Notes on Cuntmaxxing

Words, womanhood, and becoming louder

Call me a word snob, but I hate most hyper-online expressions, especially anything with -maxxing. Looksmaxxing. Sleepmaxxing. Productivitymaxxing. It all sounds like a motivational speaker trapped in a Discord server.

But I’m interested in how language around the body turns either into shame or into power, and yesterday I came across a version that felt like a refreshing slap in the face: cuntmaxxing. I have no idea what it means and I didn’t look it up. I liked it on sight. Something about c&%t paired with maxx is visually satisfying and deliciously loud.

Speaking of c&%t, I used to detest the word, and most terms relating to the female body. It started young. When I was a kid, my grandma had a cat called Muschi and it always made me feel a bit ashamed hearing her name. (Muschi, in German, means pussy.)

It’s a perfectly acceptable name for a cat, and pussycat is adorable — but I still can’t quite shake that early discomfort. It even extended to names like Uschi, because there was an actress named Uschi Glas in an erotic horror film called Die Weibchen that I wasn’t emotionally equipped for.

Georgia O'Keeffe knew how to really zoom in

There are worse words for vagina in German. One I cannot even type. It starts with an F and feels aggressive and jarring. And I’ve never been drawn to cutesy euphemisms either — lady parts, coochie, hoo-ha — all of them feel a bit like clowns with balloons. Va-jay-jay is probably my favorite, even though it’s so dated.

Someone will always try to peel it (art by Barbara Kruger)

But back to cuntmaxxing. It feels strangely empowering — not in the way kids call each other “bitch,” but something else. More like a superpower. For me, it evokes a woman with a black Amex who can buy an apartment in Paris on a whim, or a whole tropical island. I picture a hint of Joan Jett putting another dime in the jukebox. The Runaways dropping a cherry bomb.

The Runaways: Girls who refused to translate themselves

And yet the word is still shifting as I sit with it.

I think what I’m actually circling isn’t the jargon itself, but the idea of reclaiming volume as a woman. Of taking up space again without watering myself down to become more palatable. Grow back some balls. Broadcast my voice into the world — sans shame or apology.

Maybe cuntmaxxing, for me, is just this: becoming louder again.

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Credit: Cover art by Sabrina Hadia Puha

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