A request and a complaint and some cunt.
First, complaining. The internet phenomenon that is sweeping the universe at the moment, Wrong Hole? Meh. MEH I SAY. While I love the gratuitous “celebrity” cameo, I just can’t get excited about this song. So, it is usual tired premise being presented as the epitome of straight male humor: “HUR I accidentally stuck it in my lady’s butt, and TWIST I would let her do it to me as well (points against for not using the term pegging–just think of the rhyming opportunities there) but TWIST takeback because I hope she does not want to peg ME, and TWIST again she actually liked it.” JUST STOP IT. Do it or do not, and just shut up the fuck up already. My biggest problem with this is my request, which is a garagey-type band with a female lead from the 1990s who did a song called “Wrong Hole” and now this new one has reverse googlebombed it and I cannot find it. I seem to be the only person I know who remembers it.
Also I am thinking about the term “misogyny.” I think I have been looking at a little too much Jezebel lately, but I am seeing this term tossed around like mad. Last week tango was declared misogynist in the comments. Like, all of tango. I thought I knew what it meant. In the strictest reductionist sense, we know, it means a hatred of women. You can get somewhat more specific and point to examples of HOW to be misogynist, such as reducing women to body parts, objects, assuming that all or many or a group of them will act a certain way or are out to get you somehow. Today Jezebel reports that Nikki Finke calls people cunts. Misogynist, they say.
Years ago I think “cunt” did have some kind of power over me, or at least novelty. When I first fell off the turnip truck and landed in Seattle, no one I knew used the word, and if it was referred to, it was spelled out in hushed tones: “C-U-N-T.” I came face to face with the cunt word in the form of a coworker at my first full time job who had “cunt” tattooed on her arm (years later I saw a picture of her tattoo hanging on the walls of SAM and was pleased.) By that point it was just a word, albeit a rarer one than some of the more common insults or “impolite” words. I guess you could say I have “reclaimed” (sigh) cunt, but I never really felt like it was snatched from me to begin with.
I have had cunt used against me by men on multiple occasions as a weapon with serious intentions that were meant to show me up and shut me down. In those instances I did feel that the user’s intention was to hit me with the worst thing they could think of verbally and shame me into being a “good girl” who would want to be non-cunty and worthy of my opponent’s approval. (I am not saying I would actually gain their approval. I am saying it was a manipulative tactic.) Is this an instance of misogyny? I didn’t feel MISOGYNIZE’D because I could see the attempt as the cheap and impotent tactic that it was. [Aside: what is the male version of cunt?]
If we agree that misogyny is a cause/result of patriarchal social structures, yes, perhaps you could argue that Finke has fallen into this trap of communicating with and about Hollywood types using their own “masculine” language. But first you have to buy the idea that the word “cunt” is always code for hating women. I am just as likely to use the word “cock” to insult someone, male or female. I find these both acceptable as insults for individuals and their behavior. What does that make me, besides crass?
What do you think? Am I oversimplifying things? What bus did I miss? Are there “misogynies” in the same sense that there are “feminisms“? Does calling Nikki Finke a cunt make her a victim of misogyny, or does it mean that the person who said it…thinks she is a cunt? Does her use of the word make her a misogynist, or does it mean that she thinks the person she called is one? Could it be that the people who are crying “misogyny” are simply uncomfortable with the use of the word?
Oh, and, um, I went to Brickcon yesterday. It was fun and very very misogynist. FROWNY EYEBROWS OF DISAPPROVAL with a side of pearl-clutching.
