Is this really a good argument for casual sexism for the sake of shock value? If we're going down that road, there are plenty of racial and homophobic slurs that are culturally acceptable (and encouraged!) in other cultures.
The key here is that in a lot of Australian culture, "cunt" is on par with "fucker" or "asshole" - there's nothing gendered about it as an insult. It's acceptable to use precisely because it's NOT sexist, racist, or otherwise any sort of slur.
Equally, we're not going to ban Spanish posters from using their word for "black", are we?
Ireland, from a cursory check of their profile. But it doesn't invalidate your point, I don't think it's gendered their either.
> ban
Words in my mouth. I'm not advocating a ban, we're discussing whether a word is appropriate on this forum.
> their word for "black"
A bit of a stretch, considering _that_ word isn't on par with "fucker" in Spanish. So ironically, yeah, I think we would ban a Spanish poster for using it in this context?
But I concede your point that if it's not gendered, the intent isn't sexist.
I strongly disagree it's sexist, casual or otherwise. Is "dickhead" sexist? These types of insults are based on taboo (sex, blasphemy, diseases, things like that). It's completely different than some racial epithet.
You can perceive it to be sexist, but I'm fairly confident that's a minority opinion.
I concede that it's regional, and I apologize for moralizing. However, I contend that in North America it's a majority opinion. "Cunt" is much more strongly gendered here.
> "dickhead"
Would you consider "whore", "slut" or "tart" sexist?
"Slut" and "whore" describe behaviour, so I'd say that's rather different. I don't know about "tart" – I can't recall ever using or encountering it, except for one film (where a guy calls guy bloke a "tart").
Look, I don't want to tell you how to perceive words because that's always a personal thing, but in huge parts of the world it's just a strong but generic insult. And in the end context and intent always matters, not words. "You dirty person of colour" is of course profoundly racists in spite of not using any racial epitaphs. It's not the words themselves that are problematic, it's the intent with which they're used. It seems pretty clear the intent of my comment was not sexist.
Equally, we're not going to ban Spanish posters from using their word for "black", are we?