Cunt: A Declaration of Independence Expanded and Updated Second Edition [Paperback]

Inga Muscio (Author), Ph.D. Betty Dodson (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2002

An ancient title of respect for women, the word “cunt” long ago veered off this noble path. Inga Muscio traces the road from honor to expletive, giving women the motivation and tools to claim “cunt” as a positive and powerful force in their lives. In this fully revised edition, she explores, with candidness and humor, such traditional feminist issues as birth control, sexuality, jealousy between women, and prostitution with a fresh attitude for a new generation of women. Sending out a call for every woman to be the Cuntlovin’ Ruler of Her Sexual Universe, Muscio stands convention on its head by embracing all things cunt-related. This edition is fully revised with updated resources, a new foreword from sexual pioneer Betty Dodson, and a new afterword by the author. “Bright, sharp, empowering, long-lasting, useful, sexy....”—San Francisco Chronicle “... Cunt provides fertile ground for psychological growth.”—San Francisco Bay Guardian “Cunt does for feminism what smoothies did for high-fiber diets—it reinvents the oft-indigestible into something sweet and delicious.”—Bust Magazine

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Somewhere between Valerie Solanas's bitter SCUM Manifesto and Eve Ensler's fanciful The Vagina Monologues lies this self-indulgent exercise in feminist reclamation. Striving to remove the negative connotations from a word usually used as a scathing insult, Muscio traces the history of the term "cunt" and asserts that it was once a term of respect before the patriarchy turned it into a profane, misogynistic epithet. This transformation, she insists, occurred as part of a conspiracy to make women feel a sense of self-loathing and uncleanness; only by reconnecting with love for their genitalia can women achieve personal and political power. Muscio muddles her work with rambling digressions, including those about utilizing sea sponges instead of tampons during menstruation, using herbal tea and visualization in order to miscarry an unwanted fetus and identifying with Imelda Marcos. What insights the book does provide must be discerned beneath Musico's jarring prose, which fluctuates between the academic and the colloquial, sometimes in the same paragraph. On responses to her manuscript, she writes, "Reactions to a book called Cunt always lead to an intense grilling. Ain't never encountered ambivalence." Although this work may constitute a move toward women's acceptance of themselves and their bodies, it is a very small step. Agent, Leigh Feldman.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press; 2nd edition (October 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580050751
• ISBN-13: 978-1580050753
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 1 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (109 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars something else December 24, 1999

By monster treasure

Format:Paperback

This book is from a kickass school: it's not preoccupied with men, it's not loose and theoretical. It's about coming to terms: with your own body, with language, with the culture at large. It's about subverting the tampon industry, hanging out with your mom, taking control of some of the more suspicious parts of your life, and riding skateboards down the street while wearing bunny-ear hats. I never did feel like part of the club before when reading feminist literature, but this book made me feel invited to the party.

73 of 82 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars This book makes me feel humiliated to be a feminist. July 29, 2012

By Juniper

Format:Paperback

I felt ashamed to read this book as a very vocal and active feminist. I'm radical, pro-choice, and pro-woman, but this stuff is so awful that it reads like satire. She whines for an entire chapter about how horribly oppressed she is because she has to buy menstrual products. She recommends that her readers refuse to read books written by men. She says that birth control is a tool of the patriarchal machine, so she refuses to use it-- and ends up having three abortions, which she actually has the audacity to brag about. I'm very, very pro-choice, but it's grotesquely irresponsible to repeatedly refuse to use effective birth control as some kind of political statement, and to then have abortions one after the other as if each one is a new piercing or something. It also really disturbs me to think that some impressionable young women might follow her terrible advice to avoid birth control, and she recounts her self-performed (DANGEROUS) abortion as if it was some kind of fun adventure that everyone should try. Then she goes on to recommend lesbianism as a form of birth control, which really offends me as a queer woman because it implies that being gay is a choice. The writing is redundant and crude and her attitude is self-congratulatory and arrogant. I do NOT recommend this book to anyone.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Encourages Women to Support One Another December 30, 2004

By M. E. Wood

Format:Paperback

When the book first came out and Inga would find herself in social settings accosted by "So, what do you do?" questions, how she'd answer would pretty much be determined by her impression of the person asking. Usually, it was something like: I'm a writer of a women's studies book rather than blurting out, "I wrote a book about c*&^s. And you?" I found the same to be true when asked "So, what are you reading these days."

Now that I've finished reading Muscio's book, I'm quite happy to tell people about it and freely voice the title. It's not because of any one thing she's said. The book as a whole is a gem once you get past the F-word in every second sentence. It was a distraction in the beginning but not anymore so than the title of the book.

The book gives some biology, some current state of affairs, and some history on the weight women have had to bear because they have c-word(s). Muscio wants women, transgenders etc.. to reclaim the word from men. The word is just a metaphor for a bigger picture. C-word(s) haven't been important to women in the last 200+ years but they have earned men an awful lot of money, among other things. Although the bold Muscio is not so gentle with the terminology.

Muscio wants women to start regaining their power, not as men bashing feminists but as the intelligent and beautiful goddesses we are. Doing this requires some responsibilities of us. Beginning with taking back the language. Learning about our bodies, self protection. Providing a support network. Muscio covers all these things. I found the passages on bleeding and rape to be especially effective, moving and educational. I wish I had read this book as a teenager.

To say some of what Muscio has to say is eyebrow lifting is an understatement. I didn't agree with some of the things she said, especially her idolization of prostitutes into goddesses serving an important role in society. In fact, I found most of what she had to say about whores to be garbage. The profession of prostitution is just one more male dominated form of women abuse. I also refuse to smash my teevee to bits as I'm quite content to be deluded by my one channel.

If you are sensitive to swear words and church bashing, this book probably isn't for you. But if you can get past it you might just learn something about your c-word and women as a whole.

Serious stuff? Can be at times but Muscio's little life antidotes lighten things up and give perspective on her choices and thoughts. I like how she doesn't claim to know everything but encourages women to discuss the topics in their own circles.

This is the book's second edition. It includes a huge afterward of updates on Muscio's previous thoughts not because she feels anything is wrong or out of place but because ideas have evolved. She loses me a bit here when she goes off on politics and Bush (could be because I've been over-Bushed lately). At the end is an incredibly huge section of recommendations for surfing the net. Everything from alternative women's magazines and sex toys to educational resources and all natural pads.

So go pick up your book today. Read it and then start talking about it to the women in your life. Share your book with others. Encourage discussion. Only through discussion and understanding can we reclaim our C-word(s) along the other aspects of our lives.

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