If you’ve been on Twitter recently, you must have seen an influx of people asking for examples of how someone can “serve pussy” in a number of different situations.
Tweets like “how do you serve pussy in a cat way?” or “how do you serve the pussy in a lawyer-like way?” they’ve been all over the social media platform, prompting users to respond with various moments in pop culture history that they think fit the bill. For example, people have been responding to these tweets with things like Halle Berry in Catwoman (as a cat), Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde (as a lawyer), Paul Mescal in shorts (Irish style), and many, many more. .
It has given rise to an online phenomenon where it almost feels like the internet is finally reclaiming the C word, which normally had a very negative connotation, at least in America. Once the epitome of misogyny, regularly used by people to undermine female authority, the word has now become a symbol of la femme femme.
Something that is now associated with killing so hard that you have no choice but to say that they are ‘service cunts’.
“The c-word is being claimed more and more, albeit gradually,” Stan Carey, one of the editors of the profanity blog. strong languagesaid Rolling Stone.
“It’s part of a long tradition of co-opting the power of taboo words. Given that identity politics is now such a common and explicit part of public discourse, it makes sense that words intended to be weaponized against particular groups would, in some cases, be reappropriated by their targets as a way to tone down those weapons and redirect their targeting. force”.
This is largely due to the efforts of Twitter and the LGBTQ+ community, as more and more people in the mainstream are beginning to embrace the word in its new light.
‘Servant fist’, ‘mother’ and other feminine terms have seen a recent surge in positive usage, and it’s a very interesting phenomenon to watch in a world that seems to be going backwards in terms of women’s rights.
Before ‘servant cunt’ began to circulate on social networks, the phrase “the director said to cut but [insert term] cunt heard” gained immense popularity on Twitter.
K-Pop fans and Stan Twitter have been instrumental in making this phrase go viral. Tweets praising Brie Larson’s performance of Black Sheep, several K-Pop singers just looking hot, almost every scene from Succession (makes dramaturgical sense) and many more appeared on everyone’s feed.
But before cunt became a mainstay on social media, the LGBTQ+ and drag community, especially Black trans women, played a huge role in reversing the negative connotations surrounding the word.
In fact, the pussy has always been used as a celebration and as a symbol of power, feminine authority and bodily autonomy. In 1995, drag queen kevin aviance released the song “Cunty (The Feeling)”, which Beyonce sampled on her Renaissance track “Pure/Honey,” which, again, is an album that celebrates the LGBTQ+ community. The Grammy winner even performs in front of a “KNTY 4 News” desk on her ongoing world tour.
“I think the increased use of the word ‘cunt’ is part of the story of reclaiming derogatory or demeaning language and using it to empower. When I was young ‘Queer’ was an insult, now it’s a badge of pride. It’s from the idea that ‘you can’t hurt me if I claim your gun.’ It gained prominence in the Drag scene, where it means fierce and powerful”, explains the LGBTQ+ historian. Michael O’Keeffe.
“As Germaine Greer says, cunt is the only word that completely describes the entire anatomy of the female genitalia. It’s important to note that even though drag has helped us today, these conversations have been going on for a while,” she adds. Ibi Unholydrag performer and postgraduate researcher at the University of Warwick.
“I think a lot of things in the drag community come from a particular kind of this… kind of claiming the superiority of femininity, which is often seen in a very negative association.
“Drag performers in particular have always been at the forefront of LGBTQ+ movements, they just are. But in terms of things like the mother, that’s more of a drag family type of thing. That’s a family found structured around normal heteronormative frameworks, because there were no other frameworks at the time. You call the coming queens, the kids, the legendary kids, and then you have Mama Roo. [RuPaul] for example”, adds Ibi Profane.
In fact, RuPaul is actually one of the main reasons drag has achieved mainstream status. The RuPaul’s Drag Race criteria literally state that you must have charisma, quirkiness, nerve, and talent. Or, you know, fuck, it’s also a song which RuPaul released in 2017.
“However, I think the pussy in particular stands out for the way it’s otherwise socially coded. It looks like an incredibly damaging word. So I think that’s one of the words that has really stood out. It is having a claim”, says Ibi Profane.
For a word that has always been used by misogynists to demean women and femininity, ‘cunt’ has now given rise to an entirely different movement. Now, if you’re serving up pussy, you’re essentially unstoppable. You are motherly beyond belief, you are the most cowardly of all cowards.
A word once used to showcase feminine weakness is now a symbol of the ultimate girlboss, all because people on the internet, with the help of the LGBTQ+ community, decided to reclaim the word once and for all. Instead of being a word that someone would have hated to be associated with, it has now become a word that people now aspire to.
Obviously, context matters. If you try to use “cunt” in a misogynistic or negative way, you will continue to hurt the intended target. But if you use it in a way that celebrates girl power, it can actually help improve marginalized communities—women, the LGBTQ+ community, drag performers—whose lives are currently threatened around the world due to regressive laws and outdated practices.
And while this is by no means going to solve the problems that plague these communities every day, it can definitely be seen as a small victory, one that can make us laugh on a day of bad news.
To paraphrase queen Lucy Liu on Set It Up: don’t be one of those people who can’t say fuck.
