Yeah I would say the less visceral and specific versions (“fuck you!”) are not really thought of as actually sexual by either the angry person or the target. But these more elaborate insults clearly are. Or at least they are to me.
At minimum, however we intend them, they all share a common heritage. Which is the idea is that sex acts are being viewed as degrading though. And that this is the root of both calling sex as “fucking” (literally a word taken from “to hit, to strike”) and then using that and descriptions of oral sex on a dick as insults aimed at degrading their target.
Like you wouldn’t try to insult someone with something beneficial or pleasurable, right? You wouldn’t say “Get a surprise party!!” to the idiot who stepped on your foot, but you would say “get fucked!!” ... what does this say about our attitudes toward sex? Particularly for the party who is fucked (penetrated) or made to suck (orally penetrated)? And so it makes it seem like we have a long history of viewing the receiving party to a dick, male or female, as lesser and degraded. Why is that?
You see this in Greek and Roman ideas of masculinity (male prestige in a male supremacist system) and sex. That women, girls, men or boys who “receive” penetration or a dick orally, are lesser, and made lesser by that act. It wasn’t a scandal for a man of rank to be with men, but it was to be the “receiving” “lesser” partner, to be “like a woman.” These cultures have had an outsized effect on history through their influence on those who would go on to colonize on an even grander scale.
In this dynamic we can see the idea of male homosexuality as concerning to the men of patriarchal cultures in that it made them like women, who were already understood as inferior spiritually, cognitively, socially, and materially. And the link between gay as gross and women as gross is made. A primary origin of homophobia directed at gay and bi men is sexism against women, oddly enough.
These claims of inferiority were of course lies... lies in the form of full fabrications, manufactured situations, or incorrectly assigning superiority overall on the basis of on average advantages in carefully curated categories of skill. Such as calling men “more physically fit” entirely when really that is only some of them, and they are only on average better at certain tasks while on average women excel at others, like flexibility or some forms of endurance. But despite being lies, it is what they believed, deeply. In addition to assuming, long before Christianity retold the tale, that women were cursed and the proof was in the blood and pain of menstruation and childbirth.
This shit is so old it seems silly to us to even point it out and bother to catalog its effects. Like going to the doctor and complaining of a pain you knew from birth. But it exists. And so do its effects. It’s worth the “stretch” to exercise and, hopefully, one day, excise it.
Going back to the original post, yes we can read the “I fucked your [relative, most often female]!” insult a lot of different ways. And it is fair to point that out, and also look at some of the variations people have come up with to try and mask or avoid the rape-y or sex-as-conquest associations. It’s also fair to point out how who is saying the insult matters, and to who, and with what level of genuine anger, to some extent.
But at the root of it all is the reason why we are bothering to explain, and be concerned about this: sex as degrading or sex as an aggressive competition absolutely is at the root of any possible reading of these insults. Especially the effect of sex involving a dick on the penetrated partner. It’s why when you see women try to leverage these insults, they often go for “I pegged/fucked your dad/mom/etc!!. They don’t say “yeah well I had your dad/mom/etc fuck me!”. There’s a reason. And it’s in the implicit dominance and prestigious conquest of fucking and the submission or degradation in being fucked.
Meanwhile, if sex is good and worth consenting to, and not bad, and not rape, none of that should make sense! In good sex, where sex is morally good or neutral and loved, all acts chosen are pleasing and desired! And yet, to just about all of us, these insults relying on us thinking getting fucked is bad do make sense. And the idea of bragging about the fucking, or “seduction” of the relative or partner of enemies as a conquest to lord over them does make sense to nearly all of us. Why?
We have deeply internalized a sex negative, exploitative, harmfully competitive, hierarchal, domineering, sexist, homophobic, and sexually violent and sexually commodifying culture.
We view seduction and penetration as conquest and being penetrated as loss or capitulation. We view our partners as dumb fickle somethings that can be stolen from us by a rival with enough cash or clout or physical/sexual capacity rather than partners bonded securely with us in a unique relationship of love.
And these common features of language are just the tiniest tip off an insanely massive iceberg. Perhaps it would be better to liken it to an ocean we’re all adrift on. Global warming, after all. I care a lot about this, and even I use these insults at times, reflexively! It’s just everywhere, still, after all these centuries. Ages.
And guess what?? “That’s fucked up.”
