Wordslut

by Amanda Montell

  In normal everyday life, gendered differences in cursing usage aren’t as extreme as they were in that coal mine environment. Linguists have discovered that context, rather than gender, is the biggest factor in determining how most people really swear. It’s one of the first lessons in vulgarity that kids learn when they figure out they can swear more liberally at recess than in math class. What Jespersen, Lakoff, and plenty of other modern listeners have failed to realize is that women are game to have just as much R-rated fun with language as men—there’s nothing about the fundamentals of femaleness that cause a person to say fiddlesticks instead of fuck. Studies of modern cursing consistently show that everyone who swears does it with equal strength. The one and only disparity is that the motivation underlying women’s use of these words is slightly—but meaningfully—different.

  Why people curse is a topic taken up by Karyn Stapleton, a social psychology scholar at Ulster University in Ireland. In 2003, Stapleton conducted a survey of swearing practices by men and women in an urban Irish town, interviewing a group of thirty men and thirty women on their swearing habits. For the crowd she was studying, swearing was a common daily practice—most individual swear words were not considered obscene, and men and women participated in cursing equally.

  But what motivated each gender’s swearing was a different story. Stapleton sat each of her subjects down and asked them to self-report why they curse in the first place. She collected their responses, organized them by theme, and placed them in a chart, which I’ve included below.

  Here are the points I find most intriguing: first, while about half of Stapleton’s male respondents reported that they swore out of habit or because it was simply expected, very few women reported the same. Instead, Stapleton’s female subjects described swearing as a part of their individual personalities (and if someone asked me why I swore, I would say the same thing). In a subtle but important way, this is different from the men’s view that swearing is “normal and expected,” because it shows women’s awareness that swearing will likely be seen as a sort of unique, perhaps deviant quirk and not something natural or predictable, like it is for men. Thus, for women, swearing plays a part in constructing a particular type of identity.

  Another of the top reasons women gave for cursing, one that wasn’t reported by a single man, was to show intimacy and trust. Women are aware that in a lot of situations they could get in trouble, or at least a sideways look, for swearing. They are “contextually constrained to a greater extent than men,” Stapleton said. For women, it takes a special group, often in a private space, to be able to swear freely without judgment; thus a certain amount of trust is required for them to let down their filter. In some situations, cursing may serve as an act of solidarity or even affection between women friends, which isn’t usually the case for dudes.

  Stapleton also asked her subjects why they might avoid certain curse words—specifically the more “obscene” ones, which participants agreed were the words that made reference to the vagina (cunt, fanny*). The top three reasons women gave were that they found these terms sexist because they gave a negative impression, and because they made them feel uncomfortable. For men, the top reasons were that they found them inappropriate in certain company, that they were sexist, and finally that they made them appear sexist. This last reason is particularly interesting, because there was not a single woman in the study who gave that as a response. For twice the number of women as men, sexism itself, as opposed to the motivation not to seem sexist, was reason enough to avoid certain swears.

  In a big way, women’s avoidance of sexist swear words is another symbol of unity and mutual support among women. As Stapleton analyzed, “A discourse of female solidarity is evident here in that women who use offensive expletives are looked upon [by other women] with more disdain than men.” According to this study, women don’t want to betray the tribe by using words like cunt so liberally, and they seem disappointed in other women who do. As one twenty-six-year-old participant named Kelly said, “Women may be seen as ‘letting the side down’ if they engage in the use of certain terms.” It would be a sign that they hadn’t really thought about what the word meant. Women don’t expect men to know better or try to understand the potential harm of what they’re saying, but they do expect this of other women.

  A reasonable takeaway from Stapleton’s study: women rarely curse for no reason. The shits and motherfucks aren’t there just because they’re “expected” or to use obscenity for obscenity’s sake. They’re there to make someone laugh, to put on a brave face, to feel close to someone, to be an individual. For women, choosing which swear words to embrace and which to reject is part of an ongoing negotiation of femininity itself. As Stapleton wrote, “In addition to contesting social norms of femininity, the use of ‘bad language’ may also function to construct and enact new modes and versions of ‘being a woman.’”

  The observations Laurel A. Sutton made in the 1990s of how women used bitch and ho with their friends showed that women’s cursing wasn’t just a case of women regurgitating how men use these terms. Instead, women were imitating other women whom they admired, women who challenged the stereotypical image of a well-mannered “lady,” like Trina and Rihanna and the badass women in their communities. Swearing works as a way for women to figure out what kind of women they are. To define their femininity on their own terms.

  And yet, as fun and useful as swear words can be, we can’t ignore that the ones currently offered by the English language aren’t exactly perfect. As much as I personally love to curse and consider it a part of who I am—as much as I delight in snarkily telling people “fuck you” and “suck my dick”—I can’t help but notice that most of our lexicon’s most powerful curse words weren’t exactly invented with me as the speaker in mind. Phrases like “suck my dick” and “fuck your mother” are part of the largest category of English curse words, the sexual category, which as it stands only represents one point of view.

  Many of our language’s most potent phrases—from pussy to motherfucker—paint a picture of women, men, and sex from a cisgender dude’s perspective. They portray the act of sex as inherently penetrative, the penis as violent and powerful, and the vagina as weak and passive. The word pussy doesn’t portray the complexity of the vulva, or the parts of it generally considered most important to those who actually have vulvas (clits, G-spots). Instead, it’s just a vague, kitty-cat-like place for a penis to go. Meanwhile, phrases like “fuck you in the ass” or “suck it, bitch,” both of which imply an erect phallus, create the impression that language is only powerful when male sex organs are involved. It would be extremely unique to hear someone say “eat my pussy” or “drown in my G-spot” to achieve the same effect as these phallic expressions. One could certainly get away with saying “suck my dick” for humor or emphasis without it seeming sexual, but the same could not be said for “eat my pussy”—evidence that there is a semantic imbalance between curse words from a normatively male perspective and curse words from a normatively female one.

  In a 1999 essay on feminist vulgarity, activist Erika Fricke said that swearing as we know it mirrors our culture’s clichés about gender, bodies, and sex in general. “Whether the stereotype is that women don’t like sex and men always have to wheedle it out of them; that women ‘get attached,’ while to men sex is meaningless; or that women’s internal genitalia and potential to be pregnant makes them more introspective and nurturing, while men are brash and achievement focused . . . vulgarity becomes a microcosm of all these questions of divided genders in conflict,” she wrote. Ultimately, most contemporary cursing simply does not succeed in reflecting the bodies, sexual participation, or fantasies of anyone who isn’t a man with a boner. And thus, the power of vulgarity ends up working mostly in service of dudes.

  In pursuit of a more feminist swear vocabulary, we have a few options, the least exciting of which is probably just to limit one’s cursing to the scatology category. The shits, pisses, assholes, and other bodily
function metaphors are all perfectly gender neutral. In my opinion, though, the sexual ones are simply . . . more fun.

  There have been quite a few women throughout history who’ve attempted to co-opt our existing curse words to reflect their own sexuality. In the 1990s Madonna would scream profanities and simulate masturbation onstage to the admiration of both feminists and teenage boys. (“Fuck is not a bad word!” she declaimed before thousands of fans on her 1990 Blond Ambition tour. “Fuck is a good word! Fuck is why I am here. Fuck is why YOU are here! . . . So get over it, o-fucking-kay?!”) However, Fricke points out that for women, power derived from sexuality can be a double-edged sword. You can’t explain to a fourteen-year-old boy that Madonna’s sexual expression is a feminist thing (at least not in the moment); to him, it will just seem sexy. Boldly expressing your sexuality as a woman is most certainly not a problem, but, frustratingly, it doesn’t read as quite the same breed of power exerted when men say “suck my cock.”

  So here’s my favorite strategy: people who don’t feel as though our current curse words consider or empower their bodies can invent a brand-new set of terms that do. The word clit, for one, has all the makings of a lovable curse word—it’s monosyllabic and plosive, just like dick and fuck. By shouting “suck my clit,” instead of “suck my dick,” women (or anyone with a clit) can flip around the POV in a phonetically satisfying manner. As Fricke points out, “‘Clit’ sounds like the kind of body part that would take action and, combined with colorful phrasing and the right tone of voice, could come off as pretty damn degrading.”* Or fun, punchy, and full of humor if that’s the intent. Maybe from now on we should all say “holy clit.”

  On that note, if you want to make things really interesting, you could even hybridize both feminine and masculine metaphors to come up with some cool Frankensteinian compound swear. Clitfuck has a certain ring to it. Or maybe dicksnatch? I could play this game for hours.

  This isn’t a call for everyone to rewrite the rules of cursing overnight. Everyone’s relationships to individual swears are varied and complex, and just as it is perfectly reasonable to find words like cunt and motherfucker offensive, or to want to move away from vulgar phrases that imply violence or homophobia (“fuck you in the ass,” etc.), it’s also permissible to actively enjoy and not resent the idea that hardcore cursing is not necessarily expected of women. For some, the fact that women can use cursing to craft their personalities or to highlight their femininity will seem problematic; to others, it will feel empowering. We can think of these reinventions of mainstream curse words and studies on gendered swearing practices not as a call to blanket abolish our existing glossary of vulgarities but rather as an invitation to think consciously about the messages we wish to put out in the world when R-rated utterances leave our mouths. Think of it as a fun challenge to swear with intention, to further prove Dr. Richard Stephens right with the notion that the smartest English speakers are also the crassest—especially those who curse like feminists.

  No matter what, there is a 97 to 99 percent chance that I am going to incorporate the phrase “holy clit” into my vocabulary. And if that’s a move toward progress, my lifelong potty mouth and I are glad to be involved.

  8

  “Cackling” Clinton and “Sexy” Scarjo

  The Struggle of Being a Woman in Public

  On an unseasonably warm fall day in 2015, BroBible, a blog for millennial men whose breed of content is exactly what it sounds like (fratty, dogmatic), publishes an article ranking the ten sexiest female voices in Hollywood. These women are “like candy for your ears,” the headline promises. The brief post introduces a YouTube video counting down movie stars whose voices increasingly “drive the men wild with their seductiveness.” “We could listen to these ladies talk allll day long,” the BroBible author writes. “From Catherine Zeta-Jones to Penélope Cruz to the always lovable Emma Stone, these women have voices that stir up something special when we hear them speak.”

  The video’s narrator decrees that the qualities making a woman’s voice a BroBible-worthy turn-on include foreign accents (particularly British ones), low whispery cadences, and raspiness. The featured actresses’ voices are soft, relaxed, and a little hoarse, as if they might be overcoming a bout of laryngitis, or have just finished a lengthy session of moaning and are all tuckered out, rendering them unable to speak any louder than a gentle bedside murmur.

  I, too, think women with raspy voices hit the audio lottery, but I have to wonder why: blind tests have consistently shown that higher-pitched voices are preferable in women (a sign of youth and small physical size; better for breeding). Then again, more recent studies have found that in romantic social interactions (I think they call that flirting?), women actively lower their pitch. A series of 2014 experiments out of Pennsylvania revealed that across the board, English speakers associate deep, raspy voices with seduction. (Amusingly, they also found that only women have the ability to put on a “sexy” vocal affect; apparently, listeners think it just sounds silly when men do it.) Researchers weren’t able to pinpoint exactly why we’ve all come to the conclusion that a raspy voice on a woman is so hot. I have a personal theory that it’s because it sounds like your morning voice, the voice you wake up with after sleeping next to someone (and maybe doing other stuff). It’s a sign of intimacy. People hear that voice and they picture you in bed.

  I was listening to these clips of Charlize Theron and Stones (both Sharon and Emma) through headphones on the couch next to my best friend, and after the video finished, I leaned over and asked her to name which Hollywood actress she thinks has the sexiest voice. “Scarlett Johansson,” she said. Indeed, Ms. Johansson, who lent her husky tenor, the sweetest of all ear candy, to the voice-only role of Samantha in 2013’s Her, earned the number one spot on BroBible’s list.

  A little less than a year after ScarJo’s voice is christened Hollywood’s hottest, the owner of the unsexiest female voice in modern history is also chosen: Hillary Clinton. (BroBible isn’t involved in the decision this time, but politics isn’t really their beat.) The verdict is made official on July 28, 2016, the same evening that Clinton accepts her victory as the first-ever female presidential nominee. “It is with humility, determination, and boundless confidence in America’s promise that I accept your nomination for president of the United States,” she proclaims.

  To me, the fervor in Clinton’s voice matches the gravity of the occasion, but for several garrulous male pundits, it symbolizes a different honor—that of America’s least fuckable-sounding lady. Many of the tweets and comments that follow Clinton’s speech describe not its content but its delivery, categorizing her voice as “shrill,” “shouting,” and “not so attractive.” Journalist Steve Clemons instructs Clinton to “modulate” her tone. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough suggests that she “smile.” Trump calls her speech a “very average scream.”

  By late 2016, so much had been said about the unlikability of Hillary Clinton’s voice that the subject had become as much a cultural-wide meme as Kylie Jenner’s lips or JLo’s derriere. Or, as it were, Scarlett Johansson’s voice for the opposite reason. These two women’s voices actually represent a real conundrum that exists for women in the public eye: women who wish to hold power are expected to strike a precarious balance of appearing pleasant and polite, like the sweet-tempered caregivers they’re used to women being, as well as tough and authoritative, like capable leaders, all the while doing their best to convince everyone that they’re neither a bitch (Hillary Clinton) nor a sexual object (Scarlett Johansson). “The two things clash, and women can be negatively judged for erring too far in either direction,” comments our Oxford linguist Deborah Cameron. “It’s a very difficult line to walk.”

  This tricky negotiation of traditional femininity, which has historically been backdropped by a private setting, and confident leadership, which is a public enterprise, is one that social scientists have termed the “double bind.”

  Most women who pursue a high-profile career end
up falling on one side of the double bind or the other. While Clinton is perhaps the best-known modern public figure to have endured her level of linguistic criticism, she is certainly not the first. Other women who’ve shed traditionally feminine vocal traits to be seen as tough leaders but were in turn pegged as cold and overbearing include Elizabeth I (The Virgin Queen), Margaret Thatcher (The Iron Lady), Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, British Prime Minister Theresa May (dubbed by Twitter as an “evil witch queen”), and politician Janet Napolitano, whom journalist Andrew Napolitano (no relation) nicknamed “Evil Cousin Janet.” No one ever questioned these women’s strength, but it came at the expense of their likability.

  On the other end of the double bind, when a woman in charge makes no attempt to conduct herself in a “masculine” fashion, or perhaps even highlights her femininity, she will be perceived as fragile and out of her depth. But, because she is hanging on to most of her normatively ladylike traits, she will also seem less scary. As her perceived toughness dips, her likability spikes.