Girlfriend of '(Female Genitalia) Boy'-Clunky Headline of the Day

by NowPublic Staff | May 11, 2012 at 07:08 am

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When a Newspaper Can't Say 'Pussy Boy', Headlines Become Hilariously Awkward

What should be a nationally-ignored petty-crime story has become an internet punchline. TCPalm.com, which covers Florida's Treasure Coast and Palm Beaches, covered a story about 49-year-old Stacy Frontera, who was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct after calling her boyfriend "pussy boy" in a parking lot.

However, TCPalm wouldn't write "pussy boy" in a headline, so they rolled with "Girlfriend of '(female genitalia) boy' nabbed in Stuart, report shows". There's something exponentially funny about dancing around curse-words, when readers know exactly what's getting left out.

Stacy Frontera's response to her arrest was fairly succinct: "I don't give a fuck". This was, of course, duly printed as "I don't give a (expletive)".

A "P" was written in red ink on his shirt. He said he planned to write "(female genitalia) boy" because that's what his girlfriend was calling him. A significant number of men likely would not consider "(female genitalia) boy" to be a term of endearment.

We at NowPublic, who would use "pussy boy" in a headline without even thinking twice about it, both laugh at and empathize with the image of the TCPalm staff poring over the AP style book on how to handle that headline. Hey, they'll get more traffic than they normally would have, just based on snark pieces like this one.