- You're such a pussey
- 'Wussy', you mean.
- no pussy. i.e. weak.
I tried to explain to my friend that he meant 'wussy' and insisted that he called me a wussy. I am not entirely sure that threatening people to call you a wussy, is a very dignified act but it was the ethics of the situation. Having a vagina did not make me weak, I told him. I was told not to get all development studies and critical on his language but unfortunately such meticulous powers of reasoning did not stop me from correcting his language and his subconscious ideas of power and strength.
It did not stop me till I realised that I had no real understanding of where the word wussy came from. Its proximity to the word I was avoiding and the similarity of their meanings frightened me. So I did what all rational and educated people do when they are confronted by a problem - I googled it. And lo and behold, wussy could actually be a different form of pussy. I had essentially asked him to call me exactly what I didn't want him to call me. My fig leaf protection came from the Oxford English Dictionary, which stated that it did not know what the origin of the word was and, hey, if the Oxford English Dictionary can hold onto ignorance so can I. With every shred of dignity I had, since having asked my housemate to call me a wussy, I held on to the power of ignorance and faith. I faithfully believed that this north American slang of unknown origin first recorded in the 1980s was not a derivative of pussy, I held on to the belief that an anatomical part, associated with the bodies, of my gender was not being used to reassert false beliefs about the inherent weakness of women, I held on to the belief that I was really really right about this.
And if I am wrong, I think people should stop being such insensitive dickheads and be aware of the verbal repression they exercise in everyday life.
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