Cunt

My little sister was recently chastised by some Canadians for her use of the C-word (not ‘Canada’).

It occurs to me in this instance that we are culturally British, although brought up entirely in this maple-beaver-hockey country.

My British Dad called pretty much everyone a cunt. We didn’t bat an eye. We were aware that this was not a polite term, but growing up, we were completely unaware that for Canadians, the word ‘cunt’ is much more abominable than, for example, ‘prick’, ‘cock’ or ‘dick’, which are rather well tolerated even in mixed company.

Do women need to “own” the word ‘cunt’ just as black people own the N-word? Do women want to own it? Is it bad or good that ‘dick’ is OK but ‘cunt’ isn’t?

I can’t make these decisions.

I suppose the obvious solution is to avoid using profanity.

Just to prove to any Canadians (I suppose Americans are similar in their abhorrence of ‘cunt’) that Brits just use English differently, here are Dudley Moore and Peter Cook having a casual conversation in their native tongue. Let us refer to this as “Exhibit A” – this is how British people talk: