"A photograph published yesterday with an
article about the court-martial of a guard at Abu Ghraib prison showed
a book cover that contained an obscenity. The obscenity went unnoticed
during editing and should not have been published. Publication of the photo
violates The Sun's guidelines. The Sun apologizes
for the oversight." — Apology published in The Baltimore Sun,
3/15/06.
U.S. Army Specialist Jennifer Scala was in the courtroom that day to testify in the trial of
fellow Abu Ghraib guard Sgt. Michael J. Smith, who was accused of torturing prisoners
using dogs. Speaking to one of Smith's less violent but more perverse practices,
Scala admitted his dogs had licked peanut butter off her bare breasts in front
of a video camera, on a dare by another soldier. Ultimately, Sgt. Smith, the
tenth soldier convicted of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, was sentenced to six
months in jail.
promotion
Into the courtroom Scala carried a copy of Inga Muscio's Cunt:
A Declaration of Independence (2002). The book has an introduction by masturbation
icon Betty Dodson and a blurb by rock star Joan Jett. It encourages women to
think of themselves as "cunts," in what the author describes as the original,
empowering sense of the word. She cites dubious etymology: "'Cunt' is related to words from India, China, Ireland, Rome and Egypt. Such words were either titles of respect for women, priestesses and witches or derivatives of the names of various goddesses." But Muscio is unconcerned with the facts according to "historians," a term she puts in quotes. Acknowledging that it may in fact be a word with modern, possibly negative, roots, she writes, "venerable history or not, it's ours to do with what we want."
The Baltimore Sun image of Scala greatly
confused commentators, for good reason. What are we to make of a soldier carrying
a book with such an incendiary title? On The Huffington
Post, sex writer Susie Bright wrote, "So is Jennifer Scala coming to her senses,
and ready to stick it to the man? Or does she just like pissing people off whenever
the occasion comes up?" Her headline: "I Can't Wrap My Vulva Around This."
In the weeks that followed, the photo was reprinted in the
local alternative weekly, but the question was never convincingly answered: Why
did Scala have that book with her in the courtroom?
Despite repeated attempts, we were unable to reach Spc. Scala for comment. But Cunt's author weighed in on the webzine Gelf, and reprinted the item on her website,
ingalagringa.com. Of the Baltimore Sun image, she said, "When I first
saw that photo, I laughed my ass off. The smile on her [Scala's] face is just
SO perfect. She looks like a devious sprite, having a rollicking good time in
what most would consider a nerve-wracking situation."
That smile. Why does Scala seem
so happy with Cunt? Does Cunt seem potentially happy with Scala? The answer to that last
question is yes.
Spc. Jennifer Scala at the court martial of Sgt. Michael J. Smith.
Cunt's greatest enemy is the "containment of woman's sexuality" by patrifocal societies. By contrast, the
gold standard for good is a "cunt-lovin' babe." According to Cunt, the
Judeo-Christian tradition is evil; goddess worship is good. Television is evil;
only independent media can be trusted. Male doctors (especially male gynecologists) and western medicine (i.e., medicine based on science) are bad; charting your
reproductive cycle using the cervical mucus method and a moon calendar is good.
Muscio describes her three abortions, claiming the two suction aspirations were
bad; the one coaxed with massage and herbs was good. (When the result of the third procedure, at eight or nine weeks, "plopped onto the bathroom floor," wrote Muscio, "It was clear but felt like one of them unshiny superballs. It was the neatest thing I ever did see.")
Muscio suggests all women are soldiers by virtue of the fact
that they are always potential victims of rape. "If indeed, my home sometimes
seems to be a fortress that deters enemy soldiers — then aren't I kind of like
a soldier, and isn't my life kind of like a war?" She encourages
women to think of themselves as predators, to fill their pockets
with rocks when they go out alone at night and to fiercely battle agents of oppression
— that is, men who suppress
women's ability to practice "cunt-love," a term that throughout the book is left
conveniently vague: "Every girl and lady who is strong and fighting and powerful, who thrives in this world in a way that serves her, is a rockin', cuntlovin' babe doing her part to goad the post-patriarchal age into fruition." Vigilante justice is Muscio's
ideal punishment for rapists. She suggests women gather into groups and
burn huge severed-penis effigies on a rapist's front lawn, pack his car
full of rotten fish heads and pelt him with bloody tampons. She offers
no "innocent until proven guilty" caveat and admits no grey areas. Instead,
there is this almost erotic description of torture:
"Wouldn't you just hate like the devil to be pilloried, smeared
with dogshit, forced to kneel in front of a high-powered microphone on a raised
platform and apologize to the ten thousand women who solemnly marched by you?" Muscio
writes. "Boy, that would be an unpleasant day that you might not forget right
away, huh." She calls this practice "Cuntlovin' Public Retaliation," and it
is one of the extra-important terms the book renders in bold.
In the afterword to Cunt, Muscio recounts being asked what the book is fundamentally about. The word she uses is, ironically, the same as President Bush's: "Freedom."
Some who have read Cunt characterize it as an example
of Third Wave Feminism. Rebecca Walker coined the term "Third Wave" in Ms. magazine
in 1992 to distinguish it from the suffragettes (First Wave) and the bra burners
(Second Wave).
The online magazine Bookslut pannedCunt eloquently ("Muscio is selling non-answers packaged as answers, New Age pop psychology packaged as sociology"),
but concluded that the book epitomized Third Wave feminism, "a movement that
preaches all men are potential rapists." Wikipedia describes Muscio as a Third Wave
feminist. I would like to explain what I understand
Third Wave feminism to be, and to show how Cunt is not that.
