more cunt
I told her about my classroom discussion of the word cunt, how I speak of the goddess Cunti, the source of law and life, order and death, creatrix of the world. The one whose name is origin of country, kin and kind, of cunning, ken, and cunnilingus. How her powers and ours were divided and defamed. The power of the universe reduced to one part of woman's body, cursed on the street and at home as cunt. For thousands of years, the word caught and caged like our beautiful furry bony part. But if we don't use this elegant word, what are we to use? Do we go on saying down there, as if our bodies hold hell, the underworld, a place forbidden to venture?
from p. 111 of S/He, by Minnie Bruce Pratt, ©1995. (borrowed from/lent by Jen recently)
On a side note, there is a mythology around a lot of feminism; I don't necessarily dislike it, but it's taught alongside feminism described as necessary justice and as ethics, and I'm uncomfortable with mixing the two.
I like the word "creatrix."
And I think that the combination of woman-pride and stress on the importance of gender fluidity is weird, interesting, and oxymoronic. Though it doesn't have to be.
(I was thinking about cunt last month)
