina’s president’s wife dubbed “Vacuous C*** With Inconceivably Huge Tits,” smuggled a chicken out of a grocery store in said “Vacuous C***…” : First, the troupe searched for a large and fresh enough chicken. Then, the store isles and CCTV cameras were blocked by the members of the group holding up banners with “FUCK WHORING YOURSELF!” smeared on them in I-don’t-want-to-know-what. The blockade allowed Vacuous C*** to promptly stuff and smuggle the poultry out of the store, which was then presumably cooked and eaten.

*

Now what does this mean for us, what can be understood from the media’s silence about Voina’s pornographic exploitation of women, when all the attention is focused on promoting P Riot as our modern heroines? The effect and intent is political. While all the public eyes are set on the Russian representatives of the state and religion as the ultimate fascists, dictators and machos, we are made to forget that the primary oppressors and tyrants of these particular women are the men closest to them, that is, Voina’s men and their use of pornography to demean, oppress and enslave their female comrades. They are their everyday police, the fascists and colonisers breaking the women’s resistance, occupying their souls, sentencing them to public humiliation and subordinating them through sexual abuse. We are made to forget that these women are doubly victimised: first victims of the violence by the men of their own group, they are then punished and held responsible for the abuse committed against them.

http://radicalhub.com/2012/08/20/pussy-riot-whose-freedom-whose-riot/

[KansDem]

53. Pussy?

0'48"

0'20"

It has its moments...

[99Forever]

54. You've got some nerve calling other people...

...sexist and then saying:"

"Cue the "you're just being so politically correct" crowd, and the "it's no worse than calling someone a dick" crowd.

Yes it is."

Pot meet kettle.

And for the record, I don't use the derogatory "pussy" or "dick," but I have been known to use the non-gender specific, "asshole" when it applies.

[MadrasT]

55. I love watching the sexist "free speech" idiots swarm thread like this.

[slackmaster]

57. Civility is supposedly required on DU, but in reality it doesn't happen very often.

[Stinky The Clown]

61. Good topic. Please repost in Meta