Geez, you ladies are uptight. Words only hold as much power as you allow them to. Maybe if you relaxed a bit you wouldn't find it so offensive.

i love the c word!

If people called me the c word, I would smile and say "and don't you forget it."

The Onion "controversy"?

I don't recall their bad tweet every being considered a "controversy."

Someone who runs the Twitter account for The Onion tweeted something very stupid, and the CEO issued an apology the next day. It was done.

Time to move along.

I think the bigger issue here is that the whole Oscar event was riddled with misogynistic jokes, and this was just thought to be "just another joke". Jokes are great when they are appropriate, but the sophomoric humor that was displayed at what is supposed to be a upscale and classy event was just unacceptable. It goes back to manners and civility. I love humor and I am by no means uptight, but there are limits. It is easy for someone to say “get over it”, and maybe we will, but a nine year old girl was called a reprehensible word because she DISPLAYED JOY after seeing a clip of her performance on screen at an awards show. Think about it.

Hi Joe, way to see the bigger picture. I know the Onion, however, just because it was a stupid thing to do, it does not make it ok, and one might argue that the atmosphere of the show ( in which the host really did have a 'let's put down women" fest and why the producers allowed it is another story) encouraged said "stupid tweet". I really believe lanquage has power, and this was an unecssary barb. And just because there was an apology issued, also does not mean everything is ok and can go back to the way it was.

'Cunt' is a synonym for 'vagina', though this is only its most familiar meaning. As a noun, 'cunt' has numerous other senses: a woman (viewed as a sexual object), sexual intercourse, a (foolish) person, an infuriating device, an ironically affectionate term of address, the mouth as a sexual organ, the anus as a sexual organ, the buttocks, prostitution, a vein used for drug-injection, a synonym for 'damn', an attractive woman, an object or place, the essence of someone, and a difficult task. It can also be used as an adjective (to describe a foolish person), a verb (meaning both to physically abuse someone and to call a woman a cunt), and an exclamation (to signify frustration). Despite its semantic flexibility, however, 'cunt' remains our highest linguistic taboo: "It has yet, if ever, to return to grace" (Jonathon Green, 2010).

trend towards repetitive usage of 'cunt' seeks to undermine the taboo through desensitisation. If 'cunt' is repeated ad infinitum, our sense of shock at initially encountering the word is rapidly dispelled. With other swear words (notably 'fuck') gradually losing their potency, 'cunt' is left as the last linguistic taboo, though even the c-word can now be found adorning badges, t-shirts, and book covers. Its normalisation is now only a matter of time.

What 'cunt' has in common with most other contemporary swear words is its connection to bodily functions. Genital, scatological, and sexual terms (such as, respectively, 'cunt', 'shit', and 'fuck') are our most powerful taboos, though this was not always the case.
In Totem Und Tabu, Sigmund Freud's classic two-fold definition of 'taboo' encompasses both the sacred and the profane, both religion and defilement: "The meaning of 'taboo', as we see it, diverges in two contrary directions. To us it means, on the one hand, 'sacred', 'consecrated', and on the other 'uncanny', 'dangerous', 'forbidden', 'unclean'" (1912).