This is why I have problems with these sort of things. They start out as a reasonable attempt to avoid upset, but end up being used to censor legitimate ideas. Better not to start down the rabbit hole at all.
Are you saying that of the word in question, too? If so, how would avoiding it "censor legitimate ideas"?
IMHO, one man saying it to another is basically saying "you're so stupid, you're a woman--worse, her vagina!--and we all know that's all women are worth".
Thank you! I was trying to figure out how to articulate that thought. Yes, when a man wants to really insult another man, he calls him a cunt, a pussy, or a bitch. All three words refer to women and any man being referred to as a woman knows that his masculinity is being called into question. That's also why Gay men get a lot of grief because one of them has to be the "fuckee", not the one who does the fucking. The one who has it done to him is in the "female" position.
IMHO, one man saying it to another is basically saying "you're so stupid, you're a woman--worse, her vagina!--and we all know that's all women are worth".
Hi, GK. Yes, I have heard this point made - and once again, I'm only offering views from my context. I'm not sure whether you are UK or US, and thus whether 'big girl's blouse' is a phrase you're familiar with? In that instance, what's being communicated is pretty similar to what you've inferred above (though usually to do with cowardice, rather than stupidity) - but, on the whole, it's not regarded as a major insult...
Anyway, from within my own sphere of experience, the sort of situation in which "you dumb c***" would be employed, from one man to another, is one where mild exasperation is being communicated - say, when someone has dropped a box of five hundred small screws on a workshop floor. It's not something reached for vituperatively, in extremis, as the worst possible put-down you could conceivably apply to someone.
Whereas, I do think that, even if the sayer may, just possibly, if you hold your head the right way, not intend gross offence when using that epithet directly at a woman, it's pretty reasonable for gross offence to be taken, because in that situation, the sayer could indeed be intending to reduce the insultee's whole being to nothing more than a sack of useless tissue surrounding a cock-sleeve.
IMHO, one man saying it to another is basically saying "you're so stupid, you're a woman--worse, her vagina!--and we all know that's all women are worth".
Thank you! I was trying to figure out how to articulate that thought. Yes, when a man wants to really insult another man, he calls him a cunt, a pussy, or a bitch. All three words refer to women and any man being referred to as a woman knows that his masculinity is being called into question. That's also why Gay men get a lot of grief because one of them has to be the "fuckee", not the one who does the fucking. The one who has it done to him is in the "female" position.
I apologize for all the crass language.
Sorry not to have addressed this in my prior post - I didn't see it until after I had posted due to that stupid bottom-of-the-first-page thing the new boards do when you're previewing. Anyway, I didn't (and don't) mean to cast doubt on your experience here, I was merely relating that my own experience, from within what's evidently a different context, did not quite square up with what GK had suggested. As to the other words, pussy is not in use, here in NZ, but 'bitch' would carry considerably more venom when addressed a woman, rather than to another guy...
Once you're told a word isn't all that offensive, taking offense is optional. I'm not going to start dropping the word "cunt" into my everyday speech, but I'm not going to be offended when I see it used by a Brit on the Ship.
In normal (whatever the hell that is) circumstances, I'd agree. You can make that choice; I can; so can many others. But what about the shipmate who shared that this actually triggers her since it's associated with a sexual assault she lived through? Can we require her not to be offended because it's a Brit using the term?
Once you're told a word isn't all that offensive, taking offense is optional. I'm not going to start dropping the word "cunt" into my everyday speech, but I'm not going to be offended when I see it used by a Brit on the Ship.
Look, we've told you it's not offensive, so stop being offended when we say nigger.
Once you're told a word isn't all that offensive, taking offense is optional.
This.
We don't pretend to be sanitizing people's expressions of their thoughts here. If somebody is using a word to mean what can be reasonably interpreted as "a terrible person", and that word is extra-spicy then maybe that aspect was intentional. So it goes.
Meanwhile, I'm fully in favour of functionally decommissioning some words in general usage (e.g. nigger, cunt, bitch, retard), by the mechanism of highlighting the baggage they carry beyond just common idiom (a terrible person) and valence of invective (#spicy). The question to ask is, "do we want to perpetuate the assumption of negativity about [an oppressed group] as a basis for invective" - if the answer is "um, ...no", then the path forward is to find a better word. It can be gross, and shocking, and all that intentional stuff, as long as it doesn't punch down.
But this offenderati word-nazi bullshit is convincing nobody. Stop punching your own purpose in the dick.
IMHO, one man saying it to another is basically saying "you're so stupid, you're a woman--worse, her vagina!--and we all know that's all women are worth".
Yes - that’s how I see it too, even light heartedly and in fun, it is demeaning to women.
I wonder why ‘cock’, ‘dick’ etc aren’t seen as demeaning to men in the same way?
Yes, and a good call in The Styx. I should have posted my 'cool' but cloacal comment here in Hell rather than the Styx, or better still perhaps, not posted at all.
Wait a minute, it's me who is cloacal not the comment ...
I thought we were supposed to play the ball not the poster outside of Hell ...
It seems we could all do with practising continence and self-censorship.
Mousethief has just used the N-word. Surely he should be reprimanded for doing so even though he is using it to illustrate a point and without offensive intent, just as KarlLB was doing with the c-word?
Context is everything and surely that should determine whether we should use particular terms or not?
If Mousethief was calling someone a 'nigger' then that would be grossly offensive. If KarlLB was calling someone a 'cunt' then that would also be grossly offensive.
As it is, they were both quoting or else using the word as an example. Somehow it's ok for Mousethief to do so but not Karl LB.
I call double-standards.
If Karl or other British posters should self-censor themselves and not write 'cunt' lest they offend North American posters then surely North American and other posters should never, ever use the N-word even to make a point, unless they are black and entitled to use it in a subversive way?
In normal (whatever the hell that is) circumstances, I'd agree. You can make that choice; I can; so can many others. But what about the shipmate who shared that this actually triggers her since it's associated with a sexual assault she lived through? Can we require her not to be offended because it's a Brit using the term?
I didn't write my experience to gag people, I wrote it because that is my experience of how that word was used against me, why I hate it. I don't expect, for example, KLB not to use that word when reporting on words motorist with a sense of entitlement used against him.
I will probably continue to find it challenging, but there is a sense (for me) in which allowing the word and actions of a rapist to determine my behaviour and reactions means that he has won, and that pipsqueak couldn't even win the cricket match he was playing immediately before he attacked me, which was his stated reason for his anger at the time. ** I really need the old :rolleyes: here**
Huia, you're incredible - that's such a positive reframing of your experiences. I was told years ago that the best revenge was living well and you're an exemplar of that.
But nobody has asked for a ban. A ban = Ship admins saying “this word is not allowed.” No one has asked for that.
What people have asked is that posters bear in mind how others may read their words, to avoid words that they know may cause serious offense if possible, and if not possible or workable in a particular context to avoid using the word, to exercise some care in how it is used, such as by making very clear that it is a quote, by some replacement convention or at least by a warning of a possibly offensive (or triggering) word to follow. That’s not a ban. That’s just asking for some basic courtesy.
I’m really baffled that this is seen as anything else.
This Admin is completely confused about what you do want then.
Basic courtesy is readily available to those willing to ask for it. Depending on the situation that can be done via a PM or a Hell call.
A board-wide convention about how particular words are (not) used is completely different ask. Who enforces it? What happens if it is broken? What’s included? And, how on earth is a convention no one uses a word different to a ban? Apart from semantics.
Seriously, I’m completely confused about what exactly you expect the Ship to do. We’ve never been the Manners Police and we’re not starting now.
This Admin is completely confused about what you do want then.
Personally, I would like shipmates to consider how the words they use might be received by those with whom they’re communicating. Nothing more really. No Admin involvement, no “enforcement” other than a willingness to listen when someone raises an issue.
I think this happens most of the time already. But there are occasions when the response seems to veer into something along the lines of “well, there’s no need to find that offensive” or “you’re wrong to think that’s offensive.” I don’t think that sort of response is helpful.
IMHO, one man saying it to another is basically saying "you're so stupid, you're a woman--worse, her vagina!--and we all know that's all women are worth".
Yes - that’s how I see it too, even light heartedly and in fun, it is demeaning to women.
I wonder why ‘cock’, ‘dick’ etc aren’t seen as demeaning to men in the same way?
Without going back to review, I seem to recall that being part of the discussion in the thread a few months ago on swearing with words for body parts.
Once you're told a word isn't all that offensive, taking offense is optional. I'm not going to start dropping the word "cunt" into my everyday speech, but I'm not going to be offended when I see it used by a Brit on the Ship.
Look, we've told you it's not offensive, so stop being offended when we say nigger.
The difference is that when Brits tell us "cunt" isn't all that offensive in the UK, they're telling the truth, whereas someone defending their use of the word "nigger" intends to be offensive.
Women are obviously not all on the same page on this thing. Why are you so sure of your position?
Something I've been thinking about: perhaps the phrase "I'm offended" also has some elements that don't translate perfectly across the Pond. Especially if it's about a situation where the offended person isn't directly involved.
A couple of months ago, I had a slight issue with someone. After it ended, a young woman whom I didn't know, ´who had nothing to do with it, but who was obviously from the US, tapped my shoulder and said "I'm offended".
From her composture, it was obvious that she expected her words to have some kind of impact on me. It didn't, and I had the feeling there was some kind of US-specific thing going on here that didn't really translate.
Saying that "cunt" isn't all that offensive in the UK is a bit decontextualized. Who, when, where? In some contexts, it could get you in trouble, in others, it might be banter. But I use it very rarely.
In the UK, the verb 'to bugger' means to have anal sex. Literally, that is. People also tell each other to bugger off and call each other buggers, both rudely and affectionately. Literally, this could be seen as offensive to gay people, but it is understood in the UK to be completely non-literal, and gay people use it too. It's a bit of a 'naughty' word, like fuck and shit and bollocks, because of its literal meaning, but the literal meaning is understood not to be meant when using in this way.
In the UK, the word 'cunt' is equally non-literal in all my experiences of it being used as an insult/affectionate term. It is used to mean a horrible, nasty person. It is not like 'bitch', which really is gender specific, implying a specific female kind of nastiness, and even when used for males, it has connotations of gender and sexual submissiveness. Interestingly, 'bitch' is not considered such a taboo word, but in the UK contains a misogyny that cunt simply doesn't.
I find the word 'bitch' offensive and misogynous when a man uses it about a woman. When a woman uses it about another woman, I don't like it, but it is not the same, because it is not being used by the group in power against a group they have been oppressing. In the same way that terms which are considered derogatory against disabled people are inappropriate for people working supporting disabled people to use, but if the disabled people themselves want to use the words, then it is equally inappropriate to scold them for it and tell them not to use these words.
Now, if I were communicating with people of a different culture, and it became clear that they used 'bitch' in a completely different way, not gender specific, just slang to express that someone is a horrible person, kind of equivalent of 'jerk', with no gender politics involved at all, I wouldn't consider it appropriate to request that they stop using it simply because in my country it's used in a sexist way. That would feel intrusive and arrogant, and imposing my country's norms onto another country.
I also can't see the difference between asking for a word never to be used and a functional, if not an official ban. It feels a bit disingenuous to me. (FWIW I never use the word currently under discussion.)
Also I think PTSD triggers are in a different category to things one finds offensive. (Again FWIW I have PTSD and I'm not a particular fan of trigger warnings.)
A true story: my wife was down the market, and there was some pushing and shoving in a queue, and another woman called my wife a fucking old cunt, and she replied, "well, my cunt isn't as old as yours". Reader, I married her.
The college policy I referenced earlier may be at fault. Institutionally, schools have an obligation to provide environments where any student has sufficient security / safety / whatever to be able to learn effectively. This may sometimes include suppressing certain kinds of speech.
After 12-16 years of spending their M-F days living with such policies, US students then march out into a world where such policies don't necessarily exist everywhere. Through force of habit, they may go on expecting them, though. That may explain her reaction. She was expecting you to alter your words or behavior, or to apologize, or something along those lines. She needs to learn that school policies have little force out in the rest of the Real World.
I also can't see the difference between asking for a word never to be used and a functional, if not an official ban. It feels a bit disingenuous to me.
And I’m afraid I have trouble seeing why it’s hard to see a distinction. The end result may be the same—the word isn’t used—but the methods for getting there are different. One is involuntary, because I’m told I can’t use the word. The other is voluntary, because I choose not to use the word.
In the UK, the verb 'to bugger' means to have anal sex. Literally, that is. People also tell each other to bugger off and call each other buggers, both rudely and affectionately. Literally, this could be seen as offensive to gay people, but it is understood in the UK to be completely non-literal, and gay people use it too. It's a bit of a 'naughty' word, like fuck and shit and bollocks, because of its literal meaning, but the literal meaning is understood not to be meant when using in this way.
It's also originally somewhat racist as it references the alleged predilections of the Bulgarians. I'm not aware that present-day Bulgarians find the term offensive.
That's interesting, Arethosemyfeet - I wasn't aware of the connection to "Bulgarian".
According to one reference, though, the original imputation was just heresy (Orthodox Bulgarians as seen by the Roman Catholics); the connection with sodomy came later.
Once you're told a word isn't all that offensive, taking offense is optional. I'm not going to start dropping the word "cunt" into my everyday speech, but I'm not going to be offended when I see it used by a Brit on the Ship.
Look, we've told you it's not offensive, so stop being offended when we say nigger.
The difference is that when Brits tell us "cunt" isn't all that offensive in the UK, they're telling the truth, whereas someone defending their use of the word "nigger" intends to be offensive.
Women are obviously not all on the same page on this thing. Why are you so sure of your position?
Which part of the UK claims that they are not offensive? They're both incredibly offensive in the circles I've moved in.
Once you're told a word isn't all that offensive, taking offense is optional. I'm not going to start dropping the word "cunt" into my everyday speech, but I'm not going to be offended when I see it used by a Brit on the Ship.
Look, we've told you it's not offensive, so stop being offended when we say nigger.
The difference is that when Brits tell us "cunt" isn't all that offensive in the UK, they're telling the truth, whereas someone defending their use of the word "nigger" intends to be offensive.
Women are obviously not all on the same page on this thing. Why are you so sure of your position?
Which part of the UK claims that they are not offensive? They're both incredibly offensive in the circles I've moved in.
It's the strongest taboo word, but is used irrespective of the gender of the recipient of the epithet. As was mentioned in The Styx, the pun on countryside on Radio 4 broadcast at 1830 shows that references to it are not verboten. It is not offensive in that way,
Once you're told a word isn't all that offensive, taking offense is optional. I'm not going to start dropping the word "cunt" into my everyday speech, but I'm not going to be offended when I see it used by a Brit on the Ship.
Look, we've told you it's not offensive, so stop being offended when we say nigger.
The difference is that when Brits tell us "cunt" isn't all that offensive in the UK, they're telling the truth, whereas someone defending their use of the word "nigger" intends to be offensive.
Women are obviously not all on the same page on this thing. Why are you so sure of your position?
Because women really need a bloke to lecture them on what they should or shouldn’t be offended by or what words they can use. They can’t possibly decide this by themselves.
ETA: I appreciate the good intention behind the thread, but I’m totally unhappy about the way women’s voices are being ignored or sidelined if they’re not saying the “right thing”.
All the references to Jeremy Rhyming Slang instead of Jeremy Hunt, if he's not being called Jeremy Cunt, which happens all the time. Try putting that into Twitter and seeing how many hits you get: there's a user name and a hashtag using that epithet.
Never mind radio 4, go to Shakespeare, "shall I lie in your lap .... do you think I meant country matters?", Hamlet to Ophelia, also well-known is Marvell's, "your quaint honour turn to dust". I well remember my old English teacher explaining quaint/cunt.
I'm not exactly a frequent-flier Shipmate, and it's possible that's why I've hardly ever seen the c-word used here, even among the Britmates who are claiming it's used all the time among their friends and co-workers without raising eyebrows. I am beginning to wonder if that's what we're really arguing about here.
I think the c-word is almost invariably offensive in the UK, irrespective of context. It's just that sometimes it's use is more offensive than others. There are layers and grades of offensiveness depending on context.
I imagine that applies to other Anglophone countries and not just the UK.
In recent years it has become fashionable in some quarters to bandy offensive terms around as if they are only mildly offensive or are terms of endearment. There's a good example in one of Steve Coogan's 'Alan Partridge' shows which riffs with this particular theme. For non-UK readers Alan Partridge is a genius comic creation, an crassly inept radio and TV broadcaster from Norwich.
In this particular episode, Partridge has a phone-in link on his local radio show with the real-life DJ and broadcaster, Keith Chegwin - 'Cheggers'.
Trying to be matey and to show everyone that he's on such good terms with the famous 'Cheggers' that he can get away with calling him names, Partridge (played by Coogan of course), greets him by saying, 'Ah, Cheggers you cunt!'
At which the apoplectic 'Cheggers' splurts, 'Wha-aa-att?! What did you just call me!!!'
At any rate, I don't think the c-word has lost its capacity to shock and offend here in the UK. It's not as if everyone goes round using it as a mild expletive. It's still a very strong one. Yet the strength of it varies according to context - which, this being the UK, is often determined by very subtle class distinctions as well as regional variations.
It may not be the case among feminists in the US but here it's quite common for women to 'reclaim' the term or use it in a subversive way, in a similar way to how black people may deploy the 'n-word' in order to draw its racist sting.
The British poet Deborah Alma prefaced her debut collection, 'True Tales of The Countryside' with the declaration, 'I put a pen in my cunt once ...' and the ensuing pungent and sometimes disturbing poems - about domestic abuse, loss, love and death - are presumably what it wrote.
Yes, it shocks, it catches you with a jolt. It's meant to.
Once you're told a word isn't all that offensive, taking offense is optional. I'm not going to start dropping the word "cunt" into my everyday speech, but I'm not going to be offended when I see it used by a Brit on the Ship.
Look, we've told you it's not offensive, so stop being offended when we say nigger.
The difference is that when Brits tell us "cunt" isn't all that offensive in the UK, they're telling the truth, whereas someone defending their use of the word "nigger" intends to be offensive.
Women are obviously not all on the same page on this thing. Why are you so sure of your position?
Which part of the UK claims that they are not offensive? They're both incredibly offensive in the circles I've moved in.
I don't know where most of the Brits on the Ship live, exactly. I just know there have been a bunch of them saying "cunt" isn't all that offensive.
Clearly there is no consensus. So pleas about voluntarily abstaining from using "cunt" will fall on at least some deaf ears. Posters can all act like the adults they presumably are and make their own choices about using this word. We'll know from that who doesn't care about alienating a certain subset of shipmates.
I also can't see the difference between asking for a word never to be used and a functional, if not an official ban. It feels a bit disingenuous to me.
And I’m afraid I have trouble seeing why it’s hard to see a distinction. The end result may be the same—the word isn’t used—but the methods for getting there are different. One is involuntary, because I’m told I can’t use the word. The other is voluntary, because I choose not to use the word.
I don’t know how else to say it.
A voluntary ban implies there is an element of choice. If someone decides not follow it, there’s no official comeback. The worst that can happen is they lose some people’s respect or get called out.
A convention that a word is not used, with my Admin Tiara on, implies that there isn’t a choice and someone is expected to ensure that happens and do something about it when it doesn’t. Something official.
Now, I get the whole courtesy thing. And I agree it would be great if people responded respectfully when told they’d done something offensive or inappropriate because of x or y. But people aren’t like that. Sometimes they simply don’t get it. However well it’s explained. There is no official sanction for that.
Don’t be that person if – or more likely when – you’re taken aside and told that word(s) you’ve used have unwanted cultural baggage or are less acceptable now because language has moved on.
Women are obviously not all on the same page on this thing. Why are you so sure of your position?
Women don't have to be on the same page. If one person finds it offensive, it's possibly offensive. As it turns out a large number of women find it offensive. Does it stop being offensive if you can turn up ten women who don't? That doesn't make any sense. It's like the Republican Party finding some black guy who thinks blacks don't deserve to vote, or something weird like that. Does that say ANYTHING about whether or not blacks should be allowed to vote? Of course not. Why should finding a woman (or three or a hundred) who don't find "the c word" offensive say anything at all about whether or not the women who do, should?
Because women really need a bloke to lecture them on what they should or shouldn’t be offended by or what words they can use. They can’t possibly decide this by themselves.
I have consistently been saying, "These women here find it offensive." I have also been told that men need to be allies of women and speak out when other men demean or belittle them -- our silence adds to the oppression. Perhaps I took this a little too literally. I'm relieved I don't actually have to DO anything after all to bring about sexual equality.
Every year or so, though, Mousethief, we have a thread where someone objects to any swearing at all. There are plenty of people who would find your OP offensive and upsetting due to the strength of the language you used (which, in my mind is way beyond Karl’s post that started this). And yet, your posting history suggests that you’re not persuaded that they have enough of a point to stop swearing on the ship.
I therefore find the assertion that “this is all about good manners” incredibly hard to swallow.
A few years back, somebody posted about how they found the word ‘dad’ upsetting and harrowing for personal reasons. That’s tough, but I didn’t see anyone suggesting we should ban the word ‘dad’ on these boards.
I’ve used the C word on these boards once, like Karl, quoting it. I’d never use it as a pejorative, but as a Brit, it’s only slightly more offensive than Fuck.
Up until now I had no idea that it was so much more offensive in the US and Canada. Certainly, as Nick suggests, I’ll be aware of that in my interactions with those from the other side of the pond, and try to be sensitive.
However, I too take exception with the suggestion that the culture on this boards should be dictated by any one group. I get that it’s more offensive now, but I won’t promise that I’d never use it again, especially in a thread that is more British (FYI, I used it on the Brexit thread).
Just as I wouldn’t want to keep saying ‘dad dad dad’ to the poster that found that word harrowing, but wouldn’t eliminate ‘dad’ from my vocabulary entirely.
Once you're told a word isn't all that offensive, taking offense is optional. I'm not going to start dropping the word "cunt" into my everyday speech, but I'm not going to be offended when I see it used by a Brit on the Ship.
I am. Regardless of the fact that it can mean the nastiest kind of person, and in truth I have used it on myself in that way, it is a sexual assault word; its use by a heterosexual male in public is a form of verbal sexual assault, actual intimidation.
A voluntary ban implies there is an element of choice. If someone decides not follow it, there’s no official comeback. The worst that can happen is they lose some people’s respect or get called out.
A convention that a word is not used, with my Admin Tiara on, implies that there isn’t a choice and someone is expected to ensure that happens and do something about it when it doesn’t. Something official.
Now, I get the whole courtesy thing. And I agree it would be great if people responded respectfully when told they’d done something offensive or inappropriate because of x or y. But people aren’t like that. Sometimes they simply don’t get it. However well it’s explained. There is no official sanction for that.
Don’t be that person if – or more likely when – you’re taken aside and told that word(s) you’ve used have unwanted cultural baggage or are less acceptable now because language has moved on.
This is pretty much what I’ve been saying, except for the “voluntary ban” part. And in that regard, maybe we have been talking about semantic differences about a “ban” after all, because “voluntary ban” seems like an oxymoron to me. As I’m used to hearing “ban” used, it is by definition imposed by those in authority, usually with possibility of consequences for violation; if it’s voluntary, it’s not a ban, as I’m used to hearing the word used.
But otherwise, yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to say.
Once you're told a word isn't all that offensive, taking offense is optional. I'm not going to start dropping the word "cunt" into my everyday speech, but I'm not going to be offended when I see it used by a Brit on the Ship.
I am. Regardless of the fact that it can mean the nastiest kind of person, and in truth I have used it on myself in that way, it is a sexual assault word; its use by a heterosexual male in public is a form of verbal sexual assault, actual intimidation.
Oh no... the thread lasted long enough to summon Martin.
Ok, I'll bite. Why do the men in question have to be heterosexual?
I have consistently been saying, "These women here find it offensive." I have also been told that men need to be allies of women and speak out when other men demean or belittle them
White Knight: 1) A man who stands up for a womens right to be an absolute equal, but then steps up like a white knight to rescue her any time that equality becomes a burden.
Saying that "cunt" isn't all that offensive in the UK is a bit decontextualized. Who, when, where? In some contexts, it could get you in trouble, in others, it might be banter. But I use it very rarely.
I have been looking at the posts that say it is not that offensive in the UK - It must be contextual - because in my part of the world it is see as very offensive and one of the worst swear words, much more offensive than the 'f' word.
Saying that "cunt" isn't all that offensive in the UK is a bit decontextualized. Who, when, where? In some contexts, it could get you in trouble, in others, it might be banter. But I use it very rarely.
I have been looking at the posts that say it is not that offensive in the UK - It must be contextual - because in my part of the world it is see as very offensive and one of the worst swear words, much more offensive than the 'f' word.
No-one's saying it's inoffensive. However, it seems to be far less offensive than it is in the US. I don't think many UKians would suggest that it should never be used, even when quoting verbatim.
There are certainly social contexts in which it is non-offensive, within certain bounds - one could in those contexts (which I grant are hard to define) refer to a very good friend, to his face, as "a daft c***" if he did something particularly stupid - I can imagine for example a car mechanic so referring to a colleague who had just tried to turn over an engine with the battery disconnected. From what I'm learning from USAians, this is unlikely to be the case there.
Shouted at a stranger, it is indeed highly offensive, report of which was what set this whole thing off.
I have consistently been saying, "These women here find it offensive." I have also been told that men need to be allies of women and speak out when other men demean or belittle them
White Knight: 1) A man who stands up for a womens right to be an absolute equal, but then steps up like a white knight to rescue her any time that equality becomes a burden.
Yeah you do. Find a way to support the women over here without deeming or belittling the women with different opinions over there. Because the women over there have been shouted at, had N-bombs thrown at them and been mansplained too.
I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve felt my arguments are being dismissed because I’m the wrong sort of women voicing a contrary opinion to a bloke on the Ship rather than because they’re crap.
The word in question would never be used in polite company in Canada. It's use my have some class basis in Canada although its usage is always meant to be highly offensive.
I have consistently been saying, "These women here find it offensive." I have also been told that men need to be allies of women and speak out when other men demean or belittle them
White Knight: 1) A man who stands up for a womens right to be an absolute equal, but then steps up like a white knight to rescue her any time that equality becomes a burden.
So you agree then that men should completely stay out of issues concerning women's rights. Or by your smear here seem to be saying so.
No-one's saying it's inoffensive. However, it seems to be far less offensive than it is in the US. I don't think many UKians would suggest that it should never be used, even when quoting verbatim.
There are certainly social contexts in which it is non-offensive, within certain bounds - one could in those contexts (which I grant are hard to define) refer to a very good friend, to his face, as "a daft c***" if he did something particularly stupid - I can imagine for example a car mechanic so referring to a colleague who had just tried to turn over an engine with the battery disconnected. From what I'm learning from USAians, this is unlikely to be the case there.
Shouted at a stranger, it is indeed highly offensive, report of which was what set this whole thing off.
Hmmm. I certainly can't claim to speak for all Americans, male or female, hi-lo-mid class, etc. But the example Karl raises -- that of the casual name-calling by an auto mechanic -- makes me realize that casual name-calling may (stress MAY) be a class issue, which is acutely thorny on the US side of the puddle. First, an alarming proportion of Americans go right on proclaiming that "class" doesn't exist in this society, despite MASSIVE evidence of increasingly rigid class barriers which (on this side, anyway) get defined in terms of wealth and status. The issue of class may be experienced and expressed differently in UK, as it seems unlikely that many Brits subscribe to a wholesale denial that there's any such animal.
Casual name-calling, esp. when it includes rude words, is something Americans probably associate with lower class status (to the extent that Americans admit that class exists here). The construction workers who cat-call women in the street -- it's all very well to object to this behavior on feminist grounds (which many Americans do), but in reality, this is also a class issue (which Americans hardly ever claim). The underpaid, occasionally-employed blue-collar guy harassing the steadily-employed (if also underpaid) receptionist on her way to work is meant not just as a comment on her sex but also tries to "bring her down" to his own social level.
So I can readily see that scenario -- two day laborers using the c-word that way -- playing out in the US. What I have more trouble seeing is this usage getting any traction among US Shipmates. Why? Because the education system (so-called) in this country is so rigidly class-based that any blue-collar intermittently-employed laborers from the US among Shipmates are in that status either through deliberate, considered choice (rather than by being born into it) or through suffering some personal catastrophe. In short, the US folk claiming "Way Too Offensive!" about the c-word are flying (US) middle-class colors, and blithely ignoring the fact that the blue-collar / working poor US Shipmate is as rare as hen's teeth among habitues of this forum, but are probably as likely as British counterparts to sling the c-word about.
The general apparent superiority of the UK educational system means that it's possible that a higher percentage of "working class" Brits may find a home aboard here; they can cope with the class difference (because they don't deny it exists); they can cope with the academic differences (because they're better-educated to start with); they can hold their own in this crowd in ways that few working-class Americans could -- even if such folks had the time to do so, which (with their 2-3 low-wage jobs and shredded social safety net) they don't.
So you agree then that men should completely stay out of issues concerning women's rights. Or by your smear here seem to be saying so.
It seems to me that Rule No.1 of upholding women's rights is to allow women to defend them first and foremost wherever possible (as is clearly the case here). Especially when the issue is one that relates directly to their anatomy and not mine.
Comments
Are you saying that of the word in question, too? If so, how would avoiding it "censor legitimate ideas"?
Thank you! I was trying to figure out how to articulate that thought. Yes, when a man wants to really insult another man, he calls him a cunt, a pussy, or a bitch. All three words refer to women and any man being referred to as a woman knows that his masculinity is being called into question. That's also why Gay men get a lot of grief because one of them has to be the "fuckee", not the one who does the fucking. The one who has it done to him is in the "female" position.
I apologize for all the crass language.
Hi, GK. Yes, I have heard this point made - and once again, I'm only offering views from my context. I'm not sure whether you are UK or US, and thus whether 'big girl's blouse' is a phrase you're familiar with? In that instance, what's being communicated is pretty similar to what you've inferred above (though usually to do with cowardice, rather than stupidity) - but, on the whole, it's not regarded as a major insult...
Anyway, from within my own sphere of experience, the sort of situation in which "you dumb c***" would be employed, from one man to another, is one where mild exasperation is being communicated - say, when someone has dropped a box of five hundred small screws on a workshop floor. It's not something reached for vituperatively, in extremis, as the worst possible put-down you could conceivably apply to someone.
Whereas, I do think that, even if the sayer may, just possibly, if you hold your head the right way, not intend gross offence when using that epithet directly at a woman, it's pretty reasonable for gross offence to be taken, because in that situation, the sayer could indeed be intending to reduce the insultee's whole being to nothing more than a sack of useless tissue surrounding a cock-sleeve.
Sorry not to have addressed this in my prior post - I didn't see it until after I had posted due to that stupid bottom-of-the-first-page thing the new boards do when you're previewing. Anyway, I didn't (and don't) mean to cast doubt on your experience here, I was merely relating that my own experience, from within what's evidently a different context, did not quite square up with what GK had suggested. As to the other words, pussy is not in use, here in NZ, but 'bitch' would carry considerably more venom when addressed a woman, rather than to another guy...
In normal (whatever the hell that is) circumstances, I'd agree. You can make that choice; I can; so can many others. But what about the shipmate who shared that this actually triggers her since it's associated with a sexual assault she lived through? Can we require her not to be offended because it's a Brit using the term?
Look, we've told you it's not offensive, so stop being offended when we say nigger.
This.
We don't pretend to be sanitizing people's expressions of their thoughts here. If somebody is using a word to mean what can be reasonably interpreted as "a terrible person", and that word is extra-spicy then maybe that aspect was intentional. So it goes.
Meanwhile, I'm fully in favour of functionally decommissioning some words in general usage (e.g. nigger, cunt, bitch, retard), by the mechanism of highlighting the baggage they carry beyond just common idiom (a terrible person) and valence of invective (#spicy). The question to ask is, "do we want to perpetuate the assumption of negativity about [an oppressed group] as a basis for invective" - if the answer is "um, ...no", then the path forward is to find a better word. It can be gross, and shocking, and all that intentional stuff, as long as it doesn't punch down.
But this offenderati word-nazi bullshit is convincing nobody. Stop punching your own purpose in the dick.
Yes - that’s how I see it too, even light heartedly and in fun, it is demeaning to women.
I wonder why ‘cock’, ‘dick’ etc aren’t seen as demeaning to men in the same way?
Wait a minute, it's me who is cloacal not the comment ...
I thought we were supposed to play the ball not the poster outside of Hell ...
It seems we could all do with practising continence and self-censorship.
Mousethief has just used the N-word. Surely he should be reprimanded for doing so even though he is using it to illustrate a point and without offensive intent, just as KarlLB was doing with the c-word?
Context is everything and surely that should determine whether we should use particular terms or not?
If Mousethief was calling someone a 'nigger' then that would be grossly offensive. If KarlLB was calling someone a 'cunt' then that would also be grossly offensive.
As it is, they were both quoting or else using the word as an example. Somehow it's ok for Mousethief to do so but not Karl LB.
I call double-standards.
If Karl or other British posters should self-censor themselves and not write 'cunt' lest they offend North American posters then surely North American and other posters should never, ever use the N-word even to make a point, unless they are black and entitled to use it in a subversive way?
There's an inconsistency here.
I didn't write my experience to gag people, I wrote it because that is my experience of how that word was used against me, why I hate it. I don't expect, for example, KLB not to use that word when reporting on words motorist with a sense of entitlement used against him.
I will probably continue to find it challenging, but there is a sense (for me) in which allowing the word and actions of a rapist to determine my behaviour and reactions means that he has won, and that pipsqueak couldn't even win the cricket match he was playing immediately before he attacked me, which was his stated reason for his anger at the time. ** I really need the old :rolleyes: here**
Not your bailiwick, people.
DT
HH
This Admin is completely confused about what you do want then.
Basic courtesy is readily available to those willing to ask for it. Depending on the situation that can be done via a PM or a Hell call.
A board-wide convention about how particular words are (not) used is completely different ask. Who enforces it? What happens if it is broken? What’s included? And, how on earth is a convention no one uses a word different to a ban? Apart from semantics.
Seriously, I’m completely confused about what exactly you expect the Ship to do. We’ve never been the Manners Police and we’re not starting now.
I think this happens most of the time already. But there are occasions when the response seems to veer into something along the lines of “well, there’s no need to find that offensive” or “you’re wrong to think that’s offensive.” I don’t think that sort of response is helpful.
Without going back to review, I seem to recall that being part of the discussion in the thread a few months ago on swearing with words for body parts.
Indeed.
The difference is that when Brits tell us "cunt" isn't all that offensive in the UK, they're telling the truth, whereas someone defending their use of the word "nigger" intends to be offensive.
Women are obviously not all on the same page on this thing. Why are you so sure of your position?
A couple of months ago, I had a slight issue with someone. After it ended, a young woman whom I didn't know, ´who had nothing to do with it, but who was obviously from the US, tapped my shoulder and said "I'm offended".
From her composture, it was obvious that she expected her words to have some kind of impact on me. It didn't, and I had the feeling there was some kind of US-specific thing going on here that didn't really translate.
In the UK, the word 'cunt' is equally non-literal in all my experiences of it being used as an insult/affectionate term. It is used to mean a horrible, nasty person. It is not like 'bitch', which really is gender specific, implying a specific female kind of nastiness, and even when used for males, it has connotations of gender and sexual submissiveness. Interestingly, 'bitch' is not considered such a taboo word, but in the UK contains a misogyny that cunt simply doesn't.
I find the word 'bitch' offensive and misogynous when a man uses it about a woman. When a woman uses it about another woman, I don't like it, but it is not the same, because it is not being used by the group in power against a group they have been oppressing. In the same way that terms which are considered derogatory against disabled people are inappropriate for people working supporting disabled people to use, but if the disabled people themselves want to use the words, then it is equally inappropriate to scold them for it and tell them not to use these words.
Now, if I were communicating with people of a different culture, and it became clear that they used 'bitch' in a completely different way, not gender specific, just slang to express that someone is a horrible person, kind of equivalent of 'jerk', with no gender politics involved at all, I wouldn't consider it appropriate to request that they stop using it simply because in my country it's used in a sexist way. That would feel intrusive and arrogant, and imposing my country's norms onto another country.
Also I think PTSD triggers are in a different category to things one finds offensive. (Again FWIW I have PTSD and I'm not a particular fan of trigger warnings.)
After 12-16 years of spending their M-F days living with such policies, US students then march out into a world where such policies don't necessarily exist everywhere. Through force of habit, they may go on expecting them, though. That may explain her reaction. She was expecting you to alter your words or behavior, or to apologize, or something along those lines. She needs to learn that school policies have little force out in the rest of the Real World.
I don’t know how else to say it.
It's also originally somewhat racist as it references the alleged predilections of the Bulgarians. I'm not aware that present-day Bulgarians find the term offensive.
According to one reference, though, the original imputation was just heresy (Orthodox Bulgarians as seen by the Roman Catholics); the connection with sodomy came later.
Which part of the UK claims that they are not offensive? They're both incredibly offensive in the circles I've moved in.
It's the strongest taboo word, but is used irrespective of the gender of the recipient of the epithet. As was mentioned in The Styx, the pun on countryside on Radio 4 broadcast at 1830 shows that references to it are not verboten. It is not offensive in that way,
Because women really need a bloke to lecture them on what they should or shouldn’t be offended by or what words they can use. They can’t possibly decide this by themselves.
ETA: I appreciate the good intention behind the thread, but I’m totally unhappy about the way women’s voices are being ignored or sidelined if they’re not saying the “right thing”.
I imagine that applies to other Anglophone countries and not just the UK.
In recent years it has become fashionable in some quarters to bandy offensive terms around as if they are only mildly offensive or are terms of endearment. There's a good example in one of Steve Coogan's 'Alan Partridge' shows which riffs with this particular theme. For non-UK readers Alan Partridge is a genius comic creation, an crassly inept radio and TV broadcaster from Norwich.
In this particular episode, Partridge has a phone-in link on his local radio show with the real-life DJ and broadcaster, Keith Chegwin - 'Cheggers'.
Trying to be matey and to show everyone that he's on such good terms with the famous 'Cheggers' that he can get away with calling him names, Partridge (played by Coogan of course), greets him by saying, 'Ah, Cheggers you cunt!'
At which the apoplectic 'Cheggers' splurts, 'Wha-aa-att?! What did you just call me!!!'
At any rate, I don't think the c-word has lost its capacity to shock and offend here in the UK. It's not as if everyone goes round using it as a mild expletive. It's still a very strong one. Yet the strength of it varies according to context - which, this being the UK, is often determined by very subtle class distinctions as well as regional variations.
It may not be the case among feminists in the US but here it's quite common for women to 'reclaim' the term or use it in a subversive way, in a similar way to how black people may deploy the 'n-word' in order to draw its racist sting.
The British poet Deborah Alma prefaced her debut collection, 'True Tales of The Countryside' with the declaration, 'I put a pen in my cunt once ...' and the ensuing pungent and sometimes disturbing poems - about domestic abuse, loss, love and death - are presumably what it wrote.
Yes, it shocks, it catches you with a jolt. It's meant to.
I don't know where most of the Brits on the Ship live, exactly. I just know there have been a bunch of them saying "cunt" isn't all that offensive.
Clearly there is no consensus. So pleas about voluntarily abstaining from using "cunt" will fall on at least some deaf ears. Posters can all act like the adults they presumably are and make their own choices about using this word. We'll know from that who doesn't care about alienating a certain subset of shipmates.
A voluntary ban implies there is an element of choice. If someone decides not follow it, there’s no official comeback. The worst that can happen is they lose some people’s respect or get called out.
A convention that a word is not used, with my Admin Tiara on, implies that there isn’t a choice and someone is expected to ensure that happens and do something about it when it doesn’t. Something official.
Now, I get the whole courtesy thing. And I agree it would be great if people responded respectfully when told they’d done something offensive or inappropriate because of x or y. But people aren’t like that. Sometimes they simply don’t get it. However well it’s explained. There is no official sanction for that.
Don’t be that person if – or more likely when – you’re taken aside and told that word(s) you’ve used have unwanted cultural baggage or are less acceptable now because language has moved on.
Women don't have to be on the same page. If one person finds it offensive, it's possibly offensive. As it turns out a large number of women find it offensive. Does it stop being offensive if you can turn up ten women who don't? That doesn't make any sense. It's like the Republican Party finding some black guy who thinks blacks don't deserve to vote, or something weird like that. Does that say ANYTHING about whether or not blacks should be allowed to vote? Of course not. Why should finding a woman (or three or a hundred) who don't find "the c word" offensive say anything at all about whether or not the women who do, should?
I have consistently been saying, "These women here find it offensive." I have also been told that men need to be allies of women and speak out when other men demean or belittle them -- our silence adds to the oppression. Perhaps I took this a little too literally. I'm relieved I don't actually have to DO anything after all to bring about sexual equality.
I therefore find the assertion that “this is all about good manners” incredibly hard to swallow.
A few years back, somebody posted about how they found the word ‘dad’ upsetting and harrowing for personal reasons. That’s tough, but I didn’t see anyone suggesting we should ban the word ‘dad’ on these boards.
I’ve used the C word on these boards once, like Karl, quoting it. I’d never use it as a pejorative, but as a Brit, it’s only slightly more offensive than Fuck.
Up until now I had no idea that it was so much more offensive in the US and Canada. Certainly, as Nick suggests, I’ll be aware of that in my interactions with those from the other side of the pond, and try to be sensitive.
However, I too take exception with the suggestion that the culture on this boards should be dictated by any one group. I get that it’s more offensive now, but I won’t promise that I’d never use it again, especially in a thread that is more British (FYI, I used it on the Brexit thread).
Just as I wouldn’t want to keep saying ‘dad dad dad’ to the poster that found that word harrowing, but wouldn’t eliminate ‘dad’ from my vocabulary entirely.
I am. Regardless of the fact that it can mean the nastiest kind of person, and in truth I have used it on myself in that way, it is a sexual assault word; its use by a heterosexual male in public is a form of verbal sexual assault, actual intimidation.
But otherwise, yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to say.
Oh no... the thread lasted long enough to summon Martin.
Ok, I'll bite. Why do the men in question have to be heterosexual?
White Knight: 1) A man who stands up for a womens right to be an absolute equal, but then steps up like a white knight to rescue her any time that equality becomes a burden.
I have been looking at the posts that say it is not that offensive in the UK - It must be contextual - because in my part of the world it is see as very offensive and one of the worst swear words, much more offensive than the 'f' word.
No-one's saying it's inoffensive. However, it seems to be far less offensive than it is in the US. I don't think many UKians would suggest that it should never be used, even when quoting verbatim.
There are certainly social contexts in which it is non-offensive, within certain bounds - one could in those contexts (which I grant are hard to define) refer to a very good friend, to his face, as "a daft c***" if he did something particularly stupid - I can imagine for example a car mechanic so referring to a colleague who had just tried to turn over an engine with the battery disconnected. From what I'm learning from USAians, this is unlikely to be the case there.
Shouted at a stranger, it is indeed highly offensive, report of which was what set this whole thing off.
Yeah you do. Find a way to support the women over here without deeming or belittling the women with different opinions over there. Because the women over there have been shouted at, had N-bombs thrown at them and been mansplained too.
I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve felt my arguments are being dismissed because I’m the wrong sort of women voicing a contrary opinion to a bloke on the Ship rather than because they’re crap.
So you agree then that men should completely stay out of issues concerning women's rights. Or by your smear here seem to be saying so.
Hmmm. I certainly can't claim to speak for all Americans, male or female, hi-lo-mid class, etc. But the example Karl raises -- that of the casual name-calling by an auto mechanic -- makes me realize that casual name-calling may (stress MAY) be a class issue, which is acutely thorny on the US side of the puddle. First, an alarming proportion of Americans go right on proclaiming that "class" doesn't exist in this society, despite MASSIVE evidence of increasingly rigid class barriers which (on this side, anyway) get defined in terms of wealth and status. The issue of class may be experienced and expressed differently in UK, as it seems unlikely that many Brits subscribe to a wholesale denial that there's any such animal.
Casual name-calling, esp. when it includes rude words, is something Americans probably associate with lower class status (to the extent that Americans admit that class exists here). The construction workers who cat-call women in the street -- it's all very well to object to this behavior on feminist grounds (which many Americans do), but in reality, this is also a class issue (which Americans hardly ever claim). The underpaid, occasionally-employed blue-collar guy harassing the steadily-employed (if also underpaid) receptionist on her way to work is meant not just as a comment on her sex but also tries to "bring her down" to his own social level.
So I can readily see that scenario -- two day laborers using the c-word that way -- playing out in the US. What I have more trouble seeing is this usage getting any traction among US Shipmates. Why? Because the education system (so-called) in this country is so rigidly class-based that any blue-collar intermittently-employed laborers from the US among Shipmates are in that status either through deliberate, considered choice (rather than by being born into it) or through suffering some personal catastrophe. In short, the US folk claiming "Way Too Offensive!" about the c-word are flying (US) middle-class colors, and blithely ignoring the fact that the blue-collar / working poor US Shipmate is as rare as hen's teeth among habitues of this forum, but are probably as likely as British counterparts to sling the c-word about.
The general apparent superiority of the UK educational system means that it's possible that a higher percentage of "working class" Brits may find a home aboard here; they can cope with the class difference (because they don't deny it exists); they can cope with the academic differences (because they're better-educated to start with); they can hold their own in this crowd in ways that few working-class Americans could -- even if such folks had the time to do so, which (with their 2-3 low-wage jobs and shredded social safety net) they don't.
It seems to me that Rule No.1 of upholding women's rights is to allow women to defend them first and foremost wherever possible (as is clearly the case here). Especially when the issue is one that relates directly to their anatomy and not mine.
Also, what @Ruth said.