If anything, “cocksucker” became an insult because–like already mentioned–it implies a certain level of submissiveness. So unless we’re claiming that the suggestion of submissiveness is inextricably linked with homosexuality, I don’t see how the two are synonymous. Of course that’s assuming that the word even retains its original literal meaning in common usage but—like motherfucker—I don’t think it has.
And let’s notice that in the linked article one of the arrested “cocksuckers” was female. So to say that stinkpalm had anti-gay intentions with that wording, or even that those reading it would see “cocksucker” and think “faggot”, is just silly IMO.
Nor do I. Clearly, he was intending to insult the horrible parents he was talking about . . . by reference to homosexuality and/or homosexual acts. Equating a really bad thing with homosexuality is rather insulting to homosexuality, don’t you think?
I’m quite straight, thank you very much. One need not be a member of a group to be take offense when that group has invective hurled at it.
Really? Then why does he continue to defend his usage, particularly with reference to at least one additional sexual orientation-related insult?
Well, apparently he didn’t realize his mistake. He started this thread.
In my opinion, over use of obsecenitites is a sign of lack of creativity. Not seeing how using a gender, orientation or race-based general insult like “bitch”, “fag” or “wetback” can be insulting is a sign of obtuseness or stupidity.
Protesting the use of terms relating to homosexuality as terms of derision is called “reclaiming the language”. I routinely complain about the common practice of using “gay” as a term of derision, and I rather jumped on someone the other day in either IMHO or MPSIMS (forget which) for using the “lesbian trapped in a man’s body” joke, which is derisive of both lesbians and transsexuals. (Unfortunately, he didn’t get it.) Equating cocksucking with badness is injurious to those who enjoy doing it. There are many people who suck cock and are nonetheless wonderful people. Why should you insult them by equating them with scum?
Regarding the etymology:
The British oriented Partridge’s Concise Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English does not have a specific entry for cocksucker (I would guess the complete version might), but under “cocksucking bastard” it notes that the term was introduced to the British from U.S. troops around 1944, then adds that “The imputation of fellatio [is] a deep down pejorative.”
If I say a young woman is tasty, I do not mean that I am a cannibal. If I say that the oven makes me hot, I do not mean that I have an erection or an immediate desire to have sex. If I say you are a cocksucker pejoratively, it is highly specious to claim that I (someone who enjoys having my cock sucked) would in any way mean it literally.
Now that that is out of the way, I have a hard time seeing how this word could come into pejorative use except as an aside to homosexuals. So I do think it is inappropriate. But, to tell the truth, I’m not going to jump on someone for it (and for those of you literalists, I’m not going to verbally assault them). I see no way to use “gay” as “lame” without deriding homosexuality, I’m afraid, much to my own dismay as I got into a rather heated debate on it some time ago.
Again, I think KellyM and others make a serious mistake in taking the term “cocksucker” literally. Almost no spoken phrase in English, especially insults, are literal. But it also seems clear to me that the term became negative because of homosexuality.
Yes, I do. However, I don’t believe that was his intent.
I am quite straight as well, but I don’t see what that has to do with it. I did not mean that someone had to be gay to be offended by insults aimed at gay people. I meant that he was not aware how offensive his words would be to the gay community.
I can’t really answer that…only the OP can. If I had to make a guess, I would chalk it up to being defensive.
I want to make it clear that I’m not defending his use of an insult that disparages gay people…I’m only saying that was apparently not his intent.
As I said above, I believe his responses were born of defensiveness. About starting a new thread…maybe he didn’t want to let the thread hijack into a subject completely off the OP?
Like I said, I believe that he was ignorant of how offensive this insult would be to homosexuals. He was informed and learned from his mistake.
Wow, although ‘cock’ has three pages dedicated to it (sense 20; penis, from the German ‘hahn’) in my OED, no mention of ‘cocksucker.’
IMHO, ‘cocksucker’ is just like ‘motherfucker,’ no less offensive, and no more. Regardless of its literal meaning, its colloquial meaning is ‘asshole’, which in turn means ‘highly disagreeable person.’
I don’t see the mothers, and the supporters thereof, on this board rising as one to condemn the word ‘motherfucker.’
Either that was a hilarious joke or a hilarious mistake. I only wish I was smart enough to tell the difference. Either way you can understand why I cannot trust your word as editor?
Whether or not the term originated with degradation for homosexuals doesn’t matter much. I don’t think most people who call someone a cocksucker are really trying to make fun of homosexuals. On the other hand I feel the same way about people using the word gay to mean lame.
How many homosexuals on the SDMB get upset when someone says “bugger off?”
OK, so a guy calls another guy a cocksucker. It is meant to be highly offensive; ergo, it is highly offensive for a man to suck another man’s cock. Homosexual men suck cock; ergo, being a homosexual man is highly offensive.
To reclaim it somehow implies that you owned it in the first place. My english teachers never taught me that the language was copyrighted by minority interest groups.
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Heaven forbid we upset the transexuals. :rolleyes: Why get lathered up over non-issues? The english langauge does change from time to time.
COCKSUCKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!! I’m sure all them men and women out there who enjoy sucking cock just feel real bad when someone is called a cocksucker. Are dog trainers injured by the use of the word bitch? Do mothers suffer injury when someone says mother fucker?
The problem with the OP’s (and general) usage of the term “cocksucker” as an insult, as with using the term “gay” to mean lame, is what the term implies - linking negative modes of behaviour to homosexuality. Put in simple terms, “cocksucker” = homosexual = bad. It’s a colloquialism, it doesn’t matter what the OP meant when he used the term, what matters is the general understanding behind that term and its connotations, which equate being gay as something worthy of an insult.
“Bugger off” does not have the same derogatory bite of “cocksucker”, just as “fuck off” is not as much an insult as “whore”. Words have an implicit meaning, often behind even their dictionary definitions - I can fairly happily tell my mother to fuck off (and have done), but I wouldn’t dream of ever calling her a whore.
“Reclaiming the language” - it does not refer to having ever ‘owned’ a term, it refers to taking a term primarily used to insult/degrade/suppress the minority group of which you are a part. By deciding to use the term yourself in an affectionate manner between yourself and the other members of said group, it takes the sting out of the insult. In example, a gay man calls me a screaming fairy, I have an implicit understanding that the comment was not intended to hurt or degrade me. But historically and contextually, if it is said to me by anyone other than a gay man (or a very, VERY good friend) then I will hear the insult.
Almost the whole thread. Where you make a logical leap is bolded above. “Cocksucker” is not meant to be offensive by saying “You suck cocks.” In the original thread, it’s quite clear that Stinkpalm did not mean to say the people he was insulting suck cocks. It’s meant to be offensive by saying “You are an asshole/motherfucker/dork/jerk,” e.g. “you are a disagreeable person.” The word, used the way Stinkpalm used it, simply does not mean what the component parts mean. It just means “You are an extremely bad individual.”
Like many words in English, “cocksucker” is well beyond its root (ha!) meaning and has taken on a meaning of its own, just like “Asshole.”
It is therefore quite logical to conclude that many people who use the perjorative “cocksucker” do not actually think smoking dick is highly offensive. Indeed, I would wager many people who enthusiastically slurp schlongs have used “cocksucker” as a perjorative. Why, I myself have known some ladies who used the perjorative “cocksucker” even though they themselves could suck a basketball through a bendy straw.
If I call someone a “Geek” I do not literally mean they bite the heads off live animals, although that unquestionably IS the root of the word. If I call an old woman a crone I do not literally mean she is a pile of vulture food. A really good example, of course, would be the exclamations “Christ!” or “Jesus!”, which are invoked by the religious and the athiest alike, simply because they’re words English speakers use as angry exclamations. So too “cocksucker.” On the SDMB you could use “Goat felcher” as an example. Many people have been castigated in the Pit as goat felchers, but on few occasions was it literally meant that they… well, I’m not going to describe goat felching.
However, this doesn’t mean it might not be a good idea to excise “cocksucker” from one’s language. I don’t think Stinkpalm was referring to homosexuals, and I don’t think most people are, but it can still offend, just as it would be wrong to use “nigger” as a common pejorative even if you didn’t literally mean “a black person.”
