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Go on... rape her... she won't report it... [UniLad magazine article]

ymu said:
...('Brit', for example, is fine)....
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Only if you live on the mainland of the UK. It's been a swear-word in the Emerald Isle for at least the last 50 years, possibly longer, to the majority of inhabitants of that fair island, and understandably so.
 
kabbes said:
Pretty sure that "pussy" to mean somebody afraid of something comes from "pussy cat" (as, indeed, does the meaning of female body bits). There is a long history of using the cat as an example of something that easily takes fright and stays away from rough-stuff (bit unfair to the cat, but there you go).

I distinctly remember in the 80s people saying "he's such a pussy cat". This later seemed to become pussy.

I stand to be corrected, though. This is speculation on my part.

(Very disappoint at the relatively tedious path this thread has now gone down, but oh well.)
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it works both ways. pussy = cat, and pussy = vagina, so it's kind of a double entendre

I'm still kind of baffled at how people seem to be arguing that words have one very clear meaning and connotation, which is obviously the same to everyone (unless of course, they're north american) and that it never strays from the original meaning.
 
Miss Caphat said:
it works both ways. pussy = cat, and pussy = vagina, so it's kind of a double entendre
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And beaver = animal, and beaver = vagina, so when somebody says they are "beavering away", it's a double entendre too?

You can't have it both ways. Either the etymology is where it is at, or the manner in which the context has surrounded the word is the important thing.

Particularly when the only reason pussy = vagina is because of the association with furriness. It's a parallel evolution of the word, not an evolution that has gradually got from one meaning to the other.
 
kabbes said:
And beaver = animal, and beaver = vagina, so when somebody says they are "beavering away", it's a double entendre too?

You can't have it both ways. Either the etymology is where it is at, or the manner in which the context has surrounded the word is the important thing.

Particularly when the only reason pussy = vagina is because of the association with furriness. It's a parallel evolution of the word, not an evolution that has gradually got from one meaning to the other.
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So beaver is nothing to do with vagina dentata, then, that oldest of male fears? :eek: :hmm: :eek:
 
kabbes said:
And beaver = animal, and beaver = vagina, so when somebody says they are "beavering away", it's a double entendre too?
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Men are called bitches in the US, but not because it is a unisex term over there - because it compares them to a woman. It's used in exactly the same way as 'pussy':
In high school especially, being called a “pussy” was a threat to your social reputation: if someone called you a “pussy”, you had better defend yourself (usually physically) because what kind of man are you if you let other guys call you a pussy? In retrospect, it seems rather juvenile and pathetic that boys will let a slang word for a vagina disrupt their ego so much, but in a time when boys’ socialization is coming to its peak – right around the time they are beginning the last years of puberty – the worst thing he can hear is being accused of something opposite of his endstate, which is ultimately manhood.
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Not a whimsical comparison with puddy cats. Really. :D

Anyways, this article takes us back to some of the earlier discussion in the thread, about how the unacceptable attitudes described in the OP can/should be tackled:
"Most hate crimes are carried out by otherwise law-abiding young people who see little wrong with their actions," as the American Psychological Association put it in a 1998 position paper. "Alcohol and drugs sometimes help fuel these crimes, but the main determinant appears to be personal prejudice … [which] blind the aggressors to the immorality of what they are doing." The APA goes on to note that many hate crime perpetrators believe "that society sanctions attacks on certain groups":

"For example, Dr Karen Franklin, a forensic psychology fellow at the Washington Institute for Mental Illness Research and Training, has found that, in some settings, offenders perceive that they have societal permission to engage in violence against homosexuals."
...

I have to wonder whether punishing a kid like Dharun Ravi after the fact is just; or, moreover, whether it will do anybody any good. Both Clementi and Ravi were impacted, albeit in different ways, by a society that is still far too accepting about the use of anti-gay language.

Rather than ruining the life of another impressionable young man, a better way to effect real change at Rutgers – and the nation at large – might be to work on changing the culture. More education and advocacy efforts aimed at enabling students better to understand sexual orientation, at training teachers about how to respond to anti-gay slurs in their classroom, and at getting gay youth (and their parents) to accept their sexuality, might be a more prudent and useful way to foster a less prejudiced society.

To help prevent tragic events like Clementi's suicide in future, we should make it our responsibility to tell any loudmouths we happen to encounter at the laundromat, or the gym, or the corner market, or at a family gathering, that we don't approve of their hateful language. If only one of Ravi's buddies had called him out for using the word "fag", maybe this sad story would've had a different ending.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/16/tyler-clementi-dharun-ravi-hate-crime
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There was a fearsome amount of homophobia around in my school. I didn't like it and didn't join in, but no way did I challenge it either. I had enough problems! I'm sure most kids who don't join in are like that.

Given that I'd wager most of the boys I knew then who were banging on with homophobic stuff probably are not homophobic as adults, not sure exactly where it comes from - the virulence of it at school, I mean. Does it perhaps originate much younger in the times when boys and girls first start to identify with gender roles - and do so normally in a very rigid and stereotypical way? (I remember, for instance, when I was very young, insisting on walking outside my mum 'to keep my sword arm free'. I was serious as well, I think. :facepalm:)
 
littlebabyjesus said:
There was a fearsome amount of homophobia around in my school. I didn't like it and didn't join in, but no way did I challenge it either. I had enough problems! I'm sure most kids who don't join in are like that.

Given that I'd wager most of the boys I knew then who were banging on with homophobic stuff probably are not homophobic as adults, not sure exactly where it comes from - the virulence of it at school, I mean. Does it perhaps originate much younger in the times when boys and girls first start to identify with gender roles - and do so normally in a very rigid and stereotypical way? (I remember, for instance, when I was very young, insisting on walking outside my mum 'to keep my sword arm free'. I was serious as well, I think. :facepalm:)
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LOL

That is hilarious, were you a young Don Quixote?
 
kabbes said:
And beaver = animal, and beaver = vagina, so when somebody says they are "beavering away", it's a double entendre too?

You can't have it both ways. Either the etymology is where it is at, or the manner in which the context has surrounded the word is the important thing.

Particularly when the only reason pussy = vagina is because of the association with furriness. It's a parallel evolution of the word, not an evolution that has gradually got from one meaning to the other.
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oh, I can, and do have it both ways. often. ;)
 
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That article hypothesises, as have posters on this thread, that these attitudes are picked up from, and are at least partially condoned by, wider society. Perhaps, just perhaps, if we didn't tolerate homophobia, racism or sexism, then kids wouldn't assume it was OK to behave like this.

Just a thought, like.
 
ymu said:
That article hypothesises, as have posters on this thread, that these attitudes are picked up from, and are at least partially condoned by, wider society. Perhaps, just perhaps, if we didn't tolerate homophobia, racism or sexism, then kids wouldn't assume it was OK to behave like this.

Just a thought, like.
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I think that's certainly a large part of it. Don't see how it couldn't be. But kids aren't just passive in this - they are actively trying to work out what's what, and that does lead to stereotyping. In younger kids, at least, none of it is deeply held, though. How could it be - they're kind of playing at the various roles they see.
 
Exactly. They're playing the roles they see. Adult men thinking it's fine to casually denigrate women or aggressively asserting their heterosexuality, for example.

Kids don't develop negative stereotypes out of nowhere. They go through phases of disliking certain types of foods and needing to sleep in late, they do not go through phases of hating entire demographic groups for no apparent reason.
 
ymu said:
Exactly. They're playing the roles they see. Adult men thinking it's fine to casually denigrate women or aggressively asserting their heterosexuality, for example.

Kids don't develop negative stereotypes out of nowhere. They go through phases of disliking certain types of foods and needing to sleep in late, they do not go through phases of hating entire demographic groups for no apparent reason.
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We're not disagreeing, I don't think. We're just stressing slightly different things. I do think that certain kinds of stereotypes are more likely to have purchase due to kids' active role in trying to find out their roles. But yes, the only way to tackle that is not to present it to them in any form. Hard job, that, though, when our kids act like a kind of simplifying mirror back us. I know a few parents who've been dismayed by the way their kids have picked up on stereotypes from the wider world - what parents do doesn't always count.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
We're not disagreeing, I don't think. We're just stressing slightly different things. I do think that certain kinds of stereotypes are more likely to have purchase due to kids' active role in trying to find out their roles. But yes, the only way to tackle that is not to present it to them in any form. Hard job, that, though, when our kids act like a kind of simplifying mirror back us. I know a few parents who've been dismayed by the way their kids have picked up on stereotypes from the wider world - what parents do doesn't always count.
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We're not really disagreeing, no. I'm just a tad over-sensitive to explanations which appear to absolve wider society of responsibility for addressing these problems. I know that's not what you're trying to do, but I don't think it's useful to suggest that there might be anything natural or inevitable about kids developing these attitudes.

You're absolutely right that there's only so much parents can do when others are still acting like shits. Which is why people who act like shits need calling out on it, whatever age they are - and kids need to see that too. It's a societal problem, not an individual one.

My dad taught my brother to bully me about my weight. For fifteen years, it was merciless. Then a mate of his that he looked up to tore a strip off him about it, in front of me. He never did it again. Small actions can have massive effects. Having decent principles is pointless if you don't have the courage to act on them.
 
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