Pop singer Rihanna raised a few eyebrows on Thursday, Sept. 1, when she was spotted wearing a necklace engraved with a certain naughty c-word. A photo with a modesty dot over the letter "u" appeared on the Huffington Post. (I'm going to follow that style to avoid causing offense.)
What statement might the young pop star having been trying to make by wearing this particular word about her neck? For a literary answer, one need only turn to Inga Muscio's 1998 book C*nt: A Declaration of Independence. Ophira Edut, reviewing the book for BUST Magazine (one of few U.S. women's magazines to take a proudly feminist point of view), said:
"At its core, C*nt is a metaphor for unconditional self-love, a gentle call for women to embrace all things sacred and essentially female. And that’s not just lip service. C*nt does for feminism what smoothies did for high-fiber diets—it reinvents the oft-indigestible into something sweet and delicious."
On National Public Radio, Seattle-area broadcast journalist Marcie Sillman said, "Words are powerful weapons, and 20th century English is full of words that have been used to taunt and wound other people...In her new book, Inga Muscio is reclaiming a word that women often hear thrown at them as an epithet. It’s a word describing women’s genitalia, a word that could get us in trouble with the FCC if we use it on the radio."
Words that can't be used on the radio are acceptable in books. Society tends to frown, however, when certain words leap off the page and into our wardrobes. Books, of course, provide a sea of context, while single words leave the viewer to guess the wearer's intention.
The Huff Post photo doesn't give a clue as to whether the pop princess wears the necklace as a proud symbol of feminist linguistic reclamation, but somehow I doubt it's a mark of low self-esteem. Her intention might have been to shock. It's not unlike Rihanna to cultivate a super-sexualized stage persona.
It leaves one to wonder: what would happen if a male rocker wore the same necklace, or the same word on a t-shirt? It might spark controversy, even outrage, at least from the feminist sector. It would almost certainly be taken as disrespect.
A guy wearing an impolite expression referring to the male genitals, on the other hand, isn't likely to raise an eyebrow. It's funny how the "female" words seem somehow dirtier than the "male" words, even in a post-Vagina Monologues world.
I use the word sparingly in my writing. When I do, it's meant respectfully, lovingly. Where do YOU draw the linguistic line?
Image: Rihanna performing in 2010. Creative Commons generic license.
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