Cunt or vagina?

Brisbane Resistance was appalled at the attempt by Griffith University administration to ban the women's edition of the campus newspaper Gravity for featuring a picture of women's genitals with a poem which read "this is my cunt, it is beautiful like the rest of my body, I am not embarrassed nor ashamed by my cunt".

The poem went on to explain that vagina means "sheath for a penis" and that the word "cunt" should be reclaimed as a better term.

While supporting the intention of the poem, which is to show pride in women's sexual pleasure and challenge the sexist notion that women's sexuality is dirty and shameful, I would like to question its use of the word "cunt".

At present the word cunt is used in a negative and extremely pejorative and sexist manner. Without a strong feminist movement, which has the power to alter society's perceptions of women, it is difficult to reclaim sexist language. In broader society, the definition of vagina is not "a sheath for a penis" but a neutral anatomical term. Therefore I question whether cunt is a better term than vagina.

Angela Luvera, Brisbane Resistance organiser

From GLW issue 372