We have a habit of not liking to use the right words for things, especially if they are unpleasant or deemed disgusting. Instead of backhouse, toilet or outhouse,people used to say out where the woodbine twines. Frequently woodbine was planted near the outhouse to partially cover the odor, at least during flowering. We know woodbine as honeysuckle and it is a very strongly perfumed flower. We hide the necessity for saying things like sex and fornication with such a wide variety of words that it can literally make your head spin from the beast with two backs to skroggin', bumping uglies to simply, doing it. Some prefer the horizontal bop or rolling in the hay; shagging or making babies. Of course, I could go on, and on and on... no pun intended. It seems as if language is more than happy to morph if speaking plainly could get us into trouble. Sadly, there are few other words for racist and misogynistic attittudes. Other than calling the person exhibiting such beliefs an a-hole, we need to have specific words to speak of specific horrors. But love-making gets a pass I guess, because there are so many ways to partake of the "original sin", it probably helps to have many names for one thing, coitus.
The problems associated with racism and misogyny is that they are often tied up with sex and sexuality, feelings of being threatened, being out of control and/or feeling inadequate have provided the foundation of all sorts of rage and hate. Sadly, more than fifty percent of the population are womyn and people of color. Simply said racism and misogyny are only weilded by a slim minority and their wrath is exerted against quite a bit more than half of society. For instance, the typical racist believes that because he has one black friend, he's not a racist, but that leaves 42 million (just in the U.S.A.) that he does not act friendly toward. Similarly, many men say, "I can't be a mysogynist because I love womyn." but in reality, they love trying to get as much sex as possible from as many womyn as they can and sometimes whether or not the feeling is mutual. When men are brought up seeing people operating from somewhere on the power and control wheel, they learn the power dynamics of abuse early. They may not even realize that the behaviors they label "love" as just shorthand for exploitation and abuse.
As much as we need pressure relief valves like swear words for when we hurt ourselves or experience great pain, blanket words to cover a lot of territory fast and avoid the distain of people who think normal human interactions and processes are dirty, we will continue to have a need for euphemisms.
Without these words that don't exactly mean what they say, the double entendre would simply not exist, trying to get away with talking about things in front of the kids would be much more dificult and likely some issues would get talked abotu even less. However, I would like to make a case for speaking plainly and using terms which leave as little room for misunderstanding as possible. Back in Victorian times, where the woodbine twines was a vaguely peotic way of saying shitter. Today, we want less sylables, perhaps even a toilet emogi or acronym would work, like the British W.C. which stands for Water Closet. It is ironic that some bathrooms are now bigger than bedrooms of a century ago. Times change and so does language, but unless we speak clearly and in ways that others comprehend, our ability to communicate will suffer.
Some today oppose the very pairing of words that speak volumes about the specific subject matter of racism. You probably already redneckonize where I'm headed with this, CRT (Critical Race Theory)the whipping boy du jour of every right wing apologist for our racist element. Not a theory at all, but a perspective, that blacks and other races were always human beings and both in the past and today, their lives are circumscribed by hate. It certainly is not diabolical to speak truth to power and it certainly does not make the power balance change one iota. Perhaps if we all understood it there would be less hatred and fewer people maimed and killed simply because of the color of skin they were born with. There really isn't a very eloquent pseudonym because fascists and nazis are factually immoral, not just "dirty" like sex or defecating.
