The Dreaded "C" Word

Everybody knows what I'm talking about when I say the "C" word.  To avoid putting anybody off, I won't spell it all out.  But if you really can't figure out what I'm trying to say, I'll give you a hint.  It has four letters.  C***.  I was probably in the ninth grade when I heard it for the first time.  Me and my girlfriends were watching a lovely little movie filled with all sorts of horrid scenarios called "Welcome to the Dollhouse."  I didn't know what it meant when I heard it, but judging by my girlfriend's reactions I knew it was bad.

I spent the next few months thinking that c*** was an insult equivalent to bitch, but times a thousand.  Therefore, I never used it.  But once I found out that it actually meant vagina, I thought, "so how is that a bad thing, then?"  And still, years later, I don't understand why it is as bad a word as people think it is.  Isn't it just the equivalent of p*ssy?  I guess not, though.  Most young women take such offense to that word that they prefer it not to even be spoken around them.  They can't even fathom uttering the word themselves.  I can say that I've said c*** before, as casually and comfortably as any other curse word I've said in the past.  Normally people are okay with my trucker mouth, but the moment I say c*** all eyes drop to the floor.

In my lit class the other day the professor uttered the word out of context.  We had to read a few particularly raunchy poems about premature ejaculations and acts of sexual reciprocation, a discussion of which no one can fathom having with his or her professor.  As the professor read selected lines to dissect the word c*** came up quite a few times.  I was sitting in the back row, so I could not see other people's reactions to the word, but I'm guessing the word did not sit so well with everyone.  But what I found so interesting about this poem was that it was written, I believe, in the 1600s.  Was it solely the context of an erotic poem that made the word acceptable?  Or did it become an insult over time?  I guess my question in, why is it an insulting word today?  Why are women so devastated when they are called a c***?  If it is truly insulting, is it not the equivalent of calling a man a d***?  I've heard no, no it's worse.  But why?  Why is it worse to be called a female sex organ than a male sex organ?  Are both not areas of pleasure and peculiarity?  Perhaps my failure to be insulted by the word makes me an exception.  Maybe it is everyone else who is right to find the word upsetting, and I am just being strange by not thinking so.  Maybe, but I don't find many curse words insulting.  Except motherf*****.  Now there's a word deserving of disgust.  It is coincidentally also my favorite curse word.

Forever the honest,
Stephanie Lato