Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Talking Blue: of cunts and cocks

For the longest time I was particularly sensitivity to the fact that words or phrases I consider deliciously dirty and exciting could easily fall flat and turn off a partner. A prime example is cunt - a word considered so despicable that it pretty much never makes an appearance unless a person wants to degrade a woman.

I can't understand when this perfectly fine word became so vile. Why is it being used for insults? Truth be told, we really need it for sex talk. Cunt isn't even slang. Its usage can be confirmed as early as 1230 A.D. according to the O.E.D. It seems likely that cunt derived from the proper words for female genitals used by the Norse (kunta) and German (kuntun) invaders who settled England during the Dark Ages.

Now why do I think cunt has to be taken back from the list of taboo words? First off, it makes for a perfect verbal pairing with cock. In addition, the word itself associates with a tone of serious sexual business. Use it and everyone knows you're not talking about absent minded, fumbling screwing. The short, punchy sound of cunt evokes an atmosphere of fucking. And by that I mean serious, mind blowing fucking that leaves everyone passed out in a sticky-sweaty pile of exhausted human bodies. Use the word cunt in your sex talk and it's pretty much clear this is where you want to take your partner.

So how do we bring back cunt into usage as a non-insulting sexy word? The fact that I even care has a lot to do with how I have a serious weakness for hearing my long-time sub Simone talk dirty. Hearing her say cock in any context pretty much makes me weak at the knees. Then again, Simone can pretty much make any word beginning with "C" sound delicious. Cock, Caress, Cum... Unfortunately, early in our relationship, cunt remained firmly verboten. Maybe it was just the excitement of inducing a sub to go beyond her stated limits, but de-stigmatizing cunt became a conscious goal of mine.

Sex talk between partners can become a private code and it helps to explicitly ask each other what words turn you on or off. But when I asked Simone whether she thought there were any sexy words for the vagina, she couldn't think of any. So I explained my own reasons for why cunt excited me as a word and watched her blanche. An inauspicious start, but at least I did get across the idea that cunt was never a term of insult for me. Next, I started to slowly use the word in our sex talk. I did it more often as time went by. This served as a kind of training. My repeating the word actually desensitized Simone to the shock value of cunt. And once that shock value was lost, Simone was actually able to use the word herself. Largely because she knew that I liked it - but also because she saw the undeniable truth that if you're going to be saying cock, it makes sense to say cunt in the same breath.