Kick Out the Sports!
by Bob Cook

Bob Cook's weekly ruminations on sports appear Mondays in Flak.

If University of Colorado president Betsy Hoffman had a say, the 1983 classic weeper Terms of Endearment might carry an alternate title — Cunt.

That's judging from a statement Hoffman made during a June 5 deposition as part of a federal lawsuit against the school filed by three female students who said they were sexually assaulted by Colorado football players. The word came up when an attorney for the female students told Hoffman that one football player referred to Katie Hnida, a placekicker on the 1999 team, as a "cunt." (Hnida has said she was raped by a teammate, but never pressed charges and is not a party to the suit.) The attorney asked Hoffman whether she thought the word was "vile and dirty," and Hoffman responded, according to the deposition transcript, that it was a "swear word" and its meaning depended on the context.

When asked if it could be used in a polite context, Hoffman responded, "Yes, I've actually heard it used as a term of endearment."

That the word "cunt" — normally considered the vilest obscenity in the English language, a word that can shock even the least uptight crowd, a word that even gangsta rappers avoid — can be used as a "term of endearment" might need a little explanation, which Hoffman and the University of Colorado were happy to provide. As Hoffman put it, how the word is received is all about context. As a university spokeswoman elaborated, Hoffman is a medieval scholar, and is familiar with the history of word, such as its use by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Olde English Porne Shoppe classic "The Canterbury Tales."

Author Charles Panati, in his book "Sexy Origins and Intimate Things," says Chaucer used the spelling "queynte," derived from "quaint," meaning "a many-layered, in-folded mystery."

An example:

As doon thise loveres in hir queynte geres,
Now in the crope, now doun in the breres,
Now up, now doun, as boket in a welle.

Guys, whisper those lines to your girlfriend, and she'll be so enthralled that the two of you'll be going up, now doun as a boket in a welle in no time.

Certainly there have been feminist efforts to redefine the term from its current sexist and obscene connotation. But for the mainstream, maybe it's time to undo the word's many-layered, in-folded mystery and reconsider it in Hoffmanian terms, putting it in the same context as "sweetheart," "snoogums" or "honey bunny."

Imagine if we had lent such a meaning to the C-word since Chaucer's time. How differently we would receive the word if, at the end of "Gone With the Wind," Rhett Butler locked Scarlett O'Hara in an embrace and cried out, "Frankly my dear, you're a cunt!" Billy Joel's heartfelt songs to the women in his life could have, using Hoffman's example, been so much more sweet if he had used the word. We'd all sing along to "You're Always a Cunt to Me," "I Love You Just the Way You Are, You Cunt," and his popular ode to then-wife Christie Brinkley, "Uptown Cunt." When the British royal family announced Prince Charles was getting married, Queen Elizabeth II could have referred to her as "Cunt Di." (Well, given how the Queen felt about her late daughter-in-law, maybe she did say that at some point.)

Who hasn't wanted to write, on Mom's special day, "Happy Mother's Day, Cunt!" And when your Mom calls, sobbing, and wonders how you could write something so cruel, say, "Mom, look at the context! There's nothing more complimentary and loving I could say!" And then she will say, crying through tears of joy, "Oh, I will always be a cunt for you!"

Unfortunately for Hoffman, the world is not full of medieval scholars who see the C-word as a term of endearment in any circumstance. In fact, the only thing medieval for Hoffman right now is the Ving Rhames-style medieval she's getting on her ass. Hoffman had once received praise for how she handled the football team's sex scandal, fairly treating everyone involved — even head coach Gary Barnett, who was suspended but not fired. Hoffman has since apologized for her cunt-as-term-of-endearment statement, but it's too late — her just-released deposition has picked the scab off school's wound.

It may be that the Colorado faculty, its board of regents and others in the state will send Hoffman a note about her role in the football sex scandal — something like, "Thanks for all you've done for us, cunt." You wonder what context she would read into that.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.