Alex, I consider insults that use women’s genitals as a marker for anger or contempt worse than the equivalent insults using men’s genitals (because we live in a patriarchy and so the context of each is different), but I don’t think either is a great feature of the language that needs to be preserved, so if getting people to treat “cunt”-as-insult as the slur that it is involves getting them to treat “dick,” “dickhead,” etc. the same way, I don’t consider that much of a loss.

It seems to me that “reclaiming” the word “cunt”, if it is going to be reclaimed, would involve making it non-insulting, rather than making it as commonplace an insult as insults based on male genitals. Because there’s nothing wrong with having one of them and there’s nothing unpleasant about them, so why use it as an insult?

DK, I’m familiar with the patterns of usage.

Could you explain to me what you take “the point” to be that’s being missed? Because I don’t understand what “the point” of referring to authoritarians in New Labour as “cunts” is supposed to be, if not insulting them by comparing them to women’s genitals.

In the United States, at least, it’s still common in certain quarters to use the words “faggot” and “gay” to deride men you’re contemptuous of, or things that you think are stupid (“That’s so gay,” etc.). Just out of curiosity, if I were objecting to a post about the “authoritarian faggots in New Labour,” and how “gay” their policy proposals were, would you be reacting the same way?

If you’re afraid I’m personally wasting time that I could be spending “challenging the patriarchal status quo” elsewhere, you needn’t worry; I’ve plenty of other things that I’m doing towards that end besides spending a couple minutes of my time asking you to think harder about the language that you’re using on your weblog. However, I will say that whether or not complaining about something “completely fails to challenge the patriarchal status quo,” that’s not an excuse for reinforcing it, even in ways that you personally consider small or trivial.

“In case anybody had any illusions on this matter, last week beyond all reasonable doubt that New Labour are a bunch of authoritarian cunts.”

Why are you comparing authoritarians in New Labour to women’s genitals?

Is that supposed to be some kind of an insult?

“Steps are afoot to begin a campaign led by bloggers to try and stop the bastards in their tracks.”

Why are you commenting on their parentage, for that matter? It ain’t their mamas fault that they act like a bunch of twits.