"It's Groundhog Day.. again.."

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by brianwspencer

I absolutely get the basis for what you're saying, and I got it before my original post -- I just don't agree with it all.

All that does, I believe, is continue to give those words power...the power that we so much abhor them having.

Call me a ******. I don't care. The word holds no power in my life and it puts me in no place of subordination (though the person using it may certainly be trying to create that effect). It only holds power because people let it, and because they are afraid of saying it for fear of offending someone who still gives that word power. I'd just as soon have nobody using the word at all, but if some people are going to continue to use it as something derogatory, I hold the belief that it is only offensive if I let it be...if I choose to let that word make me "less" than another.

I dont. So it's not.

I know we just approach it from different viewpoints, you're looking at it more sociologically and societally (which i'm familiar with), and I'm just looking at it on a person by person basis. An entire group can only be chained by a word if they allow themselves to be.

And I absolutely see that viewpoint, too, but on some level, I also see how, by making racial and sexual epithets unacceptable to say, we are passively saying that having racial and sexual prejudices is unacceptable.

And honestly, Brian, I hate to say it, believing as strongly as I do in equal treatment for all of us, but it's different if you're a woman. If a straight man calls you a f*****, you probably stand a reasonable chance of being able to kick the sh*t out of him, being male yourself. We don't. A man calls us something we don't like, there's not much we can do because physically, nine times out of ten, he can beat the crap out of us. And I'm quite muscular and strong, but men are just physically stronger- my first boyfriend post-college was only 2 inches taller than I and maybe 20 pounds heavier, but he could pretty easily wrestle me to the ground. It's the way men are made and there's nothing I can do about it. And so, by calling me a derogatory term for my vagina, a guy is asserting that he's in a more powerful position than I am because ultimately, I can't do anything about him calling me those names, other than not sleep with him, and if you come down to it, he's strong enough to make that happen too if he wants. Ergo my non-issue with women using it, and my big issue with men using it. Make in unacceptable to use the words, and you make the inclination behind the word unacceptable too.

(Which is not to say a group claiming the words for themselves should substitute for actual attempts to make things better. I think it can be an easy substitute for working within those groups for real change.)

[brianwspencer]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

And honestly, Brian, I hate to say it, believing as strongly as I do in equal treatment for all of us, but it's different if you're a woman. If a straight man calls you a f*****, you probably stand a reasonable chance of being able to kick the sh*t out of him, being male yourself. We don't. A man calls us something we don't like, there's not much we can do because physically, nine times out of ten, he can beat the crap out of us.

I get ya, but then we also approach life differently because retaliating against someone's words with physical violence had not crossed my mind in my 23 years on the planet. I had never linked the two ideas -- you call me a name to prove you're stronger or better than me....i beat your ass to prove that you're not?

Now that I think about it..............

[Cajungator26]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

If a straight man calls you a f*****, you probably stand a reasonable chance of being able to kick the sh*t out of him, being male yourself. We don't. A man calls us something we don't like, there's not much we can do because physically, nine times out of ten, he can beat the crap out of us.

Speak for yourself! I'm whooping some ass!

J/K

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Cajungator26

Speak for yourself! I'm whooping some ass!

J/K

i'd probably lose the fight, but by god he'd know he'd been in one!

we must never, ever, meet and go drinking together.

[Cajungator26]

Originally Posted by Danzig188

i'd probably lose the fight, but by god he'd know he'd been in one!

we must never, ever, meet and go drinking together.

LOL

It'd be dangerous. I can get a bit rowdy when provoked. HAHA

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Bababooyee

Yeah, but would you dress up in a black ninja suit at 3am and hide in the neighbor's bushes, drunk as a skunk, just so you could hear their fight better?

well that sounds like fun.

but cajun and i would don camo.

[Cajungator26]

Originally Posted by Danzig188

well that sounds like fun.

but cajun and i would don camo.

You know me too well. LOL

It must be the hunter connection or something... I'd never treat a guy the way that Baba has evidently been treated either. Most females are such biatches.

[Danzig]

i don't know how guys do it. i don't like a lot of women i encounter myself...too many of them are so damn silly.

sneaky, conniving, gossipy. ugh and then sit and bash their men to their friends, who bash right back. can you imagine the hurt feelings if her man did that to her? oh, righteous anger! it's crazy...

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Bababooyee

Yeah, but don't discount the way women beat men down...not in the physical sense, but it wears on ya just the same.

too true. there are women out there that i sneer down my nose at, they give the rest of us a bad name!

[Downthestretch55]

Originally Posted by Danzig188

too true. there are women out there that i sneer down my nose at, they give the rest of us a bad name!

Danzig,
Too true! Speaking of noses, I've had mine in some interesting places.
Didn't give me a bad name, though.
So, do you know how the saying "keep your nose out of my business" got started?
I don't.
Never stopped me from getting down to business, and kind of fun at that.
Timm's buying the next round too. I voted.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Downthestretch55

Danzig,
Too true! Speaking of noses, I've had mine in some interesting places.
Didn't give me a bad name, though.
So, do you know how the saying "keep your nose out of my business" got started?
I don't.
Never stopped me from getting down to business, and kind of fun at that.
Timm's buying the next round too. I voted.

i don't know how it started either.

timms a good guy.

[Downthestretch55]

Originally Posted by Danzig188

i don't know how it started either.

timms a good guy.

Yes he is.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Bababooyee

"Cuz in a 69 my humpty nose will tickle your rear..."

Not many people here are gonna get that one either.

so MANY ways to go with that one.....

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Bababooyee

I'd rather have a physical ass-kickin any day. Because when its done, its done. But the mental rolodex of every fight and misdeed that can and will come up in any future fight...well, its just not fair!

well you just haven't found the right gal yet. we don't all do that. i know i don't. crap, i don't want stuff recycled that i've done.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Bababooyee

Yeah, but don't discount the way women beat men down...not in the physical sense, but it wears on ya just the same.

Oh, I'm not saying we can't be, well, that word I feel I can use and you shouldn't ( ). I've known some women who were just awful emotionally to their alleged "friends" and "boyfriends." And honestly, if we weren't such catty, backstabbing bitches to each other, I think women would be a lot farther along, politically and economically.

And I agree, Brian, violence is not an ideal situation. But at the base of every conflict, there's that implied threat- verbal fights degenerate into fistfights, not the other way around. And when it's guy vs. girl, one half of the conflict has a physical advantage.

Though how awesome would it be to live in a world where a physical fight was the "light" end of fighting and a verbal battle was for when it got really ugly? Holy cow; I've got a short film in that idea. Nobody steal it!

[randallscott35]

Nicole there are 2 women I work with who personify the "C" word. If it is deserved, it should be used....even if not to their face.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by randallscott35

Nicole there are 2 women I work with who personify the "C" word. If it is deserved, it should be used....even if not to their face.

So see, Randall, you tell me and Cajun and Danzig who they are and then WE'LL call them that for you.

[randallscott35]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

So see, Randall, you tell me and Cajun and Danzig who they are and then WE'LL call them that for you.

Will do.

[timmgirvan]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

Oh, I'm not saying we can't be, well, that word I feel I can use and you shouldn't ( ). I've known some women who were just awful emotionally to their alleged "friends" and "boyfriends." And honestly, if we weren't such catty, backstabbing bitches to each other, I think women would be a lot farther along, politically and economically.

And I agree, Brian, violence is not an ideal situation. But at the base of every conflict, there's that implied threat- verbal fights degenerate into fistfights, not the other way around. And when it's guy vs. girl, one half of the conflict has a physical advantage.

Though how awesome would it be to live in a world where a physical fight was the "light" end of fighting and a verbal battle was for when it got really ugly? Holy cow; I've got a short film in that idea. Nobody steal it!

GR: I can't imagine living in a relationship where there is a implied threat of violence(well I did have that with the old man). Anyone who puts up with that..I feel for.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by timmgirvan

GR: I can't imagine living in a relationship where there is a implied threat of violence(well I did have that with the old man). Anyone who puts up with that..I feel for.

Well, Timm, of course in an average healthy relationship it's never going to go there. My husband and I have had some very angry fights but I know he'd sooner chop off his own hand than hit me. But then he'd never call me a c*nt, either. (I did hear him call me a "f*cking baby" once, but then when I yelled, "WHAT did you just call me?" he retorted, "You weren't supposed to hear that!" and then I started laughing and the fight was over. I sometimes HATE that he's so darn funny. Ruins perfectly good fights.) But looking at the root causes of why "n*****" is hateful in a way that "honky" isn't, and how "c*nt" is hateful in a way that "prick" just isn't, I think it comes back to who is saying it and who has the power.

And while there's I imagine, no power on earth that would make you strike a woman, the physical fact remains if you did, you could hit her harder than she could hit you. You have the upper hand, and you were given that by physiology. In a way, the stronger person always has the upper hand in a fight, and it's testament to our progress and growth as a society that the stronger one will opt to not ever play that card and choose to negotiate through a fight differently. Because now, most of us see it as more "manly" to keep one's fists in one's pockets. And I think not saying words that say that one is bad simply because one is female or black is another way of keeping those fists in their pockets. It's saying, I'm going to have to criticize you based on what you do, or WHO you are, not what you are. If I'm called a bitch, it's because I'm being a jerk, not because I'm a female canine.