>That word in Australia is just as offensive as anywhere else, and I wish people would stop perpetuating the misconception that it's fine.

That is completely untrue. You may not like it, plenty of Australians don't especially upper class people, but it is nowhere near as offensive here as it is in America. In America it's a full on slur that is never socially acceptable in any context. Here at worst it's a vulgar way to say something unless it's specifically directed at a woman (if it's directed at a woman in anger it is generally treated the same as Americans treat it), and at best it is actually just a normal thing to say to your friends. "Are you cunts ready or not?" is a very normal thing for working class Australians to say to their friends, same as "This cunts not like that, leave him alone" or "Are you serious cunt? You were gonna eat them all?" or "What are you cunts up to?". It can also be said in a non-endearing way even to people who aren't women, it has a pretty similar word distribution to "mate" (not completely identical, "My cunts and me wanna buy a ticket please" makes zero sense). Mate can be a very offensive word to use in context, or a completely benign word. Cunt is similar, it just has more offensive use cases than mate does.

The first paragraph of the linked Wikipedia says “In Australia and New Zealand, it can also be a neutral or positive term when used with a positive qualifier (e.g., "He's a good cunt").”

It's a neutral or endearing term pretty much anywhere in the country outside of places with too many gated communities and golf courses. You'll find more people (maybe enough to count on one hand) feigning offence than people actually being offended.

I call my friends cunts, they call me cunt, strangers call me cunt. It's vulgar, but vulgar and offensive are two different things.

I see you made a burner account specifically for this singular comment.

However, the comment is extremely benign.

The only reason for someone to make a burner account for a benign comment is if its a person defending themselves because no one else will.

The key here is that in a lot of Australian culture, "cunt" is on par with "fucker" or "asshole" - there's nothing gendered about it as an insult. It's acceptable to use precisely because it's NOT sexist, racist, or otherwise any sort of slur.

Equally, we're not going to ban Spanish posters from using their word for "black", are we?

I strongly disagree it's sexist, casual or otherwise. Is "dickhead" sexist? These types of insults are based on taboo (sex, blasphemy, diseases, things like that). It's completely different than some racial epithet.

You can perceive it to be sexist, but I'm fairly confident that's a minority opinion.