It was the official term for it, though people started to get uncomfortable with the word and considered it vulgar by the 1500s. By 1700, it was declared legally obscene. One 18th century English dictionary of slang defined it as “C**t... a nasty word for a nasty thing.”

To this day (brace yourself if you’re not comfy with the c-word, because it’s hard to avoid it in a column all about it), “cunt” is still the baddest of the bad words.

According to Jane Mills’s book Sexwords, the first known reference to the word was Gropecuntlane, the name of a street in Oxford in early medieval times. A street with the same name in London in the 13th century was thought to be crawling with prostitutes, and we know how much respect they get. Another theory says it comes from the Old English word “queynte,” which eventually became the present “quaint” but at that time meant crafty or cunning.

Still, despite its scheming-whore implications, and even though writer Dorothy Parker bemoaned the fact that a woman’s “delicate, mysterious and elaborate genitalia” could be reduced to a “very short and unattractive word,” personally I think “cunt” is a damn good word.

After all, what are the options? Especially when you’re doin’ it. Can you seriously look someone in the eye when you’re in bed together and say, “Would you like to take a trip into my happy valley?” Most other monikers just aren’t very sexy. Vagina is too clinical, and while I favour the shortened “vag” for everyday usage, it doesn’t cut it in the sack. “Pudendum” is worse, especially considering it’s Latin for: “something to be ashamed of.” Gash, slit, slash, slot and stinkpot aren’t very positive and, while honeypot or jellybox might stimulate my taste buds, that’s about it. An old boyfriend’s mother used to politely call it her “box.” Huh? Oprah’s “va-jay-jay” makes me cringe as much as calling your boobs your “girls.” Too coy and cutesy.

“Pussy” is probably the next best thing. However, “pussy” has that cheesy porn feel to it. Then again, you could just avoid the problem altogether, as does one male friend, who finds the word “cunt” vulgar. “I just point to it,” he laughs.

“It’s the perfect word for it,” another male friend told me when we were at the bar the other night. “Phonetically it represents what it looks like.” He proceeded with a demo. “The K-sound is the hole, the uuu-nnn is the length of it ended by a succint hard T sound, which is like the clit.” OK, you really had to be there to get the full effect.

“It depends how you say it,” added our female companion, “where you put the emphasis.”

And to whom you’re saying it.

“It has a different meaning with people I like and people I don’t like,” admitted our phonetics, um, expert. “There are some people I’m more comfortable using it with. Usually it’s with women who are comfortable using it themselves.”

Like the one woman beside us who was eavesdropping and piped up: “It’s a fabulous word!” she gushed.

Apparently, no one thinks twice about using the word “cunt” in New Zealand, where the word enjoys common usage. Phonetics boy found this out when he was tree-planting with a New Zealander a few years back. This guy used it all the time, much to the disgust of a fellow female planter. So, of course, in the spirit of a bunch of intelligent people left out in the woods doing manual labour together weeks on end, they decided to torment this woman by whispering the word “cunt” into her ear every morning at breakfast.

“We eventually broke her down and she mustered up the courage to say it without cringing,” he laughs. “Of course, then the word lost its negative impact, and we had to find another way to torment her.”

Which is interesting. Even though I’d like more women to get comfy with this word, I’m not sure I want it to lose its impact. Even feminist writer Germaine Greer, who set out to defuse what she described as the most explosively taboo word in the English language back in the ’70s, has since reversed her position.

In an article a couple years ago in the U.K.’s The Independent, she is quoted as saying: “I don't think now that I want the c-word to be tamed. I love the idea that this word is still so sacred that you can use it like a torpedo, that you can hole people below the waterline. You can make strong men go pale. This word for our female ‘sex’ is an extraordinarily powerful reminder of who we are and where we came from. It’s a word of immense power — to be used sparingly.”

And I promise, that from now on, I will.