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Comment by MaxfordAndSons | Hacker News Reader

You still haven't really addressed the fact that using 'cuck'/cuckoldry as a generic insult is implicitly normalizing patriarchal gender norms and power relations, by suggesting that men whose wives are unfaithful are inherently diminished as people, or that sexual control over ones wife is the most important measure of ones worth, or myriad other gross beliefs.

> in the background of a much more urgent & dark situation in which the alignment of government oppression of civilians is being enabled by the Facebook platform

Yea, we're already several degrees OT as you mention in gp, and tbh, I'm much more personally concerned about the things affecting our lives here in the anglophone world, like the subtle and unsubtle normalization of sexist/racist/fascist language by the far right. Call me a pc sjw libtard cuck, I don't care, but I'll keep calling it out because I want HN to stay better than that.

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Look, dude, it's not about inherent worth. Framing these discussions in such terms is a rhetorical trick to evade their actual subject matter. The real issue is that being cheated on, of losing "sexual control" over your partner (and that phrasing is another rhetorical trick, a way to disguise the real emotional structure of the desire for fidelity as, instead, some sort of patriarchal construct), is /subjectively/ devastating. It /does/ make you feel diminished as a person. It /does/ make you feel "worth less" -- which is, in fact, essentially the message semaphored by your partner deciding to seek satisfaction elsewhere than you. It is a terrible feeling to be told -- explicitly, or even more horribly, implicitly -- that you are not enough for your partner.

This isn't about sexist, fascist, or racist(???) language. It's not a fiction concocted by the far right. It's about the emotional realities of being a human being -- not some fantasy caricature.

You're right, my phrasing re: "sexual control" is rhetorically unfair, and you're right that it is a horrible thing for those who experience a loss of fidelity with their partner.

But I'm not talking about people who have actually been cheated on. I'm talking about the use of the term as a generic insult, which, if you feel so strongly about how subjectively awful it is, I think you should agree is a petty way to weaponize the term, which is what the alt-right does by calling everyone who they perceive as being weak or having been defeated a "cuck".

I'm sympathetic to your point. But ultimately I gotta disagree with the premise of your argument -- specifically, that the misery of being a cuckold makes the use of the term "cuck" unacceptable. Much to the contrary, I think that it makes the term /suitable/ for many situations -- situations that are, in some way, emotionally analogous. I'm hesitant to make this claim unequivocally -- I can see arguing that the mechanics of the use of the term "cuck" exceed mere metaphor in objectionable ways -- but I think that the ability to speak directly to emotional reality supersedes any such argument.

For the record, I'm not defending the alt-right in any capacity. They're loathsome fascists. And that's key -- the problem is the content of their positions, not the language in which they're expressed.

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