Why is the middle finger offensive?

[Anonymous]

No amount of description or logic can change my mind on how odd it is to think on how it doesn't make sense on why its offensive or insulting, think of it, it's just someone pulling up a finger at you and for some reason if it's the index finger, people expect you to say something smart but when it's the middle one, holy shit you are a damn asshole, you pulled out the longest finger on your hand with the rest curled into your palm and watch out, the finger is alone.

Updates

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Anyone else can't choose the category to post in?

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

Because people born before us told us it is offensive. Like people told us that some words are offensive, while they aren't per se. If you remove the social meaning from the word, or separate the meaning of a gesture from the gesture itself, then it's highly likely the world will cease to make sense lol

Because the entire world does not make sense anyway when we dismantle it into pieces? Unless resorting to religion, poetry or philosophy. In order to find a meaning we can eventually relate to.

Cool question🖕🏼

[SotiCoto]

Dunno. It is an American gesture. It didn't used to exist here in Britain until the Internet (we have our own two-finger gesture)... but a few years later everyone is doing it the American way.
I figure if anyone knows, it would probably be an American. I still use two fingers because I prefer to avoid Americanisation if I can.

[Asker]

People get offended cause they know its suppose to be offensive not cause they actually get offended 😂

[SotiCoto]

@ChicoFromThe305 : That is basically true, but there are actual stories to back up the British gesture (that may or may not be true). I've no idea if there are any stories behind the American one. Rumour has it that our gesture was made by longbowmen to prove they still had their fingers, though I'm not sure how much weight that carries since I was taught to use different fingers to draw a bowstring.

[Chazmatazz269]

It is not “an American gesture”. The middle finger was used in ancient Rome and Greece for pretty much the same thing it’s used for today.

[Miah06]

Because things in the universe made it this way 🤨

[Dongie]

I remember being about 6, I have four sisters all older than me, and getting real pissed off because they wouldn't tell me what that was. They just called it "the bird". I stayed mad till I was 8 years old and found out at school.

[Asker]

Was it worth the wait? 😂

[Dongie]

I guess. I was slinging the f-bomb everywhere. Hah! I didn't like a finger being called a bird. I couldn't understand it, and this was 1969 and into 70, and I hated hippies, flower power, and all that shit.

[Dongie]

Make that 68 and 69.

[Asker]

Like Mr Bean, you must have saw that dude confusing the middle finger for waving hello, he was flicking of everybody 💀

[Dongie]

😅 I was a Cartman hating hippies.

[BCRanger10]

The version I remember hearing is that it comes from archers in Medieval Europe who would be captured in battle and have their middle fingers chopped off. To mock the other side the next time they met in war, they'd flash their middle fingers at them.

I don't know if that's true or not, but it makes sense.

[BCRanger10]

And by "they", I mean their army. Kinda hard for a guy to show his finger to someone if it's been, y'know, hacked off.

[Chazmatazz269]

It’s meant to be a phallic gesture. It literally means “f*ck you”, and has for thousands of years.