This week at my seminary is not only Valentine’s Day but “V Week,” a celebration of all things vaginal. The (ahem) seminal event of the week was the performance of The Vagina Monologues on Tuesday night. And any of you in attendance there will have gotten to see me leave the page to traverse the stage.
The director of the Monologues, Kelly Williams, invited me to present the monologue, “Reclaiming Cunt.” As she pointed out, I might be an apt choice for the piece, because of my intimate yet complicated relationship with language. The motivation to reclaim the term ‘cunt’ is respect for words and the power of language, coupled with the re-prioritizing of the bodies those words exist to represent.
I have discovered that, sadly, I am unique in having grown up sheltered from the word, from either its liberated or oppressive incarnations. My sister confirms that ‘cunt’ was not a part of our family’s or hometown’s vocabulary. When I first really heard the word ‘cunt,’ I heard it in my college’s liberatory, feminist context, where it was a word of empowerment. There, I wasn’t exactly reclaiming the word, but claiming it for myself for the first time.
It made sense. The word ‘vagina’ originates in the Latin word for ‘scabbard’ or ‘sheath’ (i.e. for a sword). It’s named not for its crucial function of birthing babies, not for its function as an ‘out hole’ for monthly blood, not for its potential to provide its bearer with sexual pleasure. No, it’s named for what it does for the penis.
‘Cunt,’ on the other hand, is a cognate with such happy words as ‘cunning,’ ‘kind,’ ‘country,’ ‘ken,’ and ‘kin.’ It has resonance in the names of goddesses like Kunda and Cunina. According to Barbara G. Walker, it was a title of respect for wise women in pre-modern times. As Jon Harvey points out, before the 17th century, it wasn’t considered the slur it is some places today. And, yes, it sounds a bit more empowering to have a ‘cunt’ on your body than a ‘va-gi-na.’
To step back another level, though, we can use cunt to explore the power of words themselves. Why does this one little word, this simple collection of four innocuous letters, have so much power in our societies? Is the word ‘cunt’ used as a slur because of its own connotations or because it equates the one called a ‘cunt’ with female genitalia – and if the latter, why is that a bad thing?
Words might not break bones, but they can leave lasting damage in subtler ways. The contexts in which words are used matters. Who it is speaking the word matters, too. There are plenty of spaces I don’t need to reclaim the empowering essence of a word like ‘cunt;’ there are plenty of people who don’t need to ‘reclaim cunt;’ and this is crucial discernment to engage in.
But we must also prioritize in our care the bodies those words refer to. I get a little worried when debates start focusing on what words we call certain people, instead of the ways those certain people are being treated in the flesh. The uplifting of bodies should run alongside, not counter to, the liberating of our language. Reclaiming words can be part of the process of increasing respect for the beings those words represent. For example, the phrase ‘running like a girl’ shifts from insult to praise when we break out of the assumption that girls are less athletic than boys.
And so I choose to claim (or reclaim) ‘cunt,’ while playwright Eve Ensler reclaims ‘vagina.’ And I hope our feminist work can be done together, whatever we call our body parts, for our common goal of ending all violence against women’s bodies.
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I have an interesting relationship with the Monologues. I performed in them twice at my college (which dates me, I know). And I was never completely comfortable with them – not because they were too edgy for me, not because they went too far in their feminism. Rather, I thought they were a little mild, and I was disappointed that they have come to be THE feminist event a community must perform. They are limited in that they are, despite their origins in interviews with various women, filtered through the voice of one woman: mono-authored monologues. Some of the characters and lines leave me with questions: what’s so ‘random’ about being adopted? Why are the older women’s experiences funny, while the already-empowered younger women’s experiences the ones we’re supposed to relate to? And, come on - why bother getting so smitten with ‘vaginas’ when it’s c-u-n-t CUNTS! that we should be celebrating?
But my conversations with folks of all genders involved in the show reminds me how needed the Monologues’ message still is. One (ahem) fellow Vagina Warrior shared some of the responses she got when she tried to sell tickets to the show to colleagues: two men offered her money just to STOP saying ‘vagina,’ while another bought a ticket for his wife to see the show, making sure to have the excuse of babysitting that night so that he wouldn’t have to attend the performance himself. And I am reminded that just last year, a performance of The Vagina Monologues was billed as “The Hoo-Haa Monologues” because of the theater’s squeamishness about the show’s eponymous focus. If some folks still haven’t gotten from ‘hoo-haa’ to ‘vagina,’ the move from ‘vagina’ to ‘cunt’ may be a long way coming.
As we know well at Pacific School of Religion, everything has its own context. ‘Hoo-haa’ might seem a preferable, respectful term when the alternative is a derogatory use of the word ‘cunt.’ But usually, the joking phrase of ‘hoo-haa’ would be better replaced by the physiologically accurate word ‘vagina.’ And for many of us, both of these would be better replaced by the reappropriation/reincarnation/resurrection of the honorific veiled within the curse word ‘cunt.’
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Some day, the body parts that birth new generations and stimulate sexual delight will be fully honored, along with the body parts that watch for trouble and see visions of the future, the body parts that knead bread and cradle dying loved ones, the body parts that tread miles and are washed by a Messiah who stoops down with towel and basin.
Some day, we will see that just as humanity cannot thrive while any member of it suffers, neither can a human body thrive while parts of it are disparaged. Some day, when cunts are honored, all members of the body will rejoice together with them.
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