== Continued == 

 I see you archived, so if you want to archive this too, please do, and apologies for replying if it wasn't wanted. 

 I just wanted to say briefly that, no matter what the Wikipedia article says, or any RS, I lived there for decades. If you direct that word at a woman in many areas of the country, you can kiss goodbye to your teeth. And for a lot of women, it's not only an insulting word to hear from a man, but a threatening one, because it's likely to be the word you hear just before being punched or raped. 

 That doesn't mean that no one ever uses it as a form of endearment, by the way: I have seen that argument, and of course that could apply to any word. I'm talking about its use between people who don't know each other. 

 It tells us a lot about Wikipedia that we have to discuss whether it's acceptable to use that word when we interact with colleagues. Anyway, that's all I wanted to say.