The Evolution Of The 'Cuckold' From Porn To Politics

In its original usage, a “cuckold” is a woman who cheats on her husband—named after the female cuckoo bird who lays her eggs in other birds’ nests. It dates from the thirteenth century and was common in the middle ages; fans of Shakespeare will recognize it at once. 

“So how did a literally medieval insult end up in modern American politics?”, asks Maureen O’Connor in this history of the term, which has now become a common insult for mainstream conservatives who hardcore right-wingers accuse of too-mild political views. “Cucks” or “cucking”, for short.

On its way to political epithet, the cuckold was a popular porn category, an “emasculating subgenre” focused on spousal humiliation. The reason a woman sleeping with someone besides her husband is seen as humiliating is presumably the idea that women are belongings and their unfaithfulness is emasculating. O’Connor’s theory of cucking’s migration to politics is that it happened via video games and sexist culture therein: 

“When anti-feminist activists moved from video games to politics […] they brought their lexicons (and chauvinism) with them.”

Clearly, Trump’s White House is rife with the fear of female sexual autonomy underlying the cuckold fear-as-fantasy. And yet, O’Connor argues, the Trumpian view of masculinity is entirely hypocritical, as can be seen through the reality of the “cuck” figure:

"For a man to use cuck is to admit that his entire understanding of masculinity revolves around the actions of women—which turns masculinity into a quality that women, not men, control."