Fuck Is Not Just a Word
for release 01-30-07
Washington DC
There are all kinds of fucks. That's why it's such a wonderful activity and such a wonderful word.
I'll never forget the look on my grandmother's face when I asked her what it meant. I think I was about six. I had heard the term but I was still uncertain about the process. I was fairly sure that it was a verb. An active verb. It was something somebody did to somebody else, as in 'fuck you.'
But it was also something that people did together, as in 'they were fucking.' And the idiom, 'fuck me runnin'.' always baffled me.
I didn't know what it was exactly, but I knew when I saw the blood drain from my grandmother's face that fucking was something that was powerful and awesome and dangerous and terrifying. And not to be spoken of. She changed the subject.
That's not hard to do with me. Even as a six year old, I had no better attention span than I do today.
But eventually I learned about fucking in all it's many forms and variations. My grandmother's face had told me the truth. Fucking is powerful and awesome and dangerous and terrifying. Also beautiful and ugly and hollow and fulfilling and fun and no fun. It's giving and taking and making bargains.
You can fuck for love. You can fuck for money. You can fuck for power. You can fuck for spite. You can fuck just because you need to fuck. You can fuck for religion. You can fuck for dope. You can fuck for security and status.
Yes, there are all kinds of fucks. You can get fucked, you can fuck-off. You can wonder what the fuck. There's the tender fuck, the hard fuck and the easy fuck, the slow fuck, the quick fuck and just the right fuck. There's the cluster fuck, the front fuck and the back fuck and several variations of the upside-down fuck. You can fuck standing or laying or sitting. Legally or illegally. There's the motel fuck and the honeymoon fuck and the sneak-around fuck.
We have the pity fuck and the obligatory fuck and the straight fuck and the kinky fuck. We have fucks involving machinery, devices, animals and fantasies and minor children. We have the frantic teen-aged heart-beating fuck and the comfortable fuck of marriage. We have literal fucks and ones more figurative. We have the head fuck, which may not actually be a real fuck, but the Supreme Court is still out on that.
At some point I realized that the Universe was all about fucking. The North fucks the South, the positive fucks the negative, gravity fucks centrifugal force, matter fucks anti-matter, fire fucks air. water fucks fire, paper fucks rock, scissors fuck paper. Real life fucks romance. It's all in the natural course of things.
Fucking is where the rubber meets the road, where the yin meets the yang. Where red meets blue, where Republican meets Democrat. Fucking needs grease and friction. Fucking is where the forces come together. It's the eternal rub of existence. Fucking, like drama, needs conflict. Yes, it's powerful and awesome and dangerous and terrifying. As it should be.
If this is not true, then fuck me in The Poet's Eye.
Oh, well, who gives a fuck? 
