Good Words, Bad Words, and Why It's More Accurate to Call Alex Castellanos an Asshol

Matthew Yglesias, the only pundit I'm aware of with a *formal* education in philosophy, came up with a very brief account of why some words are more difficult to repurpose or "reclaim" than others.**

Jessica Valenti notes that GOP consultant Alex Castellanos thinks it's sometimes "accurate" to call a woman a "bitch."

To perhaps overanalyze, the trouble here is that "bitch" is what they call a "thick moral concept" in the philosophy game. A "thin" moral concept purely expresses a judgment -- so you might say something was "good" or "bad" and that doesn't carry any descriptive content apart from the ethical evaluation. But there are also thick moral concepts like "brave." To call an act "brave" is to praise it, just like calling it "good" is, but it's not merely to praise it -- you might agree that someone has done something praiseworthy but still say "brave" is an inappropriate description because it didn't involve risk in the right kind of way.

One of the ways in which sexism in our society works is that there are several highly-gendered thick moral concepts of which "bitch" and "slut" are probably the most salient. It's true, of course, that some women do manifest the non-normative descriptive qualities associated with those terms. But the crux of the matter is that the alleged accuracy or lack thereof of such a term is besides the point, the concepts themselves are part of an inherently sexist conceptual scheme -- the terms just are the moral vocabulary of the sexist.

I lifted his entire post from here.

Contrast calling someone a dick vs. a pussy: Both are topically identical expressions of disapproval but they're *not* just topical -- they contain cartloads of assumptions about gendered power.

Contrast instead "vanilla" and "kink," each of which carries an implication of sexual abnormality (boring on the one hand, transgressive on the other) when in fact most practices in either category are actually pretty normal.***

At any rate, while I really don't expect everyone to drop their favorite terms, or even insults, on my say so or Yglesias's, I think he's nicely captured why I think it's a good idea to try and capture rhetorical high ground. Vibrators aren't "kinky" they're normal, hemp rope isn't kinky it's normal, even the missionary position isn't "kinky" it's normal... even though it's tailor-made for role-playing seriously repressed colonial Victorians. And similarly "sluts" don't have more than an arbitrary "number" of partners over a lifetime, *normal* people do.

Actually I think if we want to challenge thick moral concepts consider the fate of the poor word "normal," which *surely* deserves repurposing beyond it's current claustrophobic connotation. It's not that "kink" isn't interesting or erotic about kink, it's that "normal" turns out to be far more interesting, and erotic and... well... *kinky* than even *kinky* people are willing to let on.

As a libertine prude I believe we're all actually pretty normal." As a prudish libertine I believe there's a wonderful variety of *different kinds* of normal to choose from!"

[** I'm not positive, for instance, there was ever a recoverable non-perjorative meaning for "slut." That doesn't mean it's not worth trying, just that it might turn out to be *very hard.* --fl]

[*** For instance oral sex, once referred to in underground personal ads with the code word "French Culture," was until recently considered extravagantly kinky. And/or perversion. And/or sodomy. Regardless of the sex of the participants. And meanwhile man-on-top/missionary/lights-out/through-a-hole-in-the-sheet/only-for-procreation/only-till-male-ejaculation practice -- the üuber vanilla act -- is arguably flag-raisingly deviant. --fl]