Every language has its own curse and insult words. These terms have always existed and are rooted in our culture. As human beings, we have the language that helps us express the psychological state that we want to explain through words. We can sometimes express our views in a fluent language and in arranged sentences, and express ourselves with harsh vocabularies and insults other times. Cursing and swearing is part of the expression of anger and a means of venting oppression and fears, as well as a means of fighting.
Why do we curse?
In my research on the vocabulary of insults, I found out that insulting someone is very similar to crying; when you swear at something or someone, it has a therapeutic response: you are pretending to be well and strong, like assuming that something villainous is going to happen to the thing or the person you are swearing at.
It has been discovered throughout history that this behavior is related to religion. For instance, you must have heard of the curse of the pharaohs found on Tutankhamen tomb: «Cursed be those who disturb the rest of a Pharaoh”, not to mention the curses found in the scriptures where God cursed Qayin.
The curse is an announcement of misfortune of this damned person. The curse occurs when a person opposes a single group or the will of a king or a dictator. This power may extend even after death, as it is written on the grave of Tutankhamen. The curse serves as a warning to keep individuals under obedience.
Evolution of insults throughout history
This idea has remained prevalent with the evolution of nations from ancient civilizations to the present. However, it has evolved in everything, including language. Although elements can be changed, some of them remain, and their manifestations may vary only from one age to another.
In the beginning, insults were closely related to religion, and God being the supreme and most intimidating power over people. Then there was an evolution from “may god curse you” to “burn in hell”, to using human excrement. The latter became more commonly used to insult people, more than religious curses. This may have occurred because of the evolution and the variation of the criteria of intimidation over time.
Psychoanalysts confirm that you might feel comfortable right after saying some insults. As I mentioned earlier, swearing at someone or something gives you a sense of excellence, and enables you to endure pain. Maybe using dirty words even helps you control your feelings in some way, and I am not sure what is the scientific logic about this. There are psychological differences between one person and another, and we know that this happens when we are in disorder. The latter engenders anger, and the utterance of bad words usually reflects this human anger.
Women's sexual organs as an insult
After the development of insults and the use of curse words from the curse of God to curses related to filth and defecation, a new tendency emerged among people to use sexual organs for cursing and insults. This tendency appeared to be directed towards women in particular. Just as the King’s taboo was so important to the parish, the sister and mother’s taboo became very important to individuals of our time. To destroy these taboos, we have observed the use of sexual connotations.
Fighting the government with female sexual organs
In previous Lebanese demonstrations, protesters have used sexual slurs against the corruption of the government, specifically insults associated with female sexual organs. This is not a coincidence stuck in our collective consciousness, but rather it is the result of the evolution of these words that made them more common. Using a woman’s organ to degrade the opposite side, is like saying you’re not one of us, you’re the child of an outcast woman, which will make you an outcast too.
A woman’s sexual organ has become a word for exclusion and discrimination. With the consent of many, it became more like a heroic act. For example, the act of intercourse with the ruler’s mother, is an act of impurity and is meant to be an insult. As every person is associated with a mother who brought them to life, this association may represent the person’s dignity. Also, using female sexual organs as slurs is used happily by both sexes!
Considering the revolutionary voices that fight to claim their rights after they split from the choir (the system), these voices are indeed doing a heroic work. However, despite the fact that it may not be as easy as it sounds, they have to be more aware of their use of words. However, I understand that change is hard. For example, we did not grow up swearing at a person saying words like “dirty” or “reckless” or “idiot”. Rather, we immediately insult their mother or sister without the slightest thought.
In Amman and Beirut, many feminists manifested against this behavior. However, the loudest voice was always the one uttering names of women’s sexual organs, which made it the master of the scene, or allow me to say mistress, as the organs here belong to women.
Origin and psychological connotations of the word
How could our knowledge of the word and its historical origin be beneficial?
Dr. Abdurrahman Al-Suleiman, a linguist, writer, and translator answered this question: tracking the origin and root of the word, helps us figure out how to use it and its etymology, as well as comparative linguistics (the relationship of formulas and their meaning) shows us the history of this vocabulary we use to correct and control errors and concepts used in the language. The Arabic language contains one term that may have several meanings and connotations; let’s take the verb “sell” in Arabic, for example, an act that carries both the meaning of a sale and the meaning of a purchase, in which the intended meaning is only known through the full context of the sentence.
As for dirty words, they only became this way when we started using them in different concepts. In a quick search on the internet, we might find many stories and interpretations. For example, if we search the origin of the word “slut” in Arabic, we find the story of the high sand dunes that men used to climb in the desert, the act of riding something. This word has been used to describe a woman if she’s having too much sex with multiple men.
This makes us think of how the term of a woman’s organ has become a metaphor, since it only gives an indication of the act of having sex without explicitly mentioning it.
Finally, what is not to be touched is used for humiliation and denigration with words that highlight two deeds (sacred and filthy). In Totem and Taboo, Freud explained how the desire for something increases if it is forbidden, just like how the desire to insult increases with its ban. However, we can modify the terms used for swearing and we should not use the term of women’s organs as a tool for vilification and insult. A woman’s organ performs an important biological process just like a male’s organ. A woman’s organ is neither sacred nor filthy.
