RuPaul - Cunt is like the N-Word

[BykerBabe]

I loved the interview with RuPaul in the Guardian today and he has some really interesting things to say. However, he talks about drag slang and says:

“Well, one of the things that the kids do now is they’ll say, referring to another drag queen, ‘Oh that bitch is cunt, she is pure cunt’, which means she is serving realness,” by which he means presenting herself as realistic or honest. “They say it knowing it’s shocking, knowing it’s taboo, and it’s the same way that black people use the N-word.”

How are the two similar? Women have cunts and the word is used against them mostly by men as an insult. Drag queens are men. They can't appropriate cunt in the same way black people have with the N-word because it is not used to subjugate men.

I loved the interview but this really got to me. It feels as if it's another attempt to erase women and their biology.

I also loved the interview except for that part.

I have vowed not to use ‘cunt’ as a swear word again and I am very sweary.
I think we should reclaim the word ourselves as women who have one! It all depends how you say it. Said in the right tone I think it sounds great.
Was it Greer who said ‘Lady, love your cunt’, or something like that.
I love mine!
People with penises can’t have it.
(I realise it sounds like I’m taking the piss here, but I’m serious).

‘People with penises can’t have it.’
I meant the word, not my actual cunt!
Obviously they can’t have that either.

I have only ever heard it (apart from one mn) as abuse shouted at footballers/referees at footie matches. Never once heard them term said to a woman and I don't think I've ever heard a woman use the word.

Er, am I the only one unimpressed by claims that a show starring a male person taking the place of a woman is in any fucking way anything but a massive reinforcement of male cultural dominance?

I thought what he said about the transgender stuff and women’s clothes were really interesting - as I assume drag queens have been dragged into the spectrum of transgender?

You can't "reclaim" a slur that was never applied to you in the first place.

HandbagKrabby I found that really interesting too. It seemed as if he wanted to say trans women aren't women unless they transition but didn't dare.

Doobigetta I understand what you're saying, but drag queens are very open that they are men, not women.

I don’t know if it’s just me but I’m the UK it seems like ‘cunt’ and ‘twat’ are generally used as insults against men, whereas in the US it seems to be mainly used against women (like a worse version of ‘bitch’).

Is it hypocritical that I don’t have a problem with people using it against men (along with ‘dick’, ‘cock’ etc) but I am bothered by ‘bitch’ and other terms being used against women?

I felt he wasn’t saying drag was trying to be a woman - I felt his point was that he feels with drag they’re challenging the ideas about men and presentation and behaviour, not aping women or trying to be women.

I can’t get het up about the word cunt either in this context. I don’t know how they’re reclaiming it though as, as far as I’m aware, it’s never been socially acceptable to refer to women or drag queens as cunts and it’s currently used as an indiscriminate slur. The word may have originated from slang for vagina but is it really used in that context beyond porn? I understand others may feel differently.

I prefer drag queens calling each other "cunt" if they pass to "fishy"

It's annoying they want to "reclaim" the word though because it's not theirs

According to RuPaul the C word isn’t about passing exactly it’s about “authenticity”.

I like what he had to say about the artificiality of feminine performance and the fact that it is no more natural for women than men. I’ve always felt a sympathy with the drag ethos that is not common on the FWR board and he got close to expressing coherently why I feel that.

Although there is some misogyny in drag community - they’re a large group of men, so of course there’s some misogyny.

I like Ru Paul

But i hate the word fishy, i wish they wouldnt use it

I think Ru Paul once said something I liked along the lines of everyone being born naked; all the rest is drag.

I liked this article too - it set drag acts apart from transgender. There's an awareness they are not and never will be women and in fact a knowledge that their version of "woman" is not realistic. They know this - but somehow this has all become conflated together with transgender. People are very confused.

Drag Race had to get rid of “She Mail” as it was offensive to TIMs. If you havent watched it was when Rupaul issued a letter/challenge to the competitors.

brittany

Really

'You got she mail' was funny...its not like it was he mail before ...its obviously a play on email

Fucking hell...i may be disproportionately upset by this

I will use it to describe my vagina, it's fine i think?

I read the comments. Apparently RuPaul is grudgingly ok, but it will be better when they’re replaced with someone more younger and more progressive. Because a black, gay, successful man who has made his money from something that has come out of the gay community and bringing it to the mainstream is now a reactionary conservative dinosaur in 2018.

I also read the most terrifying comment I’d read on a guardian comment which was straight out of any mindfuck dictatorship manual. I shouldn’t read the comments.

In the seventies we tried to reclaim "bitch" and the result is that calling men and women a female dog is no longer considered a particularly harsh insult. The result of trying to reclaim the n word is that I hear white pre teens as well as blacks calling one another the n word.
These are the words the dominant class used to denigrate us and now we use them to denigrate ourselves.
I do not call that progress.

I don’t know if it’s just me but I’m the UK it seems like ‘cunt’ and ‘twat’ are generally used as insults against men, whereas in the US it seems to be mainly used against women (like a worse version of ‘bitch’).

It's true that the connotation of the word is very different in the US. It is used exclusively against women and it is a much worse word than bitch. It is roughly equivalent to the N-word. I'm American living in the US, and I can honestly say that I have only heard it spoken aloud maybe two or three times in my entire life.

That really annoyed me too. Cunt is NOT their word to reclaim. For them to use it is like white people using the n-word.