The "C-Word" - one weird word used on two different occasions

I am not someone who generally blushes at the use of profanity – I’ve been known to use it freely and liberally. When I flinch at a certain word, I am always trying to figure out what is offensive about the word and why it bothers me. Today Jane Fonda on the Today show described her participation in the 10th anniversary performance of “The Vagina Monologues” and referred to her initial hesitance in being in a play that featured the C-word. The clip of Jane on the Today Show is everywhere on the internet. Quickly, NBC News apologized for Jane’s use of the word. Even more buzz…..what a terrible thing, she used the C-word……..

This is the second time in the last few months that I have encountered this word in other than crude jokes and references. In the book and movie, “Atonement” the word plays a crucial role in the story of the two wronged lovers. My problem with the word in “Atonement” is my disbelief that the word was used in the 1930’s. In “Atonement”, the housekeeper’s son, madly attracted to Cecilia, the daughter of his boss, uses the C-word in a letter that mistakenly gets delivered to Cecilia (and viewed by Cecilia’s young, unhappy, confused sister). The letter somehow makes Cecilia realize her love for the housekeeper’s son, and a racy, wild sex scene ensues in the library. Don’t get me started about the believability of the hot library sex scene – it seems too modern to me – but what do I know of the 1930s?

I think about my parents in the 1930’s…..would they have even KNOWN of the C-word? Would they have ever written it or said it? Even the wild sex scene in the movie seemed unrealistic to this sheltered blogger. I have seen the Vagina Monologues and the word seems appropriately used in a play about….duh….vaginas. And when the word is used by women about women’s anatomy, somehow it doesn’t seem too inflammatory. Do I like the word? No….. Is it the worst word around? What happens when the word becomes commonplace – is there a new word that will rise up (so to speak) to offend us?
I wonder if Jane Fonda (now 70) used the word 50 years ago?