Cunt

I am reading the deeply funny and slippery salacious historical writing of truly delightful though naughty or dirty minded, Kate Lister, A Curious History of Sex. Her chapter ‘Cunt’ is ribald at least but eye opening as she traces etymology and usages.  Cunt is the oldest word  for female genitalia and was actually used to describe children without any of the political censure of today. A medieval writer, Arentino, 1536, wrote ‘shun flowery euphemisms, “Speak plainly and say cunt, fuck cock otherwise you wilt be understood by nobody’.  

She describes the history of social taboo language moving from blasphemous to anatomical to racial.  The C bomb , ‘nastiest word’ to ‘n bomb’ as the nasty of nasty arguing that the censorship of sexual language reflected the denigration of subject and denouncing of such.  I love her recognition that censorship of language reflects political trends.  Censorship appearing one thing harbours the underlying implicit message that the censored subject is ‘dirty’.

Fascinating reading. I’m only on chapter 2 and am challenged by the feminine approach to a subject too long dominated by men in wigs.