Fuck
By K-B Gressitt
“Fuck” has a multitude of applications. It can be rude, endearing, outraged, kinky, mean, funny, clever, crude, and the list does go on. (For guidance on its many applications, refer to English as a Second F*cking Language, by Sterling Johnson.)
Nonetheless, for many moons I spurned the word in my own writing, and the newspaper for which I opined would never in a million f*cking years have published it (tee and hee). Indeed, my request to include the lesser “shit,” in a direct quote by a woman describing her beastly encounter with breast cancer, was bumped up to the publisher’s office where I had to explain to the white, affluent man that having a breast excised in a patriarchal culture that values women’s breasts more than the people who bear them was really f*cking horrible. “Shit,” he agreed, was an understandable and, given the circumstances, acceptable expletive (although he probably critiqued my argument as coming from an hysterical woman).
Still, I resisted “fuck” in my writing. Even on social media it felt unseemly and unnecessary, despite my fluent use of the word in spoken English. The only explanation is my roots in the rather puritan South.
Today, however—or more accurately, of late—I’ve stepped away from that prohibition and am eager to put “fuck” to good use. It seems so apropos of our times.
Consequently, I’d like to name a few of the many in line for some well-deserved “fucks.”
Trump and the sleazy, racist idiots who rode into office with him.
The NRA for its dedication to assuring a bloody future of mass shootings.
The GOP and its descent into an antidemocratic, white, male theocracy.
The Democratic Party that continually endorses and funds candidates and incumbents who don’t honor the party’s platform, including its commitment to safe and legal abortion across the country, environmental justice, and combating the climate crisis. Fess up: You all are more committed to remaining in office than to any of these issues or we wouldn’t be where we are today.
The Biden administration and Congress for failing to encode Roe v. Wade.
The political talking heads who ridicule reproductive justice organizations as single-issue tea parties. Reproductive justice encompasses a multitude of issues beyond a well-regulated womb. Economics, education, employment, and this list goes on.
It also brings me to last Friday’s big reveal of the SCOTUS/Trump decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The grotesquery of the radical activist judges’ majority opinion is appalling. For a resounding condemnation of their anti-woman, racist, classist rationale, read the dissenting opinion, starting on page 148 of the linked PDF. Or, you can start at the beginning and read the majority’s opinion. If you can stomach it, do make note of its reference to the 1800s anti-abortion laws—because life was so great back then it’s worth emulating today. That’s followed by Clarence Thomas’ equally horrifying recommendation that the court reconsider legal contraception and same-gender sex and marriage.
Having reviewed my little list, I’m reminded of the point I’m trying to make. “Fuck” is felicitous. “Fuck” is revealing. It punctuates a pronouncement as no other word can.
So it is that I write: Fuck you all, every one of you fuckers. Because, really, what the fucking fuck!
With love and fury,
K-B
Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court
Kit-Bacon Gressitt is the publisher and a founding editor of Writers Resist. She lectures in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cal State University San Marcos, and occasionally shares her writing at kbgressitt.com.