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If I can’t say “pussy,” you shouldn’t say “dick.” Men’s Rights Redditors deal with the crucial issues as always

Don’t use me as an insult, you dicks

They’re always dealing with the important issues in the Men’s Rights subreddit, like the burning question of whether we should ban women from saying the word “dick.”

“If women want to claim the word ‘pussy’ and deem any use of it offensive,” L-E-T-S-C-H declares in a post, “women should not be able to use the word ‘dick.’”

He makes a very compelling and coherent case::

I’ve been told by someone that hearing a man say pussy at all makes them uncomfortable. Totally valid for someone to be uncomfortable. What I don’t understand is why the argument of “I obviously don’t mean anything sexist by it it’s just a curse to me” works on only one side of this equation. Suddenly if I am uncomfortable with the language a woman uses I need to man up or “there is enough dicks out there to make a solid assumption” which would absolutely not fly if it was said against woman.

The discussion of this important topic goes about as well as could be expected. Several commenters complain about black people using the word “cracker.” Others complain about the term “small dick energy,” which, to be fair, is a little mean to those with dicks on the smaller side.

One commenter offers this completely true example of how he personally solves the problem.

If a woman ever calls me a sick [sic], I just retort with, “Don’t call me a dick, cunt.” They usually don’t say anything back.

Totally happens, all the time.

Another commenter has this advice.

The main principle is to not allow women to define masculinity nor to allow them to tell you what you (as a male) can and can’t do.

Ok, then. I guess just go ahead and call people “pussies” all you want. See if I care.

Several commenters assure everyone that the word “pussy,” used as an insult, has nothing to do with the word “pussy,” used as a synonym for vagina, and is instead derived from the word “pusillanimous.”

BlackBeard30 asserts:

Women who make that claim are just showing their ignorance. Pussy =/= vagina, well not historically. The etymology of pussy as an insult is interesting. It’s most directly from calling someone a “puss” short for “pusillanimous” (an adjective meaning “showing a lack of courage or determination; timid”). But “pussy” most directly relates to pet cats. Then we went and started using “pussy” so mean both a coward and a cat. But that one thing it never really meant until very recently is “vagina”. That appears to come maybe from some word meaning “pocket”.

However the point being, if women don’t like it used to also mean “vagina” and thus mixing the meanings. Then they simply need stop using it to describe their vaginas and it’ll go back to simply meaning a pet cat or coward.

In case you’re wondering, the “pusillanimous” theory is, in fact, complete and utter bullshit, according to people who actually know about these sorts of things. It takes all of five seconds to look this up on Google. According to Language Log,

There’s a plausible and well documented etymology for the sense of pussy in question, namely puss + y → pussy = childish or colloquial word for “pet cat” → term of endearment for a woman → sweet or amiable woman → sweet or effeminate man→ weakling/coward/sissy, with the parallel development of pussy = female genitals lurking somewhere in the background. …

There’s no positive evidence for the pusillanimous → pussy derivation as a genuine historical source — it seems to be a sporadic folk etymology.

That said, there’s apparently no historical link either between “pussy” meaning weak, or a sissy, and “pussy” meaning vagina. But “pussy” is clearly an insult based on the idea that weak men are like women. So it’s still rather a misogynistic term.

For all the details, see the link above.

Back in the Men’s Rights subreddit, meanwhile, PlasticApocalypse7 just wants everyone to get along–with body parts, theirs and others.

No one should use body parts as insults, especially ones involved in the continuation of our species and for most people the greatest source of pleasure in their life, as that creates a subconscious negativity with penises and vaginas.

Well, I suppose, but you’ve got to be able to call people “assholes,” even though the humble asshole in real life is a very useful body part and often a source of pleasure as well. But I’m not willing to give it up as an insult.

What a bunch of dicks.

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Dalillama
Dalillama
1 year ago

@Alan
Exactly the same. Probably via a construction like “pussy-wussy”

Amtep
Amtep
1 year ago

I don’t know why they think you can’t say it. You can say it on national TV and still be elected President.

Dave
Dave
1 year ago

@Raging Bee: The romans only applied the word vagina to scabbards, not to women’s anatomy and not to any other kind of pouch or pocket.

Snowberry
Snowberry
1 year ago

Added to what @Dave said:

“Vagina” used as the word for female genitalia originated as an euphemism among European nobles. The actual Latin word for it was “cunnus”. I don’t think I need to spell out what vulgar word that ended up as in English. (It also likely influenced the old-timey slang usage of “coney” which predated “p*ssy” and incidentally means “rabbit”.)

epitome of incomprehensibility

Discussions about etymology make me happy!

Anyway. This guy doesn’t really have new ideas. For me, I tend not to use “dick” to mean a jerk because it does seem potentially unfair equating a mean person with a penis. Penises are just penises! They are morally neutral!! …I suppose “jerk” itself might be related to the expression “jerk off,” which usually only refers to penis-related masturbation, but that seems less direct. Like the word has changed enough not to seem specific to particular genders or body parts.

Speaking of change, I should stop blabbing and get back to grading sociolinguistics essays, yay.

Last edited 1 year ago by epitome of incomprehensibility
Dalillama
Dalillama
1 year ago

@Epitome
Possibly, but since it first appears in carnival slang, the derivation is probably from “jerkwater.” A jerkwater town is a place where the [steam] train only stops to jerk (manually pump) more water into the boiler from a trough, pond, or stream i.e. a backwater that isn’t worth the carnival’s time. By extension, a person who’s a jerk[water] is a no-account, a waste of time.

Kat, ambassador, feminist revolution (in exile)
Kat, ambassador, feminist revolution (in exile)
1 year ago

@Alan Robertshaw

[M]ay I suggest our word, ‘wuss’.

I recall the first time I heard that word, which was in 1987. My immediate reaction was, Oh, I see, both a woman and a pussy. Got it.

Merriam-Webster’s (the bible for US copy editors) says that its origin is unknown. But I have dark thoughts about the origin.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wuss

Surplus to Requirements
Surplus to Requirements
1 year ago

@moregeekthan:

I will concede that S.D.E. risks too much collateral damage, but we really need a compact insult for “men who act as if they are ashamed of or overcompensating for their perceived lack of sexual prowess” without specifically referencing any physical penile qualities.

How about “incel”?

Snowberry
Snowberry
1 year ago

Not so sure “incel” works. We already had that thing a few weeks ago where Greta Thunberg taunted Andrew Tate with SDE, and he’s basically the opposite of an incel, in the worst possible way. Also some men who overcompensate for their sexual inadequacies (or are perceived as doing so) are married. In a lot of cases that would be roughly equivalent to calling a woman a f*gg*t for having sex with men, in that it just comes off as weird and dumb to them and anyone who knows them.

Surplus to Requirements
Surplus to Requirements
1 year ago

And yet the incels themselves count “escortcels” and such amongst their own. It’s not about whether they’ve actually had sex. It’s about them not feeling they measure up to the expectations placed on cishet men. The womanizer types have a similar problem but a very different reaction. Look at Tate’s “James Bond” lifestyle: fake wealth, fake image, fake “women are throwing themselves at me” (unfortunately, faked via coercion). If that’s not compensating for something, I don’t know what is, and that something is some kind of feeling of inadequacy regarding masculine expectations. He and Bond and incels all have that in common: a kind of “failed toxic masculinity”.

Full Metal Ox
Full Metal Ox
1 year ago

@Surplus to Requirements:

And yet the incels themselves count “escortcels” and such amongst their own. It’s not about whether they’ve actually had sex. It’s about them not feeling they measure up to the expectations placed on cishet men

What they haven’t had is the True Sex: magical validating unsought Sex With The Blessed Virgin HB10 Stacey (who regards you as the axis of the universe and will never be so inconsiderate as to age, tire, or even look at any K-Pop idol, pet, or hobby that diverts attention from you you you—which she can somehow reconcile with mothering your children), ideally during their teens; the sex that levels you up, cures all your ills, and endows you with permission to exist.

In short: if you didn’t turn into James Bond, it wasn’t True Sex.

Sheila
1 year ago

You can get some pretty good insults by converting Shakespeare into more modern English.
They’ve got more earwax than brains.
I wish we were better strangers.
…and so on.