The thing I realised is that all my worst insults for men revolve around the penis and/or sexual habits e.g. ‘He’s such a dickhead/cock/wanker/tosser/fucker’. This has been causing me problems because well, I like to masturbate and to have sex, and since I am trying to train myself out of the religious-based guilt for those things, using those phrases now I keep getting hit with the thought of ‘why is having a wank a bad thing?’. Which leaves me stuck for words for highly annoying/nasty men. Damn it!

I’ve never used cunt as an expletetive and it always makes me cringe when I hear it. The way it’s used implies that a vagina is the worst possible thing to have and to be an owner of one, well why do you bother to exist? OTOH, it’s the one euphemism for my vuvla & vagina that I actually like. Slit/gash/pussy/fanny/minge all don’t sit well. They’re just not as good as dick/cock are.

Also, anyone else notice the genderfication of bitch/bastard for women/men who behave in ways that specifically displease us? It bothers me but again, both words just roll off the tongue so well!

I did have an extremely embarrassing moment a few years ago though related to swearing. My eldest daughter, at age 3, started saying ‘shit’ after hearing me say it A LOT, so I had to go to her child care centre and confess to her carers that if she started swearing like a sailor it was my fault.

Their solution was to teach the kids the word ‘donk’ to use instead of shit or fuck. To this day (4 years on) I find it an almost acceptable substitute. Not quite as satisfying as fuck but much more accepted in polite company.

So now I have to make a conscious effort to tamp it down in situations where it’s absolutely not appropriate, like in a professor’s office hours or at the dinner table with Rev. and Mrs. Brennan. I usually use the four-letters as modifiers, but when I started taking riding lessons, I discovered they make very good expletives when your horse runs away on you. I joke that that’s why I’m not allowed to take lessons with kids anymore. I also swear a lot in the car, which is the only time I direct it towards *people* (pedestrians and other drivers). I’m gonna have to stop because now that I live in the city, I’m biking a lot and discovering that it carries over . . . only now the pedestrians can hear me.

‘cock juggling thundercunt’ ?

And how, exactly, is this to be considered derogatory?
I can think of no better petard by which to hoist me – excepting maybe ‘Thalidomide Stump Sucker’ – than cock-juggling thundercunt.

Inga Muscio would have women reclaim the word ‘cunt’, rejecting its negative connotations and reincarnating it as a symbol of women’s power and strength.
Embrace it!
Own it!
Live it!

When I teach I make sure that I don’t swear, though once I did (I dropped an overhead projector on my foot). I will use more common vernacular especially to connect with students and it seems to work.

As an Aussie, swearing is something that seems to be in the water – it happens naturally, and could almost be a national past-time.

I use a variety of swear words, whatever seems to roll off my tongue is said (whether under my breath or out loud). I sometimes can drop that “c” word. Though as I understand one part of the etymology of the word “cunt” – it comes from the latin for deep dark hole.. so I at times will call a person or thing a “deep dark hole” and sometimes saying that is far more satisfying than the c-bomb..