I've noticed that people tend to act surprised, or even dismayed, when I say fuck. Or motherfucker. Or fucking. I think, among my parents' generation especially, fuck is a really bad word. I've been told by one of my friends that her father considers it the mark of an uneducated mind. You can accuse me of a lot of things, but that's not one of them. I don't use fuck because I don't know what other word to use. I use fuck because I think it's a great word. And I really forget that it's taboo. I use the words ass, shit, damn, crap and hell. I'll use words like pr&ck, d#ck, p*@sy and c@nt. Here's what I think about words.
Words are words are words. (And I only inserted other characters in those words so that perverted people don't come looking at my site expecting to see those things. It's mainly for protection against icky people and spam.) I think taboos are stupid. The reason so many of us use those words so profusely is that we, once upon a time, were forbidden to use them. And I think that the only thing that makes them bad is that you think they're bad. For instance, I know of people that won't say shit, because it is profane. But they think nothing of yelling, "Poop!" when something goes wrong. Same meaning. Both of us are saying the same thing--whether it be "You are a stinking pile of excrement" or "Excrement! This is no good." But in our heads, and this has been drilled in, shit is such a bad word. Do I think shit is being normalized? Of course it is. In the same was that damn and crap have for the most part been neutralized. Ass isn't far behind damn and crap, as far as I'm concerned.
We all know, though, that the WORST non-sexual word is fuck. Though, it's not non-sexual, is it? But still, people reserve a particular shudder for words like p$%sy and c#$t especially. I'm okay with both words. I'd rather not hear them used in derogatory ways, but I've used the words pr*&k, c%ck and d$ck in derogatory ways. What's fair is fair, I guess. Anyway, back to fuck. I don't really want to talk about the ways men and women use each other's sex organs as insults. Frankly, if you're trying to get into the opposite sex's pants, I don't know why you'd use their organs as an insult, but whatever. I do it all the time. Enough about that.
Fuck is a really satisfying word. Is it satisfying because it was once taboo? Or just because it's word that rolls off the tongue really well? There are a lot of words I like to say just because they sound fun. For instance, palimpsest. But how in the world can I use palimpsest in a sentence? No clue. I suppose I could just scream palimpsest when I hurt myself. Though it's long and unwieldy in a screaming situation. I also secretly love the word bloody. Though if I used that in public, I have a feeling I'd sound incredibly stupidly like some weird Madonna (I wish I was a Brit) clone. So I use fuck. It's an all-around word as well; one of it's best uses is as an adjective. Regardless, when it comes out of my mouth, very often I forget that I'm not supposed to be saying it. I try not to say it in front of people that I know would instantly hate me if I said it, like parents that are not my own, and grandparents. I also try not to say it in class, because the women in my classes are pretty traditional and conservative, which, if I may say so, spells doom for the American library. But that's another subject for another day.
I probably write with fuck about half of the time. On this blog, it pops up, especially if I am writing colloquially. That is, if I'm writing as I would speak, I use the word fuck. In more formal writing, I avoid it. I imagine, sometimes, that I must sound like a pirate's woman, or some sort of (dear me) a jezebel. But sometimes, I think that I've taken the notion that women should be "polite young ladies" and said "No thank you." I don't want to be treated with the delicacy of a "lady", nor do I think I somehow deserve that sort of treatment. This again is another topic, the pressure for women to be "nice" but scheming, and the pressure to be "ladylike", which though seems like it might be outdated, is really nice. The flack I can get for not being a "nice girl" is sick. But I'm off topic. Maybe another day.
Fuck. I need to do homework. Or, fucking homework; I don't want to do it. Or, fuck it, I'm not doing any homework.
But, fuck it all, I know I'm going to. In a minute.
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