Sexing down the language.
Part of what's great about reading Lee Siegel is wondering whether he's slyly aware of how funny he is or whether the whole thing is unintentional, which in itself would require a massive, artificial, intentional irony reduction -- which, once undertaken, makes the author aware of his hilarity even if he isn't, because he's aware of its negation. (Siegel wins either way.) I especially adored yesterday's tirade against the cultural acceptance and proliferation of the phrase "to suck":
But I think something deeper is going on [with the popularity of "sucks"]. Pardon the following intimacy, but performing oral sex has a lot to do with the unequal distribution of pleasure and power. It's more satisfying for the recipient than for the bestower. Without love or emotional connection, it usually makes the bestower an instrument of the recipient's will.
So saying someone or something "sucks" is not just an expression of contempt. It's a verdict on that person or thing as being, literally, beneath contempt. It's a wish not so much to rise above others as to subordinate them, an angry anti-democratic retort to the nettleseome tides of democratization. After all, when someone "sucks," they can't talk back. Isn't that the bully's and the tyrant's timeless dream, to move among people who can't talk back? It's certainly the dream of a child's fragile ego. It could be that we are surrounded by adults who have the fragile egos of children. And I know exactly what those unwitting people would say about that situation.
Maybe, but my personal take is that "sucks" is completely the wrong term for this sort of analysis, because it's the one tawdry term that has essentially broken free of its literal meaning. When I say something "sucks", which I do all the time, I'm basically never thinking of it as a literal analogy to cocksucking (if I want to be literal, I'll use the term "blows", which has yet to bust out of its anological straightjacket -- and I use it rarely.) On the other hand, I use the term "money quote" -- Siegal's other example of creeping casual vulgarity -- fully or mostly aware of its meaning. Ditto even for a seemingly harmless phrase like "about to explode". As a rule, the more contemptuous I am of the person or phenomenon that I think is "about to explode", the more overt is the sexual metaphor. (i.e. "The real prospect of a war with Iran has the neocons gearing up to explode their half-baked panic-mongering all over the media".) The sexual slur is that the characters in question can't control themselves, they're just pure dumb instinct dressed up in suits and backcopies of The National Interest.
At face value, this seems pretty retrograde. Why do we continue to denigrate things by associating them with sex, something which -- in the ideal modern society we'd like to create -- brings far more pleasure than pain and, if unwanted, is simply avoided? For instance, Siegel's take on "suck" is that we invoke the idea of sucking someone off as an act of subjication and sneer at it an an expression of our casual sadism. But anything can be an act of subjugation in the right circumstances. Humiliation comes in all shapes and sizes -- why no dark vernacular allusive turn of phrase for being turned down for a bank loan, for going without needed health care, for sleeping on vents? All these things are more unambiguously bad in degree and in kind than giving someone a blowjob. Why reserve our linguistic derogation for something most of us -- ideally, as part of a functional modern society -- enjoy, just because we know that some people somewhere else have been or may be victimized by it?
To an extent it's pure tawdriness -- the Butthead in us all. But I like to think there's some progress involved, the refinement of our inner Buttheads. Specifically, sexual turns of phrase tend to insert linguistic daggers into the spaces between the ideal and the non-ideal, and thereby to expose the non-ideal to ridicule. When I complain that some wingnut is "going to explode", my allusion is to the idea that he has no control over himself, in an age when control is praised, even demanded both in punditry and in bed (I also love the term "premature articulation" for running one's mouth off, for exactly the same reason). A similar thing goes for accusing somebody of "sucking". We can't just imagine their performing a certain act we all enjoy -- what's wrong with that? -- but performing that same act unwillingly, out of desperation or coertion (something we ought to hope ideally never happens). But that's a complicated mental maneouve for such a casual phrase -- which may be why the phrase has escaped its moorings and (in my experience) doesn't mean much of anything anymore beyond vague denigration.
But I think something deeper is going on [with the popularity of "sucks"]. Pardon the following intimacy, but performing oral sex has a lot to do with the unequal distribution of pleasure and power. It's more satisfying for the recipient than for the bestower. Without love or emotional connection, it usually makes the bestower an instrument of the recipient's will.
So saying someone or something "sucks" is not just an expression of contempt. It's a verdict on that person or thing as being, literally, beneath contempt. It's a wish not so much to rise above others as to subordinate them, an angry anti-democratic retort to the nettleseome tides of democratization. After all, when someone "sucks," they can't talk back. Isn't that the bully's and the tyrant's timeless dream, to move among people who can't talk back? It's certainly the dream of a child's fragile ego. It could be that we are surrounded by adults who have the fragile egos of children. And I know exactly what those unwitting people would say about that situation.
Maybe, but my personal take is that "sucks" is completely the wrong term for this sort of analysis, because it's the one tawdry term that has essentially broken free of its literal meaning. When I say something "sucks", which I do all the time, I'm basically never thinking of it as a literal analogy to cocksucking (if I want to be literal, I'll use the term "blows", which has yet to bust out of its anological straightjacket -- and I use it rarely.) On the other hand, I use the term "money quote" -- Siegal's other example of creeping casual vulgarity -- fully or mostly aware of its meaning. Ditto even for a seemingly harmless phrase like "about to explode". As a rule, the more contemptuous I am of the person or phenomenon that I think is "about to explode", the more overt is the sexual metaphor. (i.e. "The real prospect of a war with Iran has the neocons gearing up to explode their half-baked panic-mongering all over the media".) The sexual slur is that the characters in question can't control themselves, they're just pure dumb instinct dressed up in suits and backcopies of The National Interest.
At face value, this seems pretty retrograde. Why do we continue to denigrate things by associating them with sex, something which -- in the ideal modern society we'd like to create -- brings far more pleasure than pain and, if unwanted, is simply avoided? For instance, Siegel's take on "suck" is that we invoke the idea of sucking someone off as an act of subjication and sneer at it an an expression of our casual sadism. But anything can be an act of subjugation in the right circumstances. Humiliation comes in all shapes and sizes -- why no dark vernacular allusive turn of phrase for being turned down for a bank loan, for going without needed health care, for sleeping on vents? All these things are more unambiguously bad in degree and in kind than giving someone a blowjob. Why reserve our linguistic derogation for something most of us -- ideally, as part of a functional modern society -- enjoy, just because we know that some people somewhere else have been or may be victimized by it?
To an extent it's pure tawdriness -- the Butthead in us all. But I like to think there's some progress involved, the refinement of our inner Buttheads. Specifically, sexual turns of phrase tend to insert linguistic daggers into the spaces between the ideal and the non-ideal, and thereby to expose the non-ideal to ridicule. When I complain that some wingnut is "going to explode", my allusion is to the idea that he has no control over himself, in an age when control is praised, even demanded both in punditry and in bed (I also love the term "premature articulation" for running one's mouth off, for exactly the same reason). A similar thing goes for accusing somebody of "sucking". We can't just imagine their performing a certain act we all enjoy -- what's wrong with that? -- but performing that same act unwillingly, out of desperation or coertion (something we ought to hope ideally never happens). But that's a complicated mental maneouve for such a casual phrase -- which may be why the phrase has escaped its moorings and (in my experience) doesn't mean much of anything anymore beyond vague denigration.
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