Career News 24/7: The Cynical Girl: I Use The C Word

Thursday, October 20, 2011

The Cynical Girl: I Use The C Word

Posted: 19 Oct 2011 03:45 AM PDT

I heard a cute little piece on On The Media, this week. Apparently the major broadcast networks in America want their characters to swear more often. Before 10PM. On weeknights. When kids are watching TV.

I don’t know how I feel about this. The weird thing about swearing is that it goes viral. One day I’m sitting around watching TV and the next day I’m saying the word douche. I hate that word. A lot. What the heck? Where did that come from?

And I’m not the only one. Even your mom calls people a douche and she’s old enough to have used one.

It’s fair to say that people copy TV. Remember where’s the beef and isn’t that special? Okay, you’re young. I am old. I remember those stupid sayings. If we allow swearing on prime-time television, those swear words will become common and lose their power. And then some fucking asshole like me won’t seem as avant-garde or interesting when I cuss.

[And fuck you, I am avante-garde.]

I will say that sometimes I pretend like there are certain boundaries that I won’t cross. When I hear someone use the word c-nt, I pretend like I’m offended.

Bless my stars! That’s a horrible word! How awful! I’m offended! No decent person should use that word!

I totally use it.

Not in polite company, of course. [Okay, well, maybe I've accidentally slipped up and used it in polite company.] But it’s one of those words that is so offensive and awful that I tend to save it for the moments where I’m really sick and tired of someone’s nonsense.

I started using the word regularly after someone called me a c-nt in an elevator. That’s how easy it was to inject the word into my vocabulary. Could you imagine if I heard it on TV? What if your kid heard it?

[For the record, it's totally adorable when toddlers swear. I taught my sister the word 'dildo' at the ripe old age of three. I was 13. It was a riot but my Mom was not happy. And now that I'm an adult, I can see why. Sorta.]

But back to the secondary point. The word c-nt is an awful word. Truly. There is a group of men in my life who used that word to describe women in my family. Women I love. Those men were disgusting, abusive, horrible people who deserve to drown in a pit of Kenyan Muslim socialist lesbian feminist vomit.

And here I am. Using this c-word just like them.

I take solace in the fact that the c-word is dropped pretty frequently in the UK. I think it might make an appearance on TV, too. And it’s just a word, right?

Hm.

I’m probably going to hell — but if we allow swearing on prime-time television shows, to the bigger point, you’ll be going to hell with me. And we can swear up a storm. Together. Just like we do on this blog.

And I’ll probably say the c-word. Don’t hate me.