No Such Thing As “Nasty Pussy”
My context for this post about so-called “nasty pussy” requires — I judge — some careful explanation.
Here in this year of our lord 2019, there are some things a man just can’t do on social media. Especially on Twitter, where 280 characters strips all manner of context and prevents the kind of disclaimers-at-length I’m indulging myself with right now.
This post, and any tweet I make about it, is not a sub-tweet. There’s a woman I follow — and she follows me — but I couldn’t say we know each other beyond that, not even in an internet sense. I cannot recall if we’ve ever even Twitter-bespoken each other. She posted one tweet in response to an inappropriate remark she had encountered elsewhere about her pussy. And I had some thoughts about what she said. But…
To respond on Twitter? Completely impossible.
Problem the first: I disagree with her fundamental premise about pussy.
And because I know her thoughts are thoughts many other women have, I want to say so, and I want to say why. But I can’t say any of this directly to her in a Twitter reply, or I’m the guy who is mansplaining pussy to a woman. Which is butt stupid. Risible, even. I’m fine with the stance of “I’m a man who has these opinions about pussy.” But “I’m a man, who doesn’t have one, telling a woman, who does, that her pussy opinions are wrong” — that’s a place I don’t want to go.
Problem the second: I want to say that she’s internalized some misogyny.
But I want to say this in a general way, to a broader audience. Like: if you (plural noun) feel this negative way about pussies, please reconsider. I have some different, more positive opinions I wish you would consider, and I want to express my my deep sorrow and empathy for the circumstances — mostly built by asshole men — that led you (still a plural noun) to the negative feelings.
I don’t want to say any of this to her in particular. Because that would be weird. And attack-ish.
Problem the third: I don’t want to look like a creeper.
As you’ll see in a minute, she was responding to a random and inappropriate sexual advance. We’ve all seen those internet creepers who position themselves in opposition to obviously-crude sex-droolers. Some dick-in-hand-bro says something sexually suggestive, Captain Wonderful falls over his own dick condemning such barbaric crudity, hoping to look the hero. It’s tired. It’s tiresome. And in 280 characters, it can be a difficult look to avoid.
So here’s what I decided to do.
What follows is a paraphrase. The author — if she ever sees it — will recognize it as a paraphrase. I have done some violence to its linguistic grace and literacy. But it’s designed to be impossible, or at least very difficult, to search-match back to her original tweet. I aim to make my points in response to this “straw woman” tweet. That way it cannot be more plain: I am responding to certain ideas, while going out of my way and around the block not to put this particular woman in the crosshairs. I’m not asking her to defend what she said. I merely recognize her ideas as common, and I want to respond to them generally.
500 words into this essay, let’s get down to brass tacks:
CuteNameNumber @atwitterhandle
I had to laugh when dude messaged me “I wanna lick your pussy.” I mean what if it’s nasty? We all know there are women who got nasty pussies. Will he still want to eat it? Would a guy do oral on a nasty pussy? #deepthoughts #thinkythinks
Let me step right off the deep end of the dock:
I don’t believe in nasty pussies.
I think she’s just wrong about this. Hell, I’m no Casanova. My number isn’t huge. But seriously, the only guys I’ve ever heard complain are guys who don’t seem to like women very much. There’s flavor diversity, there’s smell diversity, sure. But outright nasty? I’ve never heard a credible report that wasn’t tied to “Oh, LOL, it turns out she had an yeast infection that was just coming on, we ended up having to watch Netflix. It was fine a couple days later.”
A lot of people — and I’m one — prefer the taste of freshly washed bodies in general. Ask around among women, it’s not at all hard to find plenty who’ll express a preference for freshly-washed dick-flavors, too. But a sweaty unwashed woman after a long day or two without a wash doesn’t have a nasty pussy; she just has a lot more complexity in her flavors.
I can imagine, but have not experienced, that we could push that too far … a matter of weeks, say. If you can scrape stuff out of the crevices with your finger, it won’t taste fresh. But by that point, I think my seduction process would be angling for the whole “let’s take a shower together” thing anyway. And besides, categorically speaking, that’s not a nasty pussy; that’s just body soil at that point.
Internalized misogyny is a thing.
Every bit of male talk I’ve ever heard about nasty pussy has come from straight-up old-school misogynists — men who quite thoroughly dislike women, do not respect them, and seize upon every opportunity to make less of them. These are the men who talk about “tuna fish smell” in locker rooms. The same men who catcall, objectify, and nudge each other to make observations about “that fine piece of ass” on the other side of the street. Who talk about “getting some.” Who joke about rape. Who think “cutting off a piece of ass” is a fine and normal synonym for “having sex”.
When I saw a tweet, from a woman, speaking of women with nasty pussies as if this were a known and certain phenomenon? I wanted to object on the spot. It’s not! We don’t “all know” that. We don’t know anything of the sort! In fact, I very much disbelieve it! And I am deeply ashamed and saddened that the woman who tweeted this has encountered so much misogyny in her life — so many repetitions of that hateful belittlement — that she’s come to believe it.
I wanted to “at” right back at her. I wanted to tell her some 280-character version of these thoughts, probably chained together at great length. But that was impossible. It would have been weird and mansplain-y and attackish and creepy. It could not be done. And hey, I have a blog. So instead, these eleven hundred words, aimed at a broader audience.
Image credit: The “nasty pussy” at the top of this post is from a book of nursery rhymes in the Internet Archive.
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