You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
“Cuck,” short for “cuckold,” has become the insult of choice in this surreal political season, at least amongst alt-rightists and anime Nazis and other elements of Donald Trump’s political army.
The insult, inspired by a specialized porn genre in which white “hotwives” have sex with black men while their white “cuckold” husbands watch, is intended to suggest not just emasculation but also a kind of racial treason. Or at least that’s what the insult originally meant; at this point it gets thrown at anyone and everyone who stands in the way of the Trump revolution — including women, who by definition can’t be “cucked.”
The people who are most fond of this insult seem to think it has some sort of magical power. In a recent post on the alt-right site The Right Stuff, a guy who calls himself Auschwitz Soccer Ref declares that, in the word “cuck,” he and his comrades had found a sort of right-wing version of “racist,” which he describes as “a powerful, weaponized term” that leftists use to take down, well, racists like him.
The word “cuck” is an “absolutely devastating” insult, he explains.
“Cuck” works for the same reason that “racist” works: it is an irrational word that cannot be deconstructed with reasoning. Just as “racist” hits rightists hard because it attempts to psychopathologize the healthy preference for our own race, “cuck” is devastating to leftists because they are being described as the most humiliating kind of man possible, one who gets aroused by letting another man—or other men—have sex with his wife.
There’s only one problem with Mr. Soccer Ref’s theory: “cuck” isn’t “devastating to leftists,” or indeed to any white dude who isn’t pathologically preoccupied with the specter of black (or Muslim, or Mexican) men having sex with “our” white women. In other words, “cuck” only really stings as an insult to the very people who are tossing the insult around.
And insofar as the related term “cuckservative” actually bothers conservatives, I suspect they are less bothered by the sexual and racial overtones of the term than they are by the implication that they are not bona fide conservatives.
[J]ust like “racism” transcends political terminology like “fascist” and brings morality into the discussion, “cuck” transcends political terminology like “traitor” and brings sexuality and gender into the discussion, thus widening its implications. For years this kind of transcendent, weaponized term was missing from the right’s lexicon, but now it’s here, and that’s why “cuck” is so hurtful to the left and kosher conservatives.
Nope. One of the reasons that “racist” has the bite that it does is because the insult is so often true. What’s strange is that the insult doesn’t just bother garden variety racists; is also bothers alt-rightists and others on the far right whose ideologies are actually rooted in racism. Most racists hate to be labelled as such; that’s why you find so many of them on the far right resorting to euphemism, describing themselves as “race realists” or proponents of “Human Biodiversity” rather than simply admitting that, yes, they are huge bigots.
At-rightists and Trump enthusiasts aren’t the only ones obsessed with cuckolding. Men’s Rights activists are as well, though their definition of “cuckolding” comes not from porn but from one of the term’s original meanings. MRAs worry endlessly about the prospect of their wives (real or hypothetical) cuckolding them by conning them into raising children fathered by another man, presumably some alpha male lover she has on the side.
Indeed, many MRAs and Evo Psych professors have convinced themselves that this old-school variety of cuckolding is exceedingly common, with up to a third of the world’s ostensible fathers unknowingly raising kids who are not theirs.
But a new study published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution suggests that this is nonsense. Using genetic testing and genealogical research, the authors of the study found that the real rate of such cuckoldry has “stayed near constant at around 1% across several human societies over the past several hundred years.”
Somehow I doubt that this study will lead MRAs to be any less paranoid about being cuckolded, much less convince the internet’s Anime Nazis to give up an insult they think is “absolutely devastating.”
H/T — Thanks to both readers who alerted me to the new cuckolding study.
Also also ace people. 🙂
Lea – Because nothing says I don’t care like rambling for five paragraphs…
Yep.
Like you said BRONY, only four lines.
Glenn – Because nothing says I don’t care like coming back several hours later.
@Kagato, if you’re still reading, I’m loving the synergy between the image you posted and your avatar. Beauty.
Glen: Cuck cuck cuck cuck cuck. *pecks the ground* Cu-cu-cu-ba-CUCK. *lays an egg*
Glenn,
I’m not mocking you for your benefit. The other readers and I enjoy a giggle at your expense whether you come back for more or not. I post purely for pleasure, not for your edification.
At least Glenn is illustrating this post’s premise.
Good job!
Thanks Lea! Likewise.
@Glenn
It’s good to know I made that mistake. My apologies.
You really know you have nothing to say when you jump right in with an argument about how many lines someone wrote.
I lost all respect for Mr. Friendly Atheist when he advanced the argument that Richard Dawkins is a poor dear who is misunderstood by other atheists who think he is wearing privilege blinders, and that Dawkins’ biggest crime is being clumsy with the Internet.
No surprise that someone who is OK with misogyny and racism when it comes from a prominent white man would be OK with misogyny and racism when it comes from someone else.
I was done with Hemet when he argued that forced birthers deserve space in the atheist community. He’s anti-feminist. Thats why the MRAs swarm to him.
Awww, seriously? That is so disappointing.
I’m very grateful to some of the people in this comment section, especially Lea and Kirbywarp, for opening my eyes with regards to Mehta about a year and a half ago. I used to really like him and that lingering fondness had made me blind to what he had drifted into becoming.
I’m disappointed in him. Even if one assumes good faith on his part and not complicity, he’s still trying to whitewash over deeply unacceptable behaviour on many people’s part. He may be doing so in order to keep the movement going, but I recall no frank and open conversation in which the toxicity problems were acknowledged and it was decided that the movement was worth keeping going.
I’m also disappointed in myself for not seeing it until it was pointed out to me.
My Significant Otter used to read Mehta a number of years back, and she also escaped that terrible place for obvious reasons. I was never a fan.
Ni! Ni! Ni!