Feel free to call me out for being an asshole for any other reason, too. 😉
Here me out though, inb4 “Why do you want to insult people without being offensive, you inane, paradoxical asshole?”
Well, here’s the thing. I do want to be able to offend someone (in some cases), or to say something that might be considered offensive to them, even if not directed at them. More importantly, I want other people to have alternatives to insults, because people are going to use insults anyway, and making those insults less broadly offensive as a form of damage control is a far more achievable goal than doing away with insults entirely. But the purpose is to insult/offend a quality of their character, of that particular person (or a group of people who demonstrate a specific quality, attitude or choice etc), rather than using a random insult which uses a different group than the target individual/group as the butt of the joke and ends up, as a kind of crossfire/side effect, either offending that group or others or contributing to potentially harmful societal attitudes toward them.
I mean, do you have a problem saying “Misogynists are buttfaces”? No? But you just insulted a group. See what I mean? It’s ok to insult groups sometimes. But why insult disabled people? They didn’t/don’t inherently do anything wrong or worthy of ridicule (obviously some disabled people do, like any group of people - but that has nothing to do with their disability). And I’m guessing most people are fine with saying “That person is a real… asshole”. Hence the community this is in.
Let’s set aside the debate over “Is the R-word (removed, not gRape) offensive to disabled people, or to others who might be offended on their behalf, and/or does it contribute to negative attitudes & potential treatment of those groups of people”. Let’s just assume for sake of example that it’s an offensive or harmful term, or off limits regardless, because many people do take issue with that word and its colloquial understandings and associations/connotations. What would be a viable alternative? I can think of many…
But seriously, and please don’t lynch me for saying it in this self-aware meta analytical context, nothing hits as hard as “That’s fucking removed” or “What a fucking removed”/“What a bunch of fucking removed”. These are powerful expressions, and they have the ability to persuade others to think negatively about a concept, thing, event, person or group of people, or to convey in evocative terms how you feel that something or someone is absurd, ridiculous or foolish. It may also be elements of the sound/enunciation of the word that are effective, even if you just read it and think of it. It’s similar actually to the word “fuck/fucking”, which I also used there. It means almost nothing extra but it can add emphasis.
And obviously the intention is (usually, or at least often) not to offend or even comment on anything about disabled people, and they aren’t even in mind at all. So it is similar to saying “That’s gay” (in a negative way), which honestly just sounds lame and cringe to me and doesn’t have the same effect as the r word. But the parallel exists where a lot of people aren’t thinking of actual gay people at all when they use the insult, and may be pro-🏳️🌈/LGBT, but it’s still problematic regardless.
Now, I’m not defending using the R word at all, nor do I use it. I actively avoid using it, with the exception of this post. But I see others using it all the time, and I can’t help but understand why they do, since it fills a bit of a linguistic box that other words haven’t been able to fill as well, although I want to be corrected on that.
Other words which are contenders for replacements when used as an insult in a way that is intended to be used very generally and not directed at or referencing marginalized groups or particular groups at all, aside from “removed/removed” or “gay”, include “removed”, the N word, and maybe “motherfucker” (I get a lot of pushback from this one, aside from some feminists who agreed it’s a little problematic - like “your mom” jokes). Also, using other animals as insults, but I know most people aren’t going to agree with me on that one since it’s more of a vegan/animal rights thing. Again don’t lynch me. Yes, I’m trying to find ways that people can be assholes without being more of assholes than they need to. Does that make me an asshole? Also, do you have any suggestions? Thanks for reading, and “fuck you” (not really, you’re alright).
Most insults are some attempt to link an aspect of a person or their behaviour with a negatively perceived thing. Most powerful insults also include breaking some form of social taboo.
Thus we have mild insults like “your argument is…” “weak-sauce” which associate the argument with the (presumably undesirable) sauce of insufficient strength; “shit” which is mild taboo but so widely used and conventional that it doesn’t hit hard; “loose stool-water, arse-gravy of the worst kind” which is both a bit taboo and reasonably novel (but wordy and pretentious).
If you’re trying to find insults that are going to impact someone, you have to find things that are upsetting / undesirable or them, so that association with that negative thing is bad and they want to avoid it. This is tricky if they have a different worldview, because what is offputting to you might be fine to them (eg. religious people insulting behaviour as ‘sinful’ or ‘satanic’ doesn’t really land for non-believers).
This is extra tricky if you don’t agree with what they find disgusting, because when you use something that disgusts them as an insult you are reinforcing the idea that it IS something to be disgusted by. Making fun of Trump’s ‘Lady-hands’ or ‘micropenis’ might be hurtful to him (or his supporters) but it also telling men that traditional masculine features and penis size are the qualities of real men. But that’s the problem, you can’t use someone’s beliefs against them while also challenging those beliefs as wrong.
So you can just accept that insults are problematic, and continue to call people ‘retarded fags’ because you know that has a negative association to them, ignoring the innocent minorities also hurt by that language. Or you can find things that are universally seen as bad and undesirable (mostly varistions on bodily functions) or that don’t really hurt the stereotyped group (“you’re whining like a little baby” is less problematic than “like a woman on the rag” or “like a little removed”). But these generally aren’t as impactful…