Tonight I talked with a female friend about the word "bitch" and whether there is a male equivalent. Instead of having a male equivalent, she prefers to use "bitch" for both genders. She feels that a separate but equal word would never really exist, and that men would never come up with a word that is as insulting as the word they use to refer to women. I tried to define "bitch" so that we could possibly find a word that captures the definition but avoids gender specificity. Although I was not able to find such a word in my vocabulary, the exercise was fruitful in another way: I found a necessary condition for a female to be a bitch. The woman must, either temporarily or permanently, lose her sense of humor. That is required. Closely related is the idea of taking herself too seriously. OK, so now we have two gender nonspecific concepts. So what would we call a man who loses his sense of humor and takes himself too seriously? Would he be a "prick?" How about an "asshole?" Just for the record, that is an example of a word with a strong negative connotation and only applies to males. But neither of these words is exactly analogous. My friend thinks that there is no word that completely dismisses a man the way "bitch" dismisses a woman. I would like to argue with this, but I would need an example, and so far I have not been able to find one.