Monday Mini: The History of P***y

Anney and Samantha trace the very complicated and strange origins and evolution of the word p***y.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
I never told your production I heart radio. Okay, so
before we get into this one right off the bat
you probably could tell from the title, but content warning.

(00:26):
We are talking about the origin of a word that
is often used offensively against women or towards men. Usually
you're referring to women, but the P word. So here's
your chance to switch it off if that's not something
you're into hearing, give you a pause. Okay, perfect, I

(00:48):
like it, Thank you. And this is a very abbreviated history. Samantha.
You were saying that what is that Netflix show has
something the history of the swear words? Nicholas k just
the one that's hosting it. It was pretty fun because
it has a lot of the comedians that come through
and talk about this and this is one of those words.
And I will say it's not one of my favorite words,
but yeah, the show is pretty fun. Yeah, there's definitely

(01:11):
deeper dives than what we're doing here on this mini.
But it's been on my mind because recently Donald Trump
told Mike Pence that he could go down in history
as a patriot or a which is the word we're
talking about that wasn't clear here meaning coward. And this
is after Trump's infamous access Hollywood tapery casually talked about

(01:32):
sexual assault and said grab him by the and of
course the whole thing with women trying to reclaim it
afterwards and cats and the debate around the feminism of
that whole thing. And yeah, I got me thinking about
the history of this word. And and it has pretty
strange word really because it it can mean cat, or
it can be a vulgar way to refer to female genitalia,

(01:53):
or it can mean coward, typically used as a feminine
insult against a man, as any example above, and also
in a female sexual partner sexual intercourse itself. But tracing
the history is easier said than done, as it turns out,
as is almost always these with these word episodes that
we do right. And we talked a little bit about

(02:13):
this with Amanda from the Word Slut book. I know,
but yeah, so no one's really sure where the word
comes from. And even in the documentary we talked about
their historians in there who say they don't really know
and they go through different theories. But this is probably
because it was used in speech long before it was
written down as in most words or sensitive words. Specifically,

(02:34):
some say comes from the word pussy alotomous, which means
showing a lack of courage or determination slash timid, but
most people dismiss that theory. Others claim that one of
the first recorded instances of word appeared in England towards
the end of the sixteenth century, non sexual, non offensive
slang for a woman from Philip Stubbs. After writing about

(02:56):
miss tendency to marry quickly, he quoted, no, no it,
because no matter these things, so long as he has
his pretty huggle, for that is the only thing he desires.
And I would like to put in here that I've
been saying the word huggle and didn't think it was
a real word, And I thought I was making it
up because this is how I asked for hugs and snuggles.
So I feel pretty cool right now. Good for you.

(03:17):
I like that using the word makes you feel cool.
The child that loves childish words, I'm all for it.
The Oxyfden English Dictionary also puts the words originating around
this time to mean a woman that shared qualities with
a cat like sweetness our friendliness, which kind of cratched

(03:37):
me up because I feel like most of the time
when people talk about cats, sweetness and friendliness is like
the opposite of what they say. I'm using this as
a reference to the cat mean the it's such just
like kitty terms, like kitten type of term. Maybe that's
what they mean that specific word at that point in time.
Well it's funny too, because we recently did Angela Carter's

(03:59):
The Bloody As we talked about Puss in boots. So
when I think of that now, I think of like
a really crass, darty old cat. Yeah. Yeah, to be
fair puss like in the cartoonist characters. His big weapon
is to take those big speaking eyes and that's his charm,
you know, and then uses it as a weapon. But

(04:21):
that's how I thought of it. Interesting, if I had
more time, I'd go on a deep dive about that
and how women often get like using their tries away,
and I doubt that's what's going on here. But yes,
the word puss has been used and had been at
that time to refer to cats, long before it was

(04:42):
applied to women. Because of this, so I think that
the word derives from an old German word for cat.
In the six we see one of the first crude
usages from a country song. It's sort of a weird
double entendre. So okay, see if you can get it
a pretty I need you to sing it, and you're
not gonna sing it? Do you do it? Catteralling is

(05:03):
the word. What would happen and everyone would die. I
would be like the ring but podcast version and immedia.
No singing to be had today. Fine, fine, A pretty
young kitty she had that could her, was gamesome and
handsome and had a rare fur, and straight up I
took it and offered to stroke it and hopes I

(05:24):
should make it kind. Oh lord, oh lord, indeed, I
don't like that. So one of the first known written
instances of as an insult to a man came from
the nineteen o four book God's Good Men. However, other
linguists doubt the Old German origins and instead point to
Old Norse, at least when it comes to the genitalia connotation,

(05:46):
which have a similar word meaning vulva or pocket. Yes,
but okay. The porn industry gets a lot of credit
for popularizing the use of as a nicer word for
female genitalia. This is problematic because historically so much porn
has been male, gay centered and degrading to women and

(06:06):
also cementing unrealistic body standards for women that so many
internalized since our sex ed is terrible United States and
a lot of kids learn about it from porn, Like,
the percentage is very disturbing, right. Yeah, So that's about
where we are, and the debate continues around the history
of this word, the feminism of using it, if it

(06:26):
should be reclaimed, because you've got things like wapp also
pussy riot, like there are people in that space operating
to reclaim it. However, I think that we can all
agree that when a sexist sexual assaulter uses it, it's offensive,
and using it to mean coward it's also offensive because
essentially what you're saying is that women are cowardly and you,

(06:47):
heaven forbid you'd be like a woman when you use
it in that manner. Yeah, and we know the person
who we're talking about specifically does absolutely mean in that
context and that unless you're a beautiful woman, you're of
no use. Yeah. So I think it's a very as
with a lot of I guess this isn't I don't
know is this a swear word. It is a swear
word like it's definitely gonna be bleaped really yes, oh yes,

(07:11):
so apologies unless word which is gonna be hard enough
because when we're talking about the cat version, right, that
not necessarily, but when we're using it in context of
genitalia or in a slang term, yes, this is a
curse word. Wow. Well at that point to like how
complicated this word is because a lot of our curse

(07:33):
words are. I mean, even when you think about how
it can refer to a dog, like really derogatory to
a woman, and how that's being reclaimed, we're seeing that
with a lot of words play out. But it is
very complicated and it's very personal, it is. Yeah. Well
that's our brief rundown on the history of the word.

(07:54):
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