The "C" word on Twitter

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:30:54 +0100

Cunt.

I’m trying to understand why the word makes me feel so uncomfortable.

This is the Tweet that offended me: “Holy Mother of God! Is my cunt supposed to do WEIGHT TRAINING now?”

Excuse me?

When I respond, I know exactly who I am dealing with. She’s clever and funny and quick off the mark. She has a gazillion followers.

"Has this become acceptable language now???" I ask.

Her response is swift.

“If my saying "cunt" offends you, please don't hesitate to unfollow. This is an open platform. Not a playground.”

This amuses some of her followers. “Whaha”, comments one. Another bright spark tweets that “if it's in the dictionary, it's fair game.” I have news for her. One adoring fan is overcome with excitement: “made your tweet a favourite, I am too doff to remember shit like that."

You don’t say.

Truth be told, it’s not just the word "cunt" that offends, it’s the fact that it appears in the same sentence as “Holy Mother of God”, an icon of the Church.

I believe in free speech and I don’t expect writers to tip toe around trying not to offend anyone. But why purposely use language you know will offend on a social networking site? What point are you trying to make? That you’re the coolest kid in the playground?

The thought crosses my mind that I am overreacting. Perhaps 'cunt' is acceptable and cool and I’m simply out of touch. I test it on my teenagers. The look of horror on their faces is strangely satisfying. I Google it. The search immediately brings up numerous porn sites.

Further reading reveals that even feminist Germaine Greer acknowledged that “it is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock."

This sentence mirrors my feelings exactly: “The word ‘cunt’ is generally regarded in English-speaking countries as unsuitable in normal public discourse. It has been described as ‘the most heavily tabooed word of all English words."

It’s taboo. It’s not polite. It’s derogatory. It’s a vulgarism. It’s disparaging towards women.

I was brought up to believe that it was the worst possible swear word one could use. It was in the same category as ‘kaffir’. We didn’t use either of those words in our home.

True, there are women who have tried to reclaim the word. I’ve read The Vagina Monologues and watched it being performed live on stage. Both experiences left me vaguely uncomfortable. I suppose it’s about privacy and how much of oneself and one’s body parts one wants to expose in public.

Make no mistake, Twitter is littered with foul language. It’s language that you or I would use in normal conversation. It’s used by many of the people I follow, the people who inspire, educate, amuse and fascinate me with their humour, their humaneness, their intellect. But thankfully 'cunt' is not one of the common words. Not yet anyway.

And if you choose to use this word to describe your genitalia, so be it. But to use it in the same sentence as the Mother of God is insulting and distasteful.

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The "C" word on Twitter