Sage Advice

A Pussy Bias: Sexism In Our Use Of Vulgar Language

I say dick at least a hundred times a day. Of those hundred times, only about 30% are in reference to my body. The rest of those dick utterances are in reference to vague nouns and other peoples’ bodies. I say dick liberally and without much thought or effort.

I say pussy maybe a hundred times a month. It’s much rarer in my daily vocabulary. I’m generally cautious to even say it. If I’m about to say pussy, I’m usually planning about ten sentences ahead of the moment. “You gotta say pussy in this next paragraph,” I say to myself. “Get ready for that. You’ll probably blush a little once grandma hears that word come out of your mouth.”

That’s an exaggeration of course, but the basic problem is very real for me; I’m far more socially comfortable with saying dick than I am with saying pussy. The simple analysis for this issue is to just say that I’m a guy, and, therefore, I am probably just more comfortable with referring to my own genitalia in a vulgar manner than I am of the opposite gender’s genitalia.

But then I start to think about how often I hear dick and pussy said by people around me. All the people around me. Friends, family, strangers, the media, bird calls, children, machinery sounds, the voices in my head. How often do I hear dick and pussy? When I really consider the question, it seems as though dick heavily outweighs pussy. I hear people say dick almost as often as I say dick. It’s casually tossed about to the point of almost having no meaning. Pussy, on the other hand, comes off as more reserved. Almost as if it’s being saved for a special occasion, pussy only seems to be used for two reasons: a) Drunk guys trying to articulate their annoying desires (i.e. Let’s get some pussy, bro!) b) People trying to shame others (i.e. Don’t be such a pussy, bro!).

Pussy as a word ends up being hyper-sexualized or hyper-shamed. There seems to be very little room for middle ground with its usage. Someone is either expressing a sexual desire or trying their best to belittle another person.

Dick is unfairly a more versatile and less venomous word than pussy. Let’s look at the word outside of its anatomical reference. We call people dicks and pussies all the time, but what do we really mean when we use those words?

Look at these examples:

“You’re being a dick.”

Whoever is being described as a dick here is most likely acting outlandish, mean, rude, or vulgar. When you’re being a dick, you’re usually being a fool—someone shakes their head at you because of the ridiculous or mean-spirited actions you’re performing. Being a dick isn’t good, but it’s usually not the worst thing you can be. There isn’t much shame with being a dick. In fact, people acting like dicks are usually shameless. You probably know a few people, maybe even close friends, who are actually proud of their dickish behavior. Dicks are annoying, but they are never shamed. Instead, they are often tolerated.

Now let’s look at pussy in a similar fashion:

“You’re being a pussy.”

You’re being a wimp, a weakling, or the kind of person who is unable to perform a task adequately or without complaint. Pussies are people who have no confidence. Pussies, almost always, are put to shame. Being called a pussy is supposed to demean and belittle you. Nobody wants to be called a pussy. For every person you know who proudly proclaims I’m such a dick, you know absolutely zero people who proudly proclaim I’m such a pussy. If someone does get branded as a consistent pussy—someone who consistently fails to exhibit confidence—that person is forever shamed and treated like a social leper. “That person is a pussy,” you might hear someone say. And now you look down on him or her. You don’t respect him or her. Nobody respects a pussy.

This isn’t fair at all. In terms anatomical importance, a pussy and a dick are pretty much equal. They perform similar bodily functions. They each act as strong indicators of their respective genders (strictly from a biological sense, otherwise gender is a social construction). They’re both, essentially, needed for a species to continue. They’re both important. Neither one should be shamed in any respect, but if we are shaming genitals or people being compared to genitals, then we need make sure the shame is equally distributed. In other words, if the person acting like a pussy is forced to feel shame, then the person acting like a dick should feel just as ashamed.

When it comes to saying the words—not necessarily being called the words—I don’t want anyone to feel ashamed or embarrassed with either. I use dick so frequently that it molds into nearly every part of speech for me. Many a time have I used dick as an adjective and even a verb during my everyday conversations. My colloquialisms are absolutely saturated with dicks. Unfortunately, pussy doesn’t get the same treatment, but it definitely deserves to.

And let’s be honest, if any word can handle being used in a variety of ways, it’s definitely pussy. Pussies are durable and strong. They make life, and they bleed every once in awhile. Pussies are tough. What do dicks do? They sit around, limp and useless, until they’re called to a few minutes worth of action. And the second they’re done doing that, it’s back to limp and useless.

It’s probably really easy to write off the idea of letting pussy be more acceptable in our vulgarity. After all, who would take anything seriously after reading the words dick 29 times and pussy 37 times. I would argue that it’s important, though. For me, language that’s considered foul is only used with my most revered company present. I say “bad” words around my friends and family. The people I care most about hear me say the most vulgar things. It doesn’t make sense that the most intimate conversations you’ll have with the people who matter most should shy away from a word just because the rest of our culture has forced shame and sexuality onto it. I simply believe we should be just as comfortable with pussy as we are with dick.   

I fear someone might read this and say, “This guy just wants to say pussy without feeling weird.” And, yes, that’s partly true. However, I want everyone to say pussy without feeling weird. The vulgarity we all seem so comfortable with applying to dick should be applied to pussy just as well. 

-Matthew Fugere

Self-Diagnosis: The Only Sensible Method Of Medicine

The other day I had an odd moment of sudden health trouble that I decided to blindly avoid by refusing to even acknowledge it as health trouble. I was resting in a recliner, letting the day pass me by while my brain wrestled with idle thoughts, when suddenly a gulp of the perfectly fresh air I breathed into my perfectly healthy lungs seemed to poison me. As though oxygen was throwing a haymaker at my chest, my entire body very suddenly frozen as a spike of pain stunned me.

For what seemed like an incalculably small amount of time, I felt extremely close to death. Of course, I wasn’t, but that’s what my body felt like it was telling me. What a rational person would say to him or herself with this kind of sudden sensory information is something like this, “That was strange. I should consider seeing a medical professional, especially if something similar to that event occurs again.” What I said to my him or herself was this, “Wow, that last batch of air I got was not good. Can air become expired? If so, that was certainly some expired air.”

The idea of a visit to a medical doctor’s place of business was so far outside of my consideration that any indication of a similar thought was lower on the list of “Things I Should Think Should I Suddenly Feel As Though I Will Be Dead Very Soon” than the incredibly unlikely “this air must be expired.” Blaming the air for a sudden moment of failing health only works if you’re in one of the following places:

• Factory
• Cavern filled with venomous snakes
• Cloud of smog
• Inside of an animal
• Anywhere without oxygen
• Space (see last suggestion)
• Coal mine
• Underwater
• Under an overpass
• Next to a dead person
• Next to someone who only watches CSI and you’re like, c’mon, you don’t even watch Breaking Bad or Mad Men or Louie or even the news? and they’re like, nope, only CSI
• Next to a Van Halen cover band

As mentioned earlier, I was relaxing on a recliner. This recliner was not in any of the places listed above or any places that could be considered similar to the places listed above.

Ignoring one’s mortality is surely a normal part of life. It’s something that isn’t usually on the mind of people my age, but being dead is always an option no matter who you are. Death is quite democratic in that fashion.

But the important part of this story is how delusional I was about my health. A complete denial of the most likely answer is what led me to completely ignore the existence of a practical and easy solution. This happened weeks ago at the time of this writing, and I’m just now starting to convince myself that there might—just might—have been something malfunctioning in my dumb body.

I still doubt it though. I’m sure it was just a batch of bad air.

-Matthew Fugere

I Am Addicted To Homeless People

I’m addicted to thinking about homeless people. What they do during the day. Where they go. How they smell. Where they use the bathroom. How they deal with boredom. How they think and feel and what it’s like to realize you’re one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I ignore homeless people just as much as you do. I’m really good at ignoring them despite how much I think about them. I just pretend they’re trees or other inanimate objects. When I walk around I say, “Oh my, that lamppost looks very sad and hungry and tired” to myself quite often. I do this so I don’t have to make eye contact; lampposts and trees don’t have eyes with which to make eye contact.

                                                                                                    Everyone has a homeless guy story. I’m no exception. Mine happened while I was at my university’s library. The college’s library was a few months away from major renovations, so at the time, the building was truly showing its age. The front area was a computer lab. Most of the ground was covered with relatively new desktops. This part of the lab was dedicated to students; you had to have a student identification number to even login to one.

Closer to the exit of the building was a group of computers open to the public. These were much older, egg-shell colored behemoths that did not require any kind of password. Since it was open to the public, an occasional homeless person would wander in to check his email or whatever homeless people do when they get onto a computer (another thing I’m quite curious about).

I was with a student I had been paired up with for a class project. It was a boring task, forcing us to present some literary theory or theorist or something I don’t remember because who cares through the tragically mundane medium of PowerPoint. We were sharing notes when we were both suddenly distracted by one of the open-to-the-public computers nearby us.

At first, all I could think was that trashcan was really enjoying whatever it was watching on the monitor. Then I remembered that trashcans can’t use computers, so I squinted my eyes a bit to see what was really going on. A homeless guy, at least a guy who was wearing a homeless guy’s uniform (weathered, torn jacket; greasy, shaggy hair; massively grey and huge beard; mumbling), was paying very close attention to a video that was playing on the computer he was using. It was difficult to tell initially, but upon a double-take, I was absolutely certain the trashcan—er, uh homeless guy—was watching some pretty hardcore pornography and really getting into it.

The person I was with scoffed upon the sight, making an “eww” sound and commenting, “That is so gross.” In the moment, I just laughed and agreed with my classmate in an attempt to get us back on track to our project. I was ashamed of my reaction, though. I just nodded my head, not saying what I really thought about it.

The handrail—I mean homeless guy—who was on the computer, watching some porn in public, probably deserved to be there. If anyone else was doing that, watching porn, perhaps even rubbing one out in a crowded public place of strangers, I would be disgusted. “Go to your home,” I would righteously say. “That’s one of the luxuries of having a home: a perfectly private place to masturbate.”

That guy didn’t have such a luxury. Whenever he felt that urge, he couldn’t get on his laptop, enjoy a few minutes alone, and then erase his internet history—all on his own time and dime. He doesn’t have any dimes. He does, however, have a lot of time, but it’s not private time. That homeless guy’s life was completely public. He had to use public restrooms, public computers, public benches, public parks, public everything. He was on a public computer in a public school, watching public porn when he decided to create a public display of a usually private nature.

                                                                                                            He had to. And there was no reason not to. The only consequence was a couple of college kids saw a grungy dude touch himself in public—hardly the most traumatic experience someone could experience. He probably got thrown out. I bet someone even called the cops. They probably put him into a squad car and took him downtown and told him he couldn’t just pleasure himself in front of a bunch of strangers in public. Then they probably turned him loose and he probably wandered around, looking for another place to relieve all of the gross fluids that build up in the human body.  

-Matthew Fugere

Sage Advice 94: Masculinity

Trying to capture what it means, socially rather than physically, to be a man seems challenging. Nothing in our culture, so far as I know, really indicates the passing of boyhood and beginning of manhood. There are hardly even any aspects of manliness to hold onto that really determines the separation between the two. What does a man wear? What does a man do? Is it okay for a man to listen to Tegan and Sara? How much murder and rape is too much murder and rape (historically speaking, there is no such thing as too much)?

Some societies have rituals and traditions that are carried out to determine becoming a man. For example, the Hoo-di-nikki sect of the Too-ba-loochi clan from the western region of the African continent requires boys of the tribe to watch either the first two or last three seasons of Cheers on DVD to cement their passing into manhood. The closest my life ever came to something like that was the feeling I got when I realized Space Jam wasn’t a documentary—which was last week.

Cultural images can sometimes represent the ideal of manliness. I remember seeing Clint Eastwood wearing a poncho and sombrero, his face stoic and weathered as his pistol rested in its holster, and thinking, Now that’s a man’s man. Plenty about that image shouts the ideals and expectations of manhood. After awhile, however, I realized that what I was really doing was shaping an idea for masculinity from an actor. An actor, for those unfamiliar, is basically someone who pretends to be something he or she isn’t. So any schema I constructed was being written around a guy who was doing something kids do for fun on the playground—wear ponchos and sombreros.

Maybe we’re not supposed to know what it means to be a man. Perhaps it’s more important to consider what it means to be human, making something like gender less precedent when it comes to constructing our identities. Or maybe we should go back to the quantity of murder and rape one is able to produce as a measurement of manliness. I’m sure that has worked before.

Sincerely,

-Matthew Fugere