The human body has exactly two excretions, both of which are considered dirty: urine and feces. Urine is normally sterile and can be safely drunk, but feces are 10% bacterial by weight, and are a major health hazard without modern sanitation; and indeed, feces are considered dirtier than urine (“shit,” the current use of “ass” and “asshole,” “crap”). Ear wax and smegma are secretions, not excretions.

Why has no one brought up the term “bitch slapped”? It seems to be all the rage in ‘punk-ese’ lately. I find it equally offensive as “cunt”…maybe even more so because there’s an under-current of gleeful violence toward women within the context that I’ve seen it used. To me, it engenders the righteousness some men equate with putting a woman ‘in their place’–as a pimp to his ‘ho’. It haunts me. Authors who use it seem to perceive the epiteth as humiliating when it’s a man that has stooped so low that he needs to be ‘bitch slapped’.

It seems that you are over-analyzing the term. A slap stings but causes no real pain. Any male or female that is taken out by one is a weak person, hence the attitude. Generally, a slap means that I don’t have the confidence or actually care enough to actually hit you for effect. Historically, in popular culture, it was bitches who slapped men or a slap might be used for someone out of control to get their attention. Most modern women have the confidence to hit another person.

To most people a bitch slap just means that “I don’t care enough to hit you for effect”. You are below caring, that is the insult. The word “bitch” is just to add insult to both women and men. Which you have apparently taken.

well, one, what zuzu said;

but, also, y’know, sometimes it takes a real friend to say, honestly, when all the fair-weathers are sycophanting or fapping away, respectively,

“…Dude, love ya, but you’re really coming off like a grade-A assberet here.”

just putting it out there.

There’s more than one way of being Republican Lite, and there’s more than one way of getting there. So this bunch (this is the most charitable interpretation of their motivation for acting thusly, frankly) is reacting against the general idea of the neolib, DLC, timid, me-tooing the R’s on every issue, right?

Well, brain trust, the way to differentiate yourself is by standing up for the motherfucking ISSUES. NOT by strapping on the Bush codpiece, because you know what? You don’t impress anybody. If people want hateful posturing macho bullshit, they’ll go for the real deal. Same as with the issues.

And–note to Para and T-Rex? You are gay men. Not only does this -not- automatically exempt you from charges of misogyny (like anyone who’d been in Chelsea for five fucking minutes would ever think so), but have you looked around you lately? Has it occurred to you the second you stop toeing the line with your new dear, close, -not at all bigoted- friends, you’ll likely be in for the same sort of treatment? …Ah. Maybe it has, at that. Maybe that’s why you’re working extra hard at this? “WE’RE NOT PUSSIES!!”

…whatfuckingever.

And, if it’s really about excratory functions, why do I not see obscenities related to boogers,ear wax, loogies and goobers hurled? I’ll answer that. It’s because they wouldn’t be considered inflamatory enough.

They’re just trying to throw sand in our eyes. C’mon…if a guy really wants to hurt a guy, he somehow eludes to his opponent as a girl. If he wants to insult a woman, he calls her a ‘bad’ girl (i.e. anyone or anything that has or, God forbid, enjoys sex).

Personally, I admire the spirit driving reclamation, but it seems at best a little quixotic and frivolous.

Steven Pinker has done a lot of work about this. Words that are taboo undergo what he calls a euphemism treadmill, whereby taboo words are continually replaced with new ones, which are then pejorated until they become taboo.

For example, in a modern context, the standard word for people slurred as “niggers” used to be “negro,” which then acquired a negative connotation because of its similarity to the slur and gave way to “colored,” which was pejorated as well and gave way to “black.”

In a premodern context, the words “bear” and “wolf” used to be taboo. As such, they took many different forms in Indo-European languages – for instance, English “bear” descends not from the original Proto-Indo-European word, but from Germanic “brown one.”