All Comments on 'Covering Up the Naked Truth'

Reminds me of the footballer who was out with his new girlfriend in the cinema. As they snuggled together she turned to him and asked him, "Have you ever felt a cunt?" "Yes," he replied, "that time when I missed a penalty against Manchester United!"

I don't have much to dispute with you on the points you made. I think it is grotesque that, even today, several biographies blatantly portray women as sleeping their way to the top (author/diplomat Clare Boothe Luce, diplomat Pamela Harriman, Vicerine of India Lady Edwina Mountbatten, naturalist Joy Adamson, journalist Jessica Savitch) -- sometimes not blatantly, but all are shown as extremely sub-intelligent women who would never have made it if they hadn't climbed the ladder (Luce, Adamson and Savitch also had abortions). During Bryant Gumbel/Jane Pauley's tenure on the Today Show, he used that very word to describe her often, apparently because she didn't have his work ethic (nobody did). If I had been on the show and called Gumbel what I thought HE was, the network would have gone to black instantly, and security would have picked up the nearest camera and clobbered me with it. The war of vicious insults is very convenient. One thing you seem to have left out is that sometimes women use vile words toward women. (Been there.) One thing that is also true is that a whole lot of men don't understand women at all and have stereotypes about their personalities. Anyway, thanks for the essay and I may contact you separately to discuss how to avoid stereotyping women in stories (I'm male).

Very unfeminine. May I refer you to paragraph fourteen, sentence number one? I rest my case. Also, where did you get the idea that menstruation is Eve's eternal punishment for original sin? Certainly not from Catholicism. You write well, obvious college educated. Woman's Studies major, I presume?

Don't listen to him, I was taught in Catholic school that we have cramps and bleed because Eve ate the apple. Even though it doesn't say it in the Bible. When has that ever stopped anyone from saying stupid shit!

I loved it, and thought it was absolutely right on!

Looks like you've hit a nerve with a previous commenter, but I think your article pretty much hits the nail on the head. Women have gotten the shaft (literally and figuratively) for thousands of years. It's been less than 100 years since US American women have had the ability to vote. Now we see women serving in the military, airline captains, and other once-male-only positions. Slowly but surely, women are gaining on the male. You may see a woman president in your lifetime. Still, you may still hear "cunt" as a derogatory term. I suppose society is what it is--and it's going to take a long time to change it.

I take issue with two points in particular. First I would not equate equality with sameness as you appear to. There are issues which you identify which have a greater impact on women yet there are many such as life expectancy, crime, education and family law where men come off worse. Second I do not agree that Western women face - insurmountable obstacles. - A rich young girl has far better options than a poor young boy in our society. -- UK CYNIC

You've learned the craft of writing very well. I've never openly called a woman a 'cunt,' but I must admit I thought about it once or twice. I've been called an 'asshole' a few times by women (my wife spat the word out in anger as I was walking out the door.) I think 'asshole' and 'cocksucker' rank right down there with 'cunt.' "Prick" is so commonplace now it doesn't have the sting it used to.

All my life I've worshiped the female body. When God created Eve, He gave her so many charms that irresistible women are everywhere.

Actually, I never use any specific word for the vagina when making love to a woman. It's always in praise of "your lips, your taste, your sweet, sweet smell..."

I beg to differ with you on one point: Erin Andrews of ESPN did not post the video of her naked body while she was getting dressed, on the Internet. The man who shot the scene through a hotel room peephole has been arrested and charged.

Finally, I believe that your mind is as attractive as any of your other charms, and I hope you continue to contribute to this forum.

With all the problems in the world for women. With women in countries being killed by their families for not completely covering their bodies or for speaking to men. And the other crimes against women being committed and you have a problem with a word! T have been called words by women with axes to grind that had nothing at all to do with me, I assume they lack self control and go on with my life. If you want to ride a horse into battle charge into the trend to put women back in life over ten centuries. I have a wonderful wife and three daughters and one granddaughter and I dont want them to live a life in which they are not free to pursue education, employment, or love.

Wow...I don't feel right trying to fit all the corrections needed here in the comment box, so I won't. Long story short, this is grossly exaggerated nonsense that only a person being brainwashed by graduate-level feminist classes would actually believe. Out here, in the real world? Women are actually their harshest critics in terms of looks, insults to women are more "forbidden" because they are seen as more morally wrong (so, really, that's a BONUS for women, who can call guys cocks, pricks, and assholes all day without a reprimand), and the vast majority of women do not consider themselves, and are not considered by men, to be frigid or a slut, but just whoever they are.

With made up statistics like "25% of American women have been or will be raped", we see the real problem; out-of-touch, modern day preachers, blowing everything out of proportion to sell a cure or a change. These same nuts, the fringe of society (and yes, there is an opposite fringe), who call every white person racist, every middle-aged person ageist, every man sexist, and every rich person something along the line of "poor-hating scrooge bastard", are simply irrelevant. Don't listen to them, listen to the other 299 million Americans who know better.

Is that they believe other people are interested in what they have to say.

At the end of the day they are just a bunch of cunts.

I thought "cunt" was like liberating now or something thanks to the Vagina Monologues?

CUNT is truly an acronym meaning "CAN'T UNDERSTAND NORMAL THINKING", as in the phrase "dumb cunt". None of the men I know have ever associated the word cunt with unclean, dirty, or bleeding female genitalia. Cunt is on parallel with pussy, only dumber!

This ultra feminist, male hating essay just proves the true meaning of the word.

It's not that I don't agree with you, at least I agree with some of what you say. However, in my time on this earth, I am 40 by the way, I have known very sexy gorgous woman who have been complete bitches, sorry but it's the only way to describe them. I have known average looking woman who have been really nice people and go out of their way to help people.

I have also known rich really stuck up women insult these average but on the whole better women. I have equally known attractive rich men who have really been the salt of the earth type people who will help anyone. Young, old, fat, thin, ugly beautiful it doesn't matter these types of men will help women. But again there are other rich men and poor men who degrade and humiliate women simply because they can and they get a kick out of it.

There are just as many woman who do the same thing in fact woman can be far more cutting in their remarks than some men.

So my point is that it is very hard to tar anyone group of people with the same brush. And just because men, apparently, use the word cunt more than women, I don't think that proves anything.

By the way I have read your stories and you are very good.

I don't mean your essay, but the negative comments. Not that I agree with everything you say, but you do make some cogent points. I have long (> 60 years) wondered why the angry, frustrated (and often hateful) attitude men often show toward women. The conclusion I have come to is that it is often the result of an irreconcilable conflict between unconscious attraction (pheromones?)and an impossibility of realization. The battle each male has between the built-in human "I want that!" and the puritanical "I musn't want that!" (and "In any event I know I won't get it.") The drive for sex and the drive for love (related but not the same) is very basic, and much stronger than most are willing to admit, or even understand. This often leads to foolish behavior, on the part of men towards women, and also in the other direction.

Anyway, I enjoyed your essay: provacative and worth reading.

Very well-written, thanks for a good read. The patriarchy of Christianity does vastly more brainwashing and destructive thought-programming in the area of sex than "graduate-level feminist classes". Like you suggest, these words are about control, and it's always a good thing to agitate and pull away the wool.

the last comment missd the point. While technically well enough written the basic assumptions are wrong. The comment makes the point of feminist classes as less destructive than traditional religious brainwashing. Ok but still damaging then? Or is it payback rather than equality that is the feminist goal? -- UK CYNIC

I'm glad I read your essay. There's so much to comment on--I don't know where to begin.

I agree with your overall message that women still have a long way to go before society reaches equality for all women (and also races and sexualities). There is something wrong about "reclaiming" words such as "cunt" and "nigger." How can one use a degrading word to empower themselves? But I do disagree with bashing people for their moral beliefs. The religious system may be ruled by men, but most religions are based on universal and timeless moral truths. If people took seriously ideals such as integrity and compassion, I believe we would be living an a whole different world right now.

Unfortunately, I see that a few people did not take well to your essay, and I think a reason is that feminism has been framed to have such strong, negative connotations. More women should be educated on gender issues, so keep writing! Yet, more importantly, as a good writer, think about those women out there who have been so cultivated in believing the "thin" "perfect" "virgin-whore" ideal. It's somewhat ironic that this essay is written on this site, which is a part of an industry that also debases women. Nevertheless, good luck!!!

You've written a very insightful essay. I find it fascinating that so many of those who have commented on it mistakenly see it as an attack on men. They miss the point that it is a critique of our culture, and that (most) women are as implicated in the cultural practices that make female sexuality and beauty problematic as are men. You write:

the culture we eat, sleep, crap, and breathe indoctrinates us to see our vaginas and our sexuality in a dangerous and humiliating fashion.

Absolutely true. Men who enjoy sex are mostly celebrated. Women who enjoy sex are... generally not. More often they're reviled, feared (albeit often at an unconscious level), considered "bad" women. As Tony said to Annette in 1977 in Saturday Night Fever, a girl's gotta decide whether she's "gonna be a nice girl or a cunt." Still a widely-held norm. There's no such forced choice for men. Apparently unbridled female sexuality is just too frightening to contemplate.

The stories that I enjoy the most on this site are those that in effect celebrate women who embrace their sexuality in a positive way and celebrate the men who participate in and enjoy that. That's sex-positive in a way that avoids the good girl-cunt dichotomy.

Keep up the good work. Your ideas are thoughtful; your writing is first rate. I've enjoyed many of your contributions.

Thank you for giving pause for thought. Sweet O.

I've read your essay and all the comments. I agree with the arguments in your essay and find it quite ironic that a great deal of the criticism of your essay actually illustrates, to a greater or lessor degree, precisely what you are talking about. The presumption of men who argue against a woman relating how she has experienced life is hard to imagine until you see it in some of these responses.

On the other hand, when the privileged are challenged on their privileges, one must expect opposition like that seen here. Feminist studies are impuned because their arguments threaten privileges that men have become habituated to. It is easier to deride feminist ideas, per se, than to actually refute them with valid arguments-the old ad hominem operating. Also, just because some people are nasty and others are not does not really constitute an argument against the existence of systemic privilege that favours white men over all other groups on the planet. This fact of life remains true even though there are many white men (like me) who are financially far worse off than a great many rich women of colour. I can understand in spite of my lack of means that I am still systemically favoured as a white man and that this is an injustice that needs to be addressed before we can sit back and say that we have achieved a just society.

Those who have a sense of entitlement will always be able to find rationalizations to try to shut the oppressed up, whether those oppressed are women, people of colour, workers, migrants, etc.

As far as the word “cunt” is concerned, I don't deny anything the writer says about her experience of the word and all the destructive negativity that has accumulated around the word, but nothing turns me on more than a woman who speaks freely of her “cunt,” that part of her anatomy that is the gateway to the magic of life and pleasure. I suppose you can trivialize my response to cunts by describing me as “cunt-struck” but that is just another use of words to deride the fascination with the pleasures and mysteries that cunts can have for men. The word “cunt” also adds an aura of power to women, and the celebration of woman's power can fuel the intensity of the pleasure I derive from woman and offer to woman. It is not a case of naming to control but an awe that, in the mindful presence of the feminine one has to accept ones own limitations to understanding reality without forfeiting enjoyment of or gratitude for reality. The jack-boot of patriarchy, however, just smashes what it doesn't understand and feels threatened by. No amount of macho bluster is a sufficient counter-argument to convince me otherwise.

It is interesting that cunt evolved from the Anglo Saxon roots of English (and Chaucer spelled it queynte as well as quaint so that the etymology of quaint is, thanks to Chaucer, “cunt.”—A quent queynte, "a quaint cunt" is definitely going to feature in my next poem) but that the male equivalent in our language was lost to the euphemistic “cock.” The Anglo Saxon word for penis seems to have been “yard.” As late as 1684, Steven Blankaart, in his “Physical Dictionary” defined the word penis as “the Yard, made up of two nervous Bodies, the Channel, Nut, Skin, and Fore-skin, etc.”

Not sure if I agree with all your points, but I enjoy reading you nonetheless. I hope you continue to write.

Interesting thoughts, you might want to look at the etymology of Pussy though, it's use as an insult dates back to before its use as a term for a vulva. Calling a man a pussy inferred he was easily frightened like a cat. Not saying a jock is thinking about cats when he uses it.

I'm a feminist from old days and have an egalitarian relationship with my wife but I have still found cause to use the word Cunt. On occasion she has been cruel and hateful in the heat of an argument and it seemed like the only term that fit but the more common usage is during rough-ish sub/dom sex where Cunt takes on a meaning as an analog for Vagina that expresses the animalistic primal way I want to fuck it and cum in it. In this way her mouth, ass and pussy are all Cunts and it turns us both on immensely when used this way.

We need these powerful, earthy words. Maybe in generations to come words like "penis" and "vagina" will have shed their sense of anatomical distance, but they haven't yet. In the meantime we lack any other substantive expression that captures the raw strength and mysterious of the female sex organ.

As long as cunt is a forbidden word, all we are left with is the sappy diminutive, "pussy." Or such anemic, literary constructs as "love tunnel," "love channel," or (shudder)"womanhood."

Here on Literotica, of all places, we should be able to use the word, cunt, with all the sexy abandon and celebration that the female sex deserves. How can any of us enjoy great sex if we can't even talk about it?

Thanks, Claudette, for bringing up the subject.

Sorry. My wife calls her cunt her cunt. I call her cunt her cunt. Neither of us is abusing or insulting or demeaning her. "Cunt" is an old word. Take a look at its origins. It's also, during sex, an arousing word. You seem to be taking the recent pejorative use of the word, which sometimes is used to degrade people as its only use. I say "people," for calling someone a cunt is an insult—like pussy—for both women and MEN, for example in the novel Train Spotting. Yes—it is an insult in THIS context.

Then there's D. H. Lawrence. "Thou art cunt," says the gamekeeper to Lady Chatterly. Lovingly.

Go read some books and stop telling people what and what not to say. Cure your own neurosis.

you're not going to get me to stop using that word because it fits in some cases. a woman fucks another woman's husband, not caring that when caught it will cause destruction and pain, or a woman cheats, husband divorces her unfaithful ass (no reason for her to do so is assumed in this instance) and wishes half of assets, support etc . these are dark evil rotten actions. the word fits here and for you whiny feminist cunts, who hate MEN who wont put up with your shit behavior and im a victim crap. feel free to not bother any man for anything, we will not miss you

Older male here. Your essay is thoughtful, well stated, provocative and, most importantly, accurate. Thank you. While many (certainly most males) use cunt to demean, insult, control and insult, I take the position that calling a woman a cunt is the most beautiful, positive and wonderful appelation possible. When being a cunt or slut becomes something to celebrate, not condemn, then we will have stopped chasing the fires and have the fire starters on the run.

Like I’ve always said, don’t be a cunt.

- Jim Jefferies

Another older male here (76) with two daughters, two granddaughters, and two great granddaughters. Long aware of the culturally inherent prerogatives of being a (white) male I have done all I can over my lifetime and three marriages (last and best near 30 years now) to convince my spouses that they were complex entities with all the wondrous possibilities of such...and that I assign only marvelous attributes to those body parts for which they should ALWAYS be immensely grateful to have been given by being born female--and that if some dumb asshole tries to demean them by calling them ANY variation of a negative term which applies to their bodies then they should say loudly and with conviction...THANK YOU! And btw, without our having "cunts" YOU WOULDN'T EXIST!

I did my best to instill in my daughters and granddaughters that they are complete in and of themselves, that they do not NEED a man to make them whole, and that the only reason to marry is because they WANT the individual they've fallen in love with. When and if that happens then great--but if it doesn't then make the life they want without one.

Being born female is a gift of such magnitude that it is unquantifiable. (BTW I also have two young sons and they are just as "gifted", only differently--I do not "hate my gender".)

Thank you for writing this essay--it's even more applicable today than when it was written 13 years ago. Count me as saying "ditto" to the "Anonymous" accolade preceding mine. Kudos and well done.

Feminism is a fire starter.

Equality is an impossible goal.

Either way.

What if men tried to be equal with women?

Your right to your own body does not superceed the rights of the body inside you.

However it got there.

I have always found the "C" word to be obnoxious in the extreme.

Yes the fall from the garden of Eden cost women as well as men.

The issue then as now is the pursuit of the knowledge of good "and" evil.

Pursue instead the tree of life.

Feel better now?

Thank you for posting this essay. It is well written, engaging, and couched in a way that encourages an exchange of experiences. We are privileged to learn from it. It should be noted in passing that the cunt was worshipped before the prick and for far longer. We seem to be about done with the prick...wonder what will be next?

LWlurker

One article of a US Naval officer's uniform is the khaki "Overseas" Cap. It looks like a flat folded napkin, and is worn with the crease oriented fore-and-aft. The creases look exactly like bare vaginal lips, which explains why this cap is unofficially called a "Cunt" Cap. I've heard this usage even from well-respected female officers.