An article in last weekend’s NY Times Magazine about “cuckold wives” in politics notes, “I can find nothing in the dictionary that applies to sexually betrayed women, though you would think Webster would have added one by now.” Actually, according to Wikipedia, the female equivalent cuckquean first appeared in English literature in 1562. Though clearly that moniker never caught on — and after four and a half centuries, we don’t think that’s going to change. (Perhaps because the term cuckquean sounds like it belongs in the fetish world.)
Who knows why it never caught on — perhaps because a cuckold is often meant as a term of derision, and we’re more likely to feel sorry for a cheated-on wife than we are to ridicule her. Then again, remember all the Hillary haters back in the late nineties, circa Monica-gate? We guess sometimes we like to ridicule the cheated-on wife, too. Those bent on derision back then were forced to use the term “female cuckold.”
And what about all those men who’ve been cheated on who deserve our sympathy? How come they get saddled with the insult “cuckold,” as if it were someone their fault? The way “cuckold” is thrown around, you’d think a deficit of masculinity — rather than a female wandering eye — was to blame.
Well, we think we need it’s about time we came up with a new term for someone who’s been cheated on. Something that’s both gender- and judgment neutral. “Jenny Sanford” will date too quickly (and besides, we think most men who’ve been cheated on would rather be called a cuckold than a Jenny Sanford). “Cheatee” is too clunky.
Any suggestions, dear readers? What would you call a man or woman who has been cheated on? Give it your best shot in the comments section below and we’ll follow up with a poll of our favorites next week.
July 17th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
As someone who’s been observing the cuckolding fetish for some time, this question has occurred to me as well.
I’ve often seen the word “cuckoldress” thrown around to mean the woman doing the cuckolding most of the time. On other occasions, though, I’ve seen it used to mean a “female cuckold,” which makes sense from a grammatical standpoint.
So if forced to choose a name for a “female cuckold,” my vote would be for “cuckoldress.”
However, I am loathe to tack that gender identifier on the word. Just as with the words “whore” or “slut,” I think it’s rather sexist to have to add the word “man” before those words (man whore, man slut), as it implies that those words are gender biased to women. Men can be whores and sluts too.
Ultimately, I’d just stick with “cuckold” and petition the dictionary to change the definition to “a PERSON whose SPOUSE is unfaithful.”
July 18th, 2009 at 6:04 am
Jilted Spouse
Betrayed lover
injured spouse
victim of adultery
wounded party
July 18th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Not to exonerate the female with the wandering eye, but a deficit in masculinity is often to blame when guys get cheated on.
July 18th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
If you don’t mind sounding judgmental “wronged partner” sounds familiar. If you want to be expansive and swingery (I’m pretty sure being a swinger doesn’t immunize against infidelity) you could say “excluded partner.”
But Elton Andersyn’s remark about the cuckolding fetish makes me wonder if there’s anything like *that* for women (either the fetish or the term.) At any rate I’m inclined to think we should probably drop the term cuckold for anything but fetishism. Which actually might be happening anyway. The first couple of pages on the keyword “cuckold” in Google yields fetish-related links.
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Also, not to disagree with Johnny but while I agree that imagining insufficient masculinity goes with cuckolding fetishes I, well, disagree that it has much to do with women’’s infidelity. (Any more than insufficient femininity has much to do with male infidelity.)
figleaf
July 29th, 2009 at 7:39 am
So if forced to choose a name for a “female cuckold,” my vote would be for “cuckoldress.”
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:57 am
There actually IS a word for a female cuckold: cuckquean. It dates back to the 16th century.
Check it out:
http://www.sex-lexis.com/Sex-Dictionary/cuckquean
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cuckquean
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:39 am
Pepper, you must have not read past the first sentence of our post. In the second sentence, we note: “Actually, according to Wikipedia, the female equivalent cuckquean first appeared in English literature in 1562. Though clearly that moniker never caught on — and after four and a half centuries, we don’t think that’s going to change. (Perhaps because the term cuckquean sounds like it belongs in the fetish world.)”
September 1st, 2009 at 6:02 am
interesting question – we are looking at it now, as we are building a dating site which is tailored for swinging couples, and singles.
its complicated to build a system which gives users all the correct options to describe their sexual needs – for instance, if you have two lesbian swingers, which one is the cuckold / ress / quean?
i think using term “cuckold” for both is going to be understood by most people, just hope it doesnt offend!
this isnt really relevant to article, but it does highlight how a lot of english language is quite rigidly defined and outdated now.