I wrote my dissertation on the word ‘cunt’

I had to change supervisors


We’ve all read the articles featuring Sociology students writing about the Kardashians and Instagram, but I wrote about possibly the strongest word in the English language for my English Literature diss; cunt.

My title was literally ‘See You Next Tuesday: Or How the Unspeakable Must Speak for Itself’, and it predominantly analysed the erotica of Anaïs Nin and Erica Jong, with reference to Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer.

Ultimately, I only decided that the word cunt would be my starting point when it dawned on me that I’d probably get sick of whatever the hell I wrote my dissertation on within about three weeks of consecutive library research sessions.

Cunt, I thought, was such an inherently great word (and one of my favourites) that I knew I would never get sick of writing and/ or reading about it. And I was right. I still love it – both word and anatomy – one month on from getting my results.

I suggested that the visceral reaction we have to it – both the cunt itself and the word – is linked to the underlying patriarchal need to control, divide and conquer women through limiting and denying their sexual expression. It looked at theories of French feminism, such as l’écriture féminine, and the concept of the Madonna-Whore dichotomy, ultimately concluding that only by embracing the cunt, both word and anatomy, can women actually reclaim their inherent physiological and sexual power and break free from the imposed divisions to which patriarchal society exposes them.

Cunt is one of the strongest words in the English language, and in my opinion, one of the best. It has a horrible reputation in some circles, but in my dissertation, I actually positioned cunt as the one truly all-encapsulating word to label woman’s genitals. Vagina just doesn’t make the cu(n)t, neglectful as it is of the womb, cervix and labia.

Cunt on the other hand, I argued, is the best and most appropriate word to describe all of these external and internal reproductive organs. In total, I used it 102 times over the course of my ~6000-word dissertation. (And before you all claim that 6000 words does not a dissertation make, it only counted for 20 credits of my final year.)

I did have to change supervisors right at the beginning of the year. My first one seemed confused as to what I’d tell employers when they asked the title of my dissertation (is that a real thing? Getting asked about your dissertation?). He didn’t even realise he was supposed to be my supervisor either, I guess just assuming I’d gone to see him in September for a friendly chat about cunts. The supervisor I eventually asked to swap to absolutely loved my topic though, and seemed confident it would make for an interesting dissertation. Well, he wasn’t wrong.

In my acknowledgments, I even thanked all the random people I met at parties who claimed (read: lied) that they were interested in looking at my dissertation simply because it was making a point of using and focussing on the word cunt. It definitely made for a great conversation starter all year, at least. So far though, no one has come forward to get a signed copy, but I’m still holding out hope that they’ll feel sufficiently guilted by this article and decide they actually do want to read it after all.

My parents have no idea what I wrote my dissertation about and to be honest, I don’t think they mind either way. My mum’s just happy I’m graduating, my dad’s indifferent to the whole thing, and I’m proud that I nailed an 81 in a dissertation in which I was allowed to write about 1) an author as awesome as Anaïs Nin, 2) a novel as iconic as Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, and 3) the word cunt and its feminist implications.

Like the polemic Germaine Greer was saying as far back as the eighties, “Lady love your cunt.”