I was reading a book the other day and came across the word cunt.
Cunt is one of those offensive and obscene words that we are not allowed to say and not allowed to hear, but are still allowed to write and read. (For now.) This is one reason why books are awesome.
It had been a long time since I’d thought about this word because I have not been reading books lately. I don’t hear cunt on the news, or on TV (I don’t watch British TV), or on the radio, or podcasts or whatever media I was consuming for the past however many sad months since I’d last seen the word cunt on the printed page. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed reading books until I read it.
Cunt doesn’t have to be in every book either. It shouldn’t be. And it’s not in most books I read. It’s not in 98% of books I read. It’s better that way. I appreciate cunt more now than ever before. So much so that I devote an entire blog to how hard this word hits. Reading cunt is like watching a boxer get KO’d. Or breaking a freshly baked cookie. Or watching a cyst get drained (if you’re into that sort of thing). You get what I’m saying.
I generally agree with laws against lewdness and obscenity in the media. But books should always be exempt for the following reasons:
1) Books require effort to read.
Nowadays, more and more people don’t want to put forth that effort. Don’t penalize the readers who do put forth that effort by taking away a powerful and awesome word.
2) Censoring words is pointless.
A sentence does not need to use the word cunt to be explicit. Cunt is simply an artistic choice used for emphasis. It’s like an exclamation point. It would be more productive to censor ideas. (Please don't do this Big Tech.)
3) The word cunt would be buried in the text.
An impressionable young kid would never find cunt simply by flipping through the work in question. They’d be better off reading the entire book to find the dirty word, in which case the ideas would make an impression before the standalone word did.
No one reads books anymore anyway. When I spy on people using their phones on the subway they are on Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp or Candy Crush. You won’t see cunt on those platforms.
That’s not a sad fact. Readers don’t want cunt diluted pervasively. It’s our word. Let’s leave cunt in the books, where its impact is great and its reach only available to those most dedicated.
