That may be the etymology, but I really don't think "vagina, call him a vagina, that'll show him" is the thought process now.

It always seemed to me like the slightly more grown-up version of little kids on the playground insulting boys by calling them girls. (I remember being in second or third grade and trying to tell my friends that they were insulting themselves by putting the annoying boys in the "girl" category. Then they decided that the five of us should play four-square.)

And, she totally would be if she weren't friends with me. I don't think they allow you to keep friends like me if you're a RG. Hazzardous to your health or something.

You know. Can't snag that simpering man if you're head's on a pike somewhere.

That may be the etymology, but I really don't think "vagina, call him a vagina, that'll show him" is the thought process now.

Totally agree that there's no conscious "Ah, I will choose the word 'cunt' because it refers to girly bits and will therefore emasculate him! Go Me!" thought process. But it's worth noticing that an awful lot of the really powerful terms of contempt/obsenity refer to women or the female anatomy. It's an insidious thing & a not-consciously-recognised thing, I think, but it's still powerful. (There's really no bloody wonder I'm all over subtext, is there?)

It's like the way that words with identical denotations often get their connotations corrupted over time so that the feminine version becomes sexual and eventually contemptuous/insulting. eg master/mistress, working man/working 'girl', courtier/courtesan etc etc.

eta .....or, "What Hil said."

You know. Can't snag that simpering man if you're head's on a pike somewhere.

Or, less decapitatedly, you're too hung over to be bothered with make-up and stockings.

It always seemed to me like the slightly more grown-up version of little kids on the playground insulting boys by calling them girls.

Maybe, on an extreme level. Of course, most men are just little boys, so they'd probably call another guy a poofter or a sheila.

I hear cunt to have a more malicious tone. Someone that is driving too slow is a dickhead, someone that deliberately cuts you off? would probably be a cunt.

I realise that I'm kinda married to the driving analogies today. I think that's because that's when I hear most people swear most.

erm.. natter, what natter? We're too busy lowering community standards so no one's mellow is ever harshed again to natter.

(I edit because I now realise I'm too dependent upon the preview boxes. My bad.)

You ever hear the song "Pussy Manifesto" by Bitch and Animal?

Wow, me here again? I hereby propose for your consideration "B3: like crack, but more addictive".

For what it's worth, as one of the first people who brought up Allyson's Incident again (though not the first nor the only one, bitterchick), I am terribly sorry about all the high blood pressure and new Bureaucracy threads that I have caused. And yes, I feel genuinely bad about it. As I said last night, I should probably have spoken up at the moment or shut up forever, like in the weddings. My inability to Let It Go could be read as: a) as symptom of my inability to Let It Go in general, or b) a symptom of how much the Incident really squicked me and pushed my buttons, depending on your call.

Which isn't to say that I feel I am in the wrong, so I'll explain myself. I have to note, BTW, that no, I'm not formally asking Allyson to be warned, first because I should have spoken up in the moment, and also because I feel that such a warning could be even more divisive to the community right now.

This said:

1) askye, Steph: the reason why people don't call "pile-on" to what the Zoe apologists do is probably because, honestly, they are too few to be a pile-on. I remember only 3 people who spoke up against an Official Warning during the weekened, and one more (smonster) yesterday, while more than 15-20 people have spoken up in favour of disciplinary action.

Which leads me to my main point.... and what the hell, since I've already pissed off at least one person, I'll just go make friends now on the other side too. As much as I love FayJay, Trudy and Gandalfe (who are the 3 people mentioned above), I fail to see why their objections have had so much weight, when put against the clear statements of 15+ people that, yes, they are offended by this poster and they feel that something should be done. I think that this is where (collective) we have dropped the ball here, and hopefully the procedure that msbelle is working on will help on that. I think Jess said that this is one of the cases where one shouldn't take into account the people who are against sanctions; if a big enough number of people is offended, they are offended, period.

So, askye, bitterchick, Steph: not only I agree with you here, but I'm also putting myself on the line and explicitly naming the people who have IMO slowed the process down the most. Happy now? :-)

2) As for Allyson's Incident, I think that it's a completely separate issue, and I object to the idea that calling her on her behaviour equals "siding with the troll" or giving the troll more respect than Allyson. The reason I feel this way is perhaps because I tend to have a more detached view about how to deal with obnoxious people: just filter them out. There are rules and procedures for a reason, and if a poster makes herself a problem? Warn, suspend, ban, problem solved... but *don't make it personal*. A disciplinary actions should be that, not an excuse to indulge in abuse. Insulting a troll while s/he is being escorted out of the building seems to me like a waste of time, at best.

Also, there's the issue of how far is too far. People here have justified Allyson's actions saying "why should we care about the feelings of someone who doesn't care about ours?" So what's next then? Making prank phone calls? Egging the troll's house? Sending her a dead fish on the mail? Depending on how pissed off your are, one could use this argument to justify all of the above.

3) Regarding last night's discussion, I have to agree with Nutty here and say that I viewed Allyson's language as overly inflammatory. Allyson: you are probably right in that people were reacting too much to your personal opinions and trying implicitly to change them, but it's not only that. Your tone and choice of words also added fuel to the fire. If you had posted the lenghty, elaborate version of your view that you posted earlier instead of just taking the chance to kick Zoe one more time, people probably would have reacted too, but perhaps things would have gotten less ugly and you'd be more in the right.

So is it just a matter of using gentler words to say the same? Well, this is Buffistas, right? Choice of words does matter. Being articulate and coherent does matter, or so I've been taught during the time I've been here.

(Incidentally, you are of course entitled to your feelings, but to put last night's example, you just can't write a book called "How I killed 1 million iraqui babies for the good of mankind" and not expect people to be startled by it. Upon further discussion, people might see your point of view and eventually agree to disagree, which I'm doing right now about your opinion of Zoe, but of course people are going to react strongly at first! Don't be surprise by that, and don't act as if that was something unheard of, and don't mind my possibly patronizing tone here; if it sounds like that, it's completely unintentional).

4) Lastly, I understand that some posters have more history here than others, and I understand that we cut more slack to people that we know better when it comes to, say, use of ASSCAPS, stronger-worded language than usual, having a bad day, etc. I cannot accept *at all* that being an oldtimer or contributing a lot to the community entitles one to be verbally abusive towards another poster (anticipating your objection: and if that other poster was being a pain in the ass? See 1) and 2)), or excuses that kind of behaviour. If that is what you people are saying, then honestly, I'll be even more squicked than I was to being with.

Well, I see that the discussion has moved on to more entertaining matters while I was writing, but I think that the above needs clarifying, for my own sake if nothing else.

(Edited to add line breaks).

I hereby propose for your consideration "B3: like crack, but more addictive".

I was going to suggest "Like Orwell, only scarier", but I'm relieved to see the Buffistas are discussing PORN, so things seem to be heading back to normal.

Clean-up from last night:

But the issues I have with Allyson and Zoe aren't equal, and I suspect that's true for most people. There's no pattern of offensiveness with Allyson, and there is with Zoe. To put it another way, I wish Allyson hadn't posted some of the things she did today, especially the subhuman comment. I wish Zoe didn't post here, period.

This is where I am, too. I may think Allyson may get her bitch on once a month or so -- but I think her contributions the other 29 days outweigh that, and I think warnings should be for patterns, not for single instances.

I don't have any more negative crap attached to it than I do to, say, dumbfuck, dipshit, asswipe, or fartknocker.

For me, the term takes me back to various primary source material I read for one class or another re: white views of African slaves, English views of the Irish around the time of the Famine, etc.

I'm with Susan on the "subhuman" issue. I don't read it as another way to say "X is a troll" -- I read it as saying "X is lower than us, an animal, worthy only of contempt." Which really offends the part of me that sends money to Amnesty International. But since Allyson (and Plei)evidently view it as synonymous to "X is a troll":

When I say subhuman, I think of those things that lived in the sewers in C.H.U.D. I'm not kidding.

I can understand a bit better. It's not gonna be the definition in my personal dictionary, but I can understand.

And I also like the word cunt.

"Cunt" is savagely offensive in the UK and is, yes, generally used towards men (as is "twat"). Which seems different to US usage. It's about the most offensive word you can call someone, short of "Tory".

Which is not to say I haven't used the word 5 times in a business context today, of course.