"To fuck" is "to have sexual intercourse with"

I don’t know about you, but one of the most satisfying words in the world to me is the word fuck.

Say it. Fuck. FUCK. F-U-C-K. Fŭk. FUH-kuh.

It starts off strong and aggressive and angry-sounding, yet it ends with a soft, cute, little kuh sound. It’s sort of endearing. Sort of like March entering like a lion and leaving a lamb, but I digress.

I love that fuck can have a very specific meaning, when used as a verb. When you say that “we fucked all night”, it’s very different from the romantic-sounding “we made love all night” or the preteen-sounding “we did IT all night” or the goofy Bridget Jones-esque “we shagged all night” or especially the “we had sex all night”, which sounds so clinical that it evokes images of hospital-bed sex.

Let’s face it, there’s nothing quite like the word fuck to get your point across. To me, fucking implies passion and strong emotions and spontaneity and … great sex. From my own experience, when you tell your partner how much you want to fuck him or her, there’s very little else that you can say that will incite such a strong sexual response. Whether you’re on the giving or the receiving end of an “I wanna fuck you so bad”, there’s a pretty good chance that such usage of the word fuck will awaken the animal in you. (Pardon the cheesiness of that statement.)

I’m not a fan of using fuck in non-sexual situations. For example, you’ll never catch me saying “fuck George Bush!”. I’m no fan of his, but why would I make a statement implying my willingness to “fuck him” if I really don’t want to fuck him? Likewise, it’s very rare that you’ll hear me say “fuck this [insert inanimate object here]!”

My reasoning behind this might be a little irrational, and will probably make me sound like a huge dorky loser who worries too much. But I’ll confess anyway: Somehow, I’m afraid of saying fuck too often in non-sexual and day-to-day situations, for fear that using that word so freely would somehow diminish its power as a sexual aphrodisiac.

If I say I want to fuck Stephen Harper and Big Tobacco and corporations and Montreal’s metro system and my imminent term paper and the patriarchy and the system and the police … well, that’s a lot of metaphorical fucking of a lot of rather unpleasant things.

And what would happen when the lights are low, and all parties involved are horny, and then I tell someone that I want to fuck him or her, and I sincerely mean it? What if I’ve associated so closely the pleasure of fucking with such unpleasant entities like George Bush, that I’ll no longer be able to enjoy the same strong passionate effects of that word on myself?

So what do I say instead then, when I wish to sincerely express my hatred for something or someone? Screw works well enough for me. It carries the same meaning as fuck, but without the same effects of lust and passion.

Am I irrational? Overly cautious? Worrying too much? Most likely. But as my mom said when I was a kid, “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

– Yun

PS: Upon rereading and counting, I see this post used the word fuck (and its variations) 25 times. Huh. You think that’s a little excessive?