SEXIS WRONG

flourish. Up to the twentieth century, in many Western countries,
belief in this vaginal ability can be seen in the custom of
peasant women exposing their genitals to the growing flax,
while saying: “Please grow as high as my genitals are now.”
And as strange as it may seem, the fairy tale of Snow White,
or Biancaneve, is suggested to have arisen from an ancient
Italian ritual designed to enhance the fecundity of the earth itself.
A beautiful, noble girl would be sent down a mine which
was running low in iron ore in order to expose Mother Earth
to her vital female essence or energy. Biancaneve, so the theory
goes, came from the Dolomites region of the Cordevole
river north of Belluno in Italy, an area which was known for its
magnesium-rich iron mines.
The fertility effect of the displayed vagina can work in more
subtle ways, too. In ancient Egypt, women exposed their vaginas
to their fields in order to bring about a double whammy
effect, if you will. First off, the gesture was designed to drive
evil spirits from the land, but the consequence of this apotropaic
action was desired, too. With no evil spirits around,
the women would increase the yield of their crops. Hence,
the act of deliberate vaginal display is both evil-averting and
fecundity-enhancing, as the former function promotes the
latter. This double aim is also thought to lie at the heart of the
custom recorded by Pliny, who noted how a woman can rid
The belief in the power of the
exposed vagina to repel foes or
expel demons is also, it seems, an
enduring and widespread one.
Yet in Spain, it’s not. In fact, coño is so common a word in
Spain (albeit an expletive) that just as the English have been
dubbed les fuckoffs by the French, in Chile and Mexico, Spaniards
are known as los coños. The Spanish seem to have
had fun playing with their coño phrases. Otra pena pa mi
coño—“another pain in my cunt”—is said when one is faced
with something extra to contend with. If you’re fed up with
something or someone, you can be estoy hasta el coño, “up
to your cunt with it.” And if you want to get across the fact
that a place is completely out of the way (i.e., it is the back
of beyond), you can use the common Spanish expression en
el quinto coño—“the fifth cunt.” It remains a mystery as to
why a particularly remote area should be described as “the
fifth cunt.”
The dichotomy of the significance of cunt is visible elsewhere
across Europe. In Italy, figa (cunt) is not an insult or an ugly
word. Rather, it is a common expletive (after cazzo, prick,
it is probably the most used). Figa is the spoken form, fica
the more common written term. Che figa! is actually a lighthearted
expression. It can be applied to people—“Che figa,”
“What a looker!”; to objects—“Che festa figa!”—“What a
great party!”; and to situations—for example, “Che figa!”
can mean, “What good luck!” And although at times men
can use it in a sexist way, akin to English men saying “chick”
or “pussy,” Italian women have reclaimed
the word, making it applicable to men as the
masculine noun, figo. So if you fancy an Italian
man, go ahead and say, admiringly, “Che
figo!” If something is excellent, it is figata.
a field of pests by walking around it before sunrise with her
genitals exposed. Giving thanks for a bountiful harvest and
asking for the same fruitfulness next year may well lie at the
heart of one of the concluding parts to Marquesan harvest
festival celebrations—the ko’ika to’e haka, the clitoris dance.
Significantly, this traditional dance features young women in
wrap-around skirts, which they raise to expose their vaginas
and clitorises and the ritual tattoos emblazoned around their
genitalia.
First Impressions
A view of the vagina by taking a tour of its lexical history would
not be complete without considering cunt. And although a
remarkably direct expression, cunt has multiple meanings,
depending on the country you find yourself in. In Spain, if you
wish to express your delight in a delicious experience, a suitable
comment might be that it is como comerle el coño a bocaos
(“like eating cunt by the mouthful”). If you’re in Britain,
though, this phrase would not go down so well. Cunt, one of
the oldest words for female genitalia, is also the most taboo.
However, in Germany, like Britain, cunt, or Fotze,
reigns supreme as an extremely taboo word. Yet Fotze
is also an old word for mouth, and in expressions such as
“Halt dei’ Fotze!” (“Shut your trap!”) and hinterfotzig (“twofaced”),
it loses some of its impact.
Like Italian and Spanish, the French equivalent of cunt, le con,
is not taboo. Rather, it is used as an affectionate insult, as in
vieux con (“old fool”) or “Dais pas le con” (“Don’t play the
fool”). Con to the French isn’t necessarily any stronger than
calling someone a fool or an idiot. Le roi des cons (“king of
cunts”) implies a total idiot, while “Quelle connerie!” means
“What rubbish!”
In Danish the word for cunt, kusse, has acquired no additional
emotional baggage. The word conveys merely what
it describes—female genitalia. In Finland, while vittu is still
considered a strong expletive, it’s flexible and various in the
ways it is applied. You can tell someone to go get lost in Finnish
by saying, “Vedä vittu päähäs!” (“Go pull a cunt over your
head!”). It can be used as an adjective, as bloody is in English,
in the form vittumainen (“cunt-like”). And there is a past
270 EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SEX IS WRONG