D&C, I didn't know what that word meant for many years. I'd never even heard the word. I really was very innocent. Then I learned the word through a book I was reading (Erica Jong, I think) and looked it up in a dictionary. So I picked up absolutely NO connotations that this was a swear word, I saw it as just a simple description of a part of the female anatomy (from the Old English Anglo-Saxon). Of course, I didn't use the word as a rule, I had more modern words to use, more scientific ones. I also by now recognised that t he word was often used as an insult, or a swear word (I didn't think it was a particularly bad one, though). But the occasional joke which relied on that word - I had no trouble telling. Otherwise, I had small children and as a rule, NEVER used swear words at work because it is just too difficult to NOT swear in front of the kids. Better to never swear at all.
One of my male co-workers would use that word around me constantly. I didn't react; by then I had heard is used as an insult, but then I'd also heard so many other words. So I figured, if he was OK to use that word he was OK to hear my joke (which is a funny one) so I told him.
He was horrified. "Do you know what that word means?"
"Of course I do," I told him. "It's referring to a woman's genital area. So what's wrong with that? You use the word all the time."
"Yeah, but I never thought I'd hear it from you. It's not right, hearing a woman use a word like that."
And he wondered why I laughed - why could a man use that word, especially as an insult, and a woman NOT use the word, merely as a word? I mean, it's MY anatomy, surely I can call it what I like?
And the other thing - the so-and-so was too busy being horrified at me, to even laugh at my joke. Mind you, by this stage a few others in the room were laughing.
Marg
