The Power of the Pussy Revisited

It just seemed, what with everything going on in the national arena this month, that this would be a good time to repost The Power of the Pussy.

Kenny and I were watching The Daily Show last night and somebody got called a pussy during one of those fake "on location" segments. I can't remember just now who did the calling and who was the actual pussy, but I do know that when used as an insult, pussy = weak. HAH. When someone gets called a prick or a dick, it signifies mean, rude, cruel, right? Not strong, necessarily, but certainly not weak.

If you've ever been present during a vaginal birth, you know that whatever else might be true of the pussy, it ain't weak. It's strong, flexible, resilient. It takes care of business, but it also knows how to have a good time. Who started this strange bit of slang usage that equates the birth canal with frailty? (I'm guessing it was someone without a pussy.) As I'm writing this, I can predict my friend P squirming with discomfort. She doesn't care for the word pussy. She won't use it and she shudders when she hears it. (You know it's true, P!)

But as strange as it is that "pussy" is a slang synonym for weakness, isn't it strange that "cunt" (when used as an insult) has an altogether different meaning? While weak men get called pussies, strong women get called cunts. (I just went to look up cunt in my 1978 edition, 2-volume, compact OED (Oxford English Dictionary) because I was having a fantasy that cunt was an old english word: Ye Olde Cunte, or something, first used in 1439: Elinor was a compleat cunt... It isn't in there. Wait! Ok I'm back. I just looked up the OED online. You have to have a paid subscription to look up words. They do have a word-of-the-day feed, but, guess what? Today's word isn't cunt. Surprise, surprise. As I write this, I can sense the future squirmings of my friend J, who hates the word "cunt" every bit as much as P hates the word "pussy."

A discussion of vaginal euphemistic slang insults just wouldn't be complete without mentioning the twat. While pussy signifies weakness, and cunt indicates a sort of cruel strength, a twat is just plain dumb. As far as I know, none of my friends has any particular problem with the word "twat." You just don't really hear a lot of twat these days. The poet Robert Browning mistakenly thought it was some part of a nun's clothing and included the word in one of his poems:
Then owls and bats
Cowls and twats
Monks and nuns in a cloister's moods
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry
I wonder what exactly he thought a twat was? And what were they doing, the twats and the bats in the oak-stump pantry? It sounds dirty, no matter what he thought twat meant.

A few months after I started working in labor and delivery, Kenny and I went to a party where one of the guests was my undergraduate advisor (for the degree that I got before I went to nursing school.) I can't tell you how much I respect this man and always want to impress him. He very courteously asked me about my newish job and I, having had a beverage or two, went into perhaps more detail than I should. The entire time I was talking, he had a polite, attentive look on his face. After the conversation was over, Kenny whispered in my ear, I hope you realize that you just said vagina to Dr R three times.

Pussy pisses off P. Cunt angers J. I embarrass myself with vagina and nobody uses twat! What a world. If anybody is reading, what are your reactions to these words? Comment! Please!