It becomes a fighting word. So is "prick". There are many words like it.  
 
It is  all contextual.

Guess it's why I always picture "cunt" as derogatory.  Society, through whatever means, has placed the public use of the word "cunt" as a slam word.  Sexually and in the privacy of one's abode, I think it's equally a turn on but if only used by the woman.

didnt read ur essay but its a nicer word than >

T w a t ! That 1 really pisses people off .

Personally; "cunt" evokes thoughts of a scheming, duplicitous female who uses her sexuality too manipulate and hurt.

"Twat"; merely brings thoughts of brainless mucus membrane leaving snail tracks and stains where ever it goes.

"Pussy" is just a benign and much less clinical euphemism for vagina or vulva.

But if someone calls me The N Word, you'll be blacklisted forever in my book.  
Those two words are most definitely not on the same level, believe me.

Just going to start by saying that it's hard to pick apart the connotation of any word (short of having documented history of said word) because we just take connotations for granted. They have that connotation because...well, they just do...lol.  

Despite Mr. Mellors' exhortations to the contrary...'cunt' is inglorious and just crude. I'm not sure of the history of the word...but, I'd make a guess that 'fuck' and 'cunt' had similarly crude associations in those times (and were perhaps more incendiary then than now)? So he's taking something usually frowned upon as 'dirty' and trying to lend an aura of beauty and sensualism to it...as (if I'm remembering right) is his role in the book. So rather than proving that cunt CAN be a beautiful thing...he's basically just taking the crudest two words he can muster to make his point - which is, that what society finds  dirty is actually very sensual and beautiful. But it doesn't mean that he had different associations of the word...just different ideas of sex than society.  

Anyway, I don't find 'cunt' sexy or erotic. It's purely crude, that's all there is to it. To call a woman's 'cunt' a cunt is view her PURELY as a sexual object, in the crudest, most animalistic sense. Not in an erotic sense. Which some people might find erotic - again, in a purely animalistic sense, though.

Twat I find kind of diminutive...kind of like 'tacos' and 'sausages'. Pussy I prefer, but I find it a bit ridiculous to refer to mine that way. In conversation, I prefer 'ladyparts'. But, that's slightly old-fashioned and pussy is a bit more appropriate during sex...

The only word analogous to 'cunt' for males is 'dick'. Both refer to genitals, both can also be used as an insult. But to me, 'dick' is gentler...and it embodies a sense of masculinity. When you refer to a guy as a 'dick'...you mean that he's a jerk, he 'has balls', he has a bit too much testosterone, perhaps.  

Maybe because guys celebrate their sexual prowess while the same can be frowned upon in a woman?

A feminist view is that use of that word reduces a woman to "a single body part". Nothing else matters, she can be insulted and disregarded as being a product of that one piece of her body. Even other words are more complex like "bitch" or "pussy" (the latter can be used to insult men as well).

It's not my view but it's a theory

There is a great old film starring Daniel Day Lewis called My Left Foot.

In the movie, Lewis plays a young man who is totally paralyzed from birth except for the use of his left foot which foot empowers him to learn to do all the things in life a man must do and then some.

There is a scene where his caretaker:  A gorgeous young woman whom Lewis have obviously developed a crush on tells Lewis that she is engaged to be married.

The next scene took my soul from the depths of sorrow to the acme of relief.

Lewis, whose character is prone to stutter anyways, goes:

cun, cun, cun, cun, cun, cun...gratulations

Such is the power of the word.

Sorry,

I fell asleep reading the novel.

its common in Australia

Hi There Guys

We say it all the time down under and I say it losely here in the States.
I luff the shock factor.

Aussie Alley

xo

An older guy (probably one of my dad's friends) asked me, "What's the difference between a pussy and a cunt?" I said something like, "I don't know. Same thing!"
He said, "Nope. A pussy is a nice warm, wet, wonderful thing. A cunt is the thing that owns it!"
I believe he was going through a divorce at the time.

How can anyone read that crap? WTF language is that? I couldn't even read a sentence, let alone the book!
But I saw the movie with Silvia Krystal (I actually liked "Young Lade Chatterley" with Harley McBride better )

There are only 2 good reasons for calling someone a cunt...

Ricky Gervais:

There are only 2 good reasons for calling someone a cunt...

1. If you really mean it.
2. If you don't really mean it.

I'd have to concur.

C.U.N.T. means = Cannot Understand Normal Thinking!
That is why the word has so much power, when used
in a negative manner.

For a long time in the English language (when English was largely a Germanic based language), "cunt" was literally the only word used to describe female genitalia,and it wasn't necessarily considered a vulgar word. Then England was invaded and occupied by the French during the Norman Conquest of 1066. Norman French (which was a Latin based language) soon became the only language spoken by the aristocracy and upper classes, while the surf and lower classes were still speaking Old English. Thus, it was considered to be a crude language; Words like "fuck" and "cunt" were (and still are) considered to be the most vulgar words of all, especially when compared to Latin based equivalents like "fornicate" and "vagina.

C U Next Tuesday or Thursday

-- Modified on 10/13/2013 3:24:37 AM