Dysphemism

[Victor Steinbok]

Thanks, Jon--that's what I was looking for.

Wilson, that comment was mine. And I meant it. It does not matter if the
original meaning has been derived via an innuendo or whether "wimin"
might take it that way--it's certainly a coarse/offensive expression.
But the meaning, as I was implying it, is more lackey, indentured
servant, rather than sex-slave. Nor is there a hooker/pimp implied
relationship. There is a hierarchical/ownership implication, however.
Again, it's a juxtaposition of etymology and derived usage. "I'm gonna
make him my bitch!" implies a command structure, not rape.

     VS-)

On 3/9/2012 5:43 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 4:54 PM, Joel S. Berson<Berson at att.net>  wrote:
>> no sexual innuendo attached.
> Are you certain of this? Is this the way that the women that you know
> regard it? IME with this expression - necessarily distinct from yours,
> of coarse<har! har!>  - the entire point of it is sexual innuendo,
> that a man is subordinate to another man in the same sense that a
> woman is: WRT the extent he abuses the other, woman or man, the choice
> is his.
>
> It was once argued to me that the expression,
>
> _to work like a nigger_
>
> was complimentary, because it's the mirror-image of the usual
> stereotype that blacks are lazy. Hoever, the usual interpretation is
> not that blacks work hard, but, rather, that the work that blacks do
> is so contemptible that no white man would stoop so low. You can't
> explain it away.
>
> Inat is to ay, it's not up to straight men to decide by casual
> proclamation what's sexist or anti-gay. Even the Pope has to be
> speaking _ex cathedra_ in order to effect a change in Catholic dogma.
> --
> -Wilson

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