Dirty Words

Photo credit: Photo by christopherdale on Flickr

When I was younger, my best friend Vickie and I used to hide under the stairs in the basement of my house and whisper curse words to each other in an elementary school act of defiance.

"Asshole," I would say, and giggle.

"Shit," she would whisper back, covering her mouth to stifle the laughter.

"Fuck," I'd return, snorting with silent mirth.

There was a glee in being together and saying things we could not say to anyone else. The words were forbidden and somehow dangerous and powerful, but they didn't carry the same meaning for us that they did for adults. We couldn't speak them in front of others in the light of day, so we whispered them to each other and the spiders, bonding in the dark safety of our secret clubhouse under the stairs.

As I grew, I learned what the words meant and saw the power they had to shock and offend, to convey a violence and passion that scared me and the rest of society. And I stopped saying them, even whispered in secret. They were bad words, dirty words, that only stupid and morally bankrupt people (my father exempted, of course) said. And I was a good girl.

But gradually, I began to find a balance. I'm a writer, so I don't want to say I realized that these words are "just" words, but I did realize that they are not "bad" words; they are words. In banning them from my own life, in remaining silent or whispering them under the stairs, I was giving them undue power over me. I could recognize the power they have to shock and offend others, but I wanted to own the words, and to make the decision of when and whether it was appropriate to use them without myself giving moral weight to their use.

I've been thinking about those words recently in relation to some of the new words I've come to use in my life and in my writing: addict, autistic, codependent, special education. I've found that society at large has come to see these words as shameful, dirty and imbued with a negative meaning. And in a way, this blog has become something between my balancing point and my modern adult hideaway, my safe place under the stairs. I can use the words here to bond with other people who, for the most part, understand them the way I do, without the same moral weight or judgment that society brings. I can say the words I can't always say out loud in my own life and feel not only less alone, but distinctly closer to others. And sometimes I can even giggle about them.

And it makes me think of some of the other words that people used to whisper under the stairs: words like breast cancer or left handed or interracial marriage. Maybe someday we as a society won't "accuse" people of being alcoholics any more than we accuse people of having cancer, because alcoholism truly won't be seen as a moral failing but as a neurological disease caused by an interaction of genes and environment. Maybe someday we won't see autism as uniformly sad and pitiable, but as diverse and individual in its liabilities and benefits as any other aspect of the human race. Maybe someday the world at large will grow up and learn to use the words as words: as a way to communicate and understand. Until then, I'll gleefully shout them here, and I won't be alone.