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Warning: This article contains foul language.
(Sort of.)
Or, as my friend called them, cunty little glasses.
Thoughcuntywould not have been my first choice of descriptor, I immediately knew what she meant.
Miles Diggs/Diggzy
The glasses themselves were objectively rather dull, utilitarian in design and purposely plain.
Hadid, for example, is attractive not because ofbut rather in spite ofher eyewear choice.
Shes in on the joke.
What had once been an absolutely off-limits, taboo offense was not just okay, but cool.
The first timecuntyslipped out of my own mouth, I started and glanced around the room for feedback.
They knew what I meant.
But my 70-year-old mom?
She wouldve been aghast.
And to look at it from a linguistics perspective, you have to be doom-scrolling a little bit.
So how did we get here?
And what is the true origin ofcuntas we use it in 2025?
When did you notice thatcuntwas becoming more popular in American slang?
They had a bunch of localized slang that was shared across these houses.
Thats why this language was being created, as a form of identity.
So social media sort of accelerated the normalization, or neutralization, of this word.
What did the word mean to the ballroom scene?
It was more literal, right?
It starts with serving cunt or giving cunt, which implies that you are giving femininity.
Its also popular slang in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.
Social context is super important.
I definitely think that could play a part.
You cant separate media from the equation.
We build our perceptions of words from the media we consume.
As a millennial, I can say the word was definitely taboo for me growing up.
Youre 24what was your relationship to the word?
I personally learned it along with all the other curse words.
Again, this coincides with social media.
This is when it really starts to be picked up in the [new] context.
Well, there are a few things going on with reclamation.
And one of them absolutely is an intentional reclamation.
In linguistics, its called reappropriation appropriation, just meaning the use of a word in a new context.
It can be intentional.
you’re able to use it still in a negative capacity.
So thats part of the context.
Can you explain why that is or is not a parallel?
I guess that would be an argument bycounterfeminists.
But you’re free to’t separate use from context, right?
One outcome of stigma exploitation is value reversal, showing that something negative can become positive.
And what is camp?
In other cases, its just funny and people like using it because thats what their sociological in-group does.
But I dont think we can separatecuntfrom the history of camp.
Are there any other words you might think of that have had a similar reclamation?
In feminist circles, a lot of people will useslutwith a positive connotation.
So this is just a process used by any kind of in-group that feels like theyve been targeted.
How would you define the way that its most often used today?
Sort of as a synonym ofcamp,sort of as a way of saying ironically cool or campy.
Less so about the original ballroom sense of, youre displaying femininity in an extravagant way.
I almost think of it as kind of diva-esque, which falls into the category of camp.
And that kind of contributes to perhaps the neutralization ofcuntthat were seeing.
There are other people using it in not that original sense.
Do you think social media has sped up the appropriation and reappropriation processes?
