Genital Readers

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

> Does anyone have any thoughts about TRP's use of the word "cunt"?
> Every female I've ever met utterly despises the word.  It does have
> a harsh, almost aggressive sound to it and is the word of choice
> should one wish to denigrate or insult a female but find "bitch"
> not to be sufficient.  Why did TRP choose this word rather than one
> of the others such as pussy, quim, muff, etc.?

It's an old Anglo-Saxon word--and I don't know the exact etymology, but of
course DH Lawrence has Lady Chatterly's gardener sling it about with
abandon and it is the point of the most outrageous pun in English literature.
When Hamlet and co. are about to watch the play-within-the-play, he asks
Ophelia if he may lie in her lap.  When she protests, he responds, "Did you
think I spoke of country matters?"  (emphasis on first syllable of next-to-
last word)

That, by the way, was for me an unrealistic point about the rather good Forman
film THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT.  Flynt so often politely intones "vagina"
(or at worst, "
pussy") that I suspected Miss Manners was standing over his shoulder.


Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)