Reply #16: So, in this lingusitic circus

[GrpCaptMandrake]

General McAuliffe at Bastogne should have replied to the German surrender demand "Almonds!" as opposed to the now classic "Nuts!"?

The physiological fact is that testosterone (and its primary source, the testicles) is a source of aggression and generalized male behavior ('roid rage, anyone?) that has, from the most ancient days of animal husbandry, been equated with masculinity. I'm guessing here, but I can only assume the OP has never seen the difference between a stud horse and a gelding (a castrated horse). A stud is/can be mean, cantankerous, hard to control. A gelding will let anything be done to it by anyone, including letting itself be mounted by a horse that still has "a pair."

To say as an insult that a woman has no balls is oxymoronic and a contradiction in terms. It's dumb, and a poor use of language. It makes sense that one wouldn't use the phrase in regard to a woman who, to make things clear, has no testicles in the first place. To use the term in regard to a male is, however, rather colorful English, and certainly not an insult to the "testicularly challenged." It is an insult to the person to whom it is directed, most usually a male.

What the OP is actually doing is asking us to emasculate language (i.e. to castrate) in favor of a more neutered, weak-kneed, watered-down, soggy milque-toast alternative, even, it would appear, where the language is appropriate. This is a sexism of a far ranker degree than suggesting that a cowardly male lacks testicles. It is an attempt to linguistically cleanse males and their masculinity from the language.

As some hoary (no, that's not a gender-based degradation) old sage once put it: "An insult is like a drink. It affects one only if taken." It would appear to me that the OP has a straw in a bottle that wasn't even passed to her.