# Why 'motherfucker' and not 'fatherfucker'?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 25, 2006, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699 "2006-11-25T00:27:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Sir\_Reginald\_Bumwipe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Reginald_Bumwipe)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/1 "2006-11-25T00:27:55Z")
Is there a reason why the first term came to be used almost exclusively and the other not at all?
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/2 "2006-11-25T00:32:39Z")
It’s not the only maternal-oriented insult. Try asking any Glaswegian about ‘ya maw’.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/3 "2006-11-25T00:37:00Z")
There were father-rapers on the Group W bench.
But that attack on the mother is what makes it so much an insult.
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### Author:  [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/4 "2006-11-25T00:54:10Z")
Properly speaking, you cannot fuck a man. You can bugger them, of course. But you cannot insert a penis into them for the purpose of copulation.
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### Author:  [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/5 "2006-11-25T00:56:34Z")
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq]
Properly speaking, you cannot fuck a man. You can bugger them, of course. But you cannot insert a penis into them for the purpose of copulation.
[/QUOTE]
But then you still have the problem of only using motherfucker against males. Fatherfucker could be used as an insult to women.
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### Author:  [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/6 "2006-11-25T00:59:29Z")
Motherfucker rolls off the tongue effortlessly and is great in the heat of a fight. Fatherfucker rolls off with the grace of an anchor. Try it sometime!
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/7 "2006-11-25T01:29:30Z")
Since little boys in the late 1800’s would taunt each other perhaps more than little girls, it was not unusual to insult another’s mother. A common turn of phrase by 1900 was “your mother.”
It would only be natural for older boys to take it to the next level.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/8 "2006-11-25T01:39:52Z")
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq]
Properly speaking, you cannot fuck a man. You can bugger them, of course. But you cannot insert a penis into them for the purpose of copulation.
[/QUOTE]
Right, but so many of us just keep on trying.
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### Author:  [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/9 "2006-11-25T01:41:17Z")
Could it be in reference to Oedipus, Rex?
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### Author:  [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/10 "2006-11-25T01:48:06Z")
Boils down to the horror of insecurity about paternity issues, I’d suppose.
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/11 "2006-11-25T01:50:32Z")
Well, I sometimes call people a cork-socking fathermucker, to avoid cursing.
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### Author:  [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/12 "2006-11-25T01:53:30Z")
[QUOTE=mstay]
Motherfucker rolls off the tongue effortlessly and is great in the heat of a fight. Fatherfucker rolls off with the grace of an anchor. Try it sometime!
[/QUOTE]
Personally, I think you can’t beat the musicality of **Unclefucker**!!
In answer to the OP, its because throughout history swearing was something men did to other men. Women swearing at all or men swearing at women was simply not acceptable behavior. And because homosexuality was considered a more unspeakable act than even incest.
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### Author:  [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/13 "2006-11-25T02:04:59Z")
I like **grannyjazzer**.
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### Author:  [@Lobelia\_Overhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobelia_Overhill)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2006, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/14 "2006-11-25T13:16:13Z")
I always thought it was something to do with Mother’s being the maternal, caring, nurturing parent who didn’t engage in sexual activities (aside from the conception of the child) and therefore someone who went around shagging a mother was _the_ most depraved person in existance…
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### Author:  [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2006, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/15 "2006-11-26T15:06:54Z")
SOB, not SODog
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2006, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/16 "2006-11-26T16:40:05Z")
[QUOTE=Hail Ants]
Personally, I think you can’t beat the musicality of **Unclefucker**!!
[/QUOTE]
Heh. That _is_ an invention of the writers for South Park, right? Or is that some kind of actually extant Canadian obscenity promoted through “Terrance & Phillip”?
Sometimes I make use of this reference by saying of someone that he “won’t eat or sleep or mow the lawn”. It seems you have to be a certain age or younger to get that reference 🙂
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2006, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/17 "2006-11-26T22:11:10Z")
For those not clued in to **RealityChuck’s** reference:
> [@Arlo Guthrie](#):
>
> And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me!
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### Author:  [@Tartuffe52](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tartuffe52)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2006, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/18 "2006-11-27T06:45:21Z")
[QUOTE=CookingWithGas]
For those not clued in to **RealityChuck’s** reference:
[/QUOTE]
Mothers are the life givers, the ones who hold you when you cry, the warm breast to feed you, your first defense against the horrors of the world. Mom, apple pie…the mother of us all…the motherland…etc etc etc..So naturally one who “fucks” that is the most heinous of offenders and the lowest of the low. Father… well, he’s the guy that smoked cigarettes in the lobby while you were being born. At least that’s what I was told.
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### Author:  [@Lobelia\_Overhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobelia_Overhill)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2006, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-motherfucker-and-not-fatherfucker/381699/19 "2006-11-27T16:59:16Z")
is there an echo in here?
😃