The school girls at the train station roared with delight at what they found when they repeatedly yelled out “Mike Hunt.” Onlookers frowned and looked away either as a sign of disapproval, or, as in my case, to resist bursting into laughter themselves.

The strength of the word cunt lies in it’s lack of synonyms and the fact that there is only one way to say it. My over-reliance on it is terrible, but there is no other that gives that same punch. No other with such a sharp sound. No other that gets the same reaction. No other with such irresistible childish naughtiness. Another fantastic feature is it’s versatility – someone can act “cuntish” or be “a real cunt;” if my friend tells me her car broke down I can say “what a cunt!” and if you take to rhyming sang why not use a sentence like “he’s a bit of a James Blunt”?

Many have inquired as to why the most barbaric and filthy English word is slang for that part of a woman’s body that defines her womanhood – a part of her body where we all came from in the first place.

But attitudes to the powerful expression are changing, and the taboo is shifting. Women are using it more and more, and some say it’s an act of rebellion against the strict patriarchal system that makes it such an insulting word in the first place. The idea is that by overtly using it they can break down its impact (like the gay community reclaiming ‘queer’, lesbians using ‘dyke’ or African-Americans using ‘nigger’). Radical

feminists, however, have continued to try to outlaw the use of the word completely, arguing that it is an act of hostile misogyny and no woman could possibly like that fact that her genitalia should be consigned as crude, vile and ugly in a way that nothing else is.

To this one might point out that the word is actually not insulting in any literal sense, in much the same way as calling someone a 'fucker' isn’t offensive literally. But perhaps it is more complex. We all remain stupidly ill at ease with the vagina. While breasts are now so visible they’re boring, the female genitalia is mostly kept out of sight. Nobody knows what to call it – a 'fanny' belongs to a little girl, a 'pussy' to a porn star, and 'vagina' is too medical.

‘Vagina’, in fact, is especially inappropriate because, as Germaine Greer has pointed out, it refers only to a specific internal section of the genitalia, not the "fun bits". Further, she says, because it is derived from the Latin word for ‘scabbard’ (sword sheath), it is completely inappropriate: "I refuse to think of my sex as simply a receptacle for a weapon."

The trend towards the word cunt has occurred simultaneously to the trend for women going to strip clubs and consuming more pornography. It’s all part of an attitude that goes against those perceivably humourless, joyless, sexless, serious and preaching “feminists” of earlier generations. But is it a sign of liberation or are we being fooled?

Ariel Levy explored the rise of “raunch culture” in the West, and feminism’s shifting position towards it, in her recent publication Female Chauvinist Pigs. She says “only 30 years ago, our mothers were burning their bras and picketing Playboy, and suddenly we are getting breast implants and wearing the bunny logo as symbols of our liberation,” and asks how the culture has been subverted so drastically. She traces a general trend that says the feminist project has achieved so much and gone so far that women can finally join the fun: “if male chauvinist pigs were men who regarded women as pieces of meat, we would beat them at their own game and be female chauvinist pigs: women who make sex objects of other women and of ourselves.” She concludes that while women might feel they are doing something fun, liberating and rebellious, it does not mark the end of objectification or misogyny, and we must continue to fight for freedom and power on all levels.

I wonder what she would think about women using the word cunt…