I’d like to talk about bad words, if I may.

Since around the time I hit puberty I noticed that so many of the expletives in English (I’d love to hear from speakers of other languages on this) are based on sex. Sex is typically consider a desirable or positive thing, so why is our strongest swear word “fuck”? Why do we say something disagreeable “sucks”? A hang-over from sex negativity? Excrement-based curse words make sense to me, but there are far fewer of them than the sex and genital-based ones.

Some of these have received pushback recently. In the 90’s and 00’s it was common for kids to casually use “gay” as a synonym for “bad” and “pussy” for “coward”. Maybe it’s because I’m an adult now, but I just don’t hear this anymore. Even if people use these terms negatively they mean their literal referents. I think we came to a place culturally that recognizes this isn’t acceptable (what right-wing weirdos call “political correctness”).

Most female-specific terms are no longer acceptable. “Bitch” has been effectively reclaimed by third wave feminists. “Cunt” is unacceptable in the US and its days in other English-speaking countries may be numbered. “Twat” sounds downright old-fashioned. “Slut” shaming is sure to draw approbation. Disparaging terms for sex workers are all off the table. And that’s great! But then why is the very opposite thing happening for male-specific terms?

“Dick,” “jerk, and “wanker” have been used to describe unpleasant people for decades. Now “bellend” and “scrote” are joining their ranks. We have often used fellatio as a metaphor for something disagreeable (“suck”) but there isn’t a comparable word for cunnilingus. And although it’s unacceptable to criticize a woman for having a relatively active sex life, it’s become more and more common to see men insulted for their putative lack of sex. And it doesn’t even need to be literal. If someone calls someone else an “incel” or “virgin” online they obviously don’t actually know anything about their sex life.

Expletives are an important part of language. Sometimes we need these blunt instruments to properly express our anger. But let’s move away from all sex-negative, and demographic-based cusses.