Have you ever been cursed by gentler ears for the audacity of wearing words in your discourse that belong beyond the boundaries of politeness, even though they bless upon your statement exactly the necessary nastiness? Like everything else we convey and exchange today, must we let the content of our discourse become secondary to packaging? Am I the only one who thinks polite conversation needs more audacity? Am I the only one who thinks a curse every now and then can be a blessed thing?
Is it possible to be offensive without offending? As a writer I seek to do great things like provoke, challenge and affront. All worthwhile invention is based on offending a prior system of values. As humans we fear that offense, until we eventually embrace it, and await the next thing to hate.
This is how I view profanity, an unfortunate and longstanding target of that need to feel offended. But what is it that we truly fear about these anatomical comparisons and matriarchal metaphors? Why are these references so closely related to vulgarity and not expression? There’s a truly interesting part of the brain that motivates us to swear, which drives us to put an outlaw word between the verbs and nouns in our statements. I believe it’s a part that should be cultivated. It’s a motivation born somewhere between exuberance and ignorance, which is where humanity is its happiest, which in turn can be a very tolerable form of offense.
I have a problem with people who have a problem with words. To assume that some of the words we use have more power than the people sending or receiving them is affording us less credit than we deserve. Or is it? Is our problem with words rooted in too much offense or an over-developed defense?
The simple truth behind this simple fact is that if we take the fear away from these words than we’ll dull the edge that apparently and sadly still draws blood. If swears were less jagged, or if our response was conditioned to be less inflicted, other words and the assumptions that ride them, would also be less wounding.
The complex truth involves the need to recognize the power of words as misused weapons. It is said that guns don’t kill people, but think we can all agree that in these deaths guns certainly do play a role. Words can be weapons, vile social bullets pointed and fired and more wounding than any sticks or stones.
Let’s just get this out of the way: Some words suck and they were meant to suck, but I tend not to worry about them, because though I may own the weapon, I have no intention to hurt anyone.
A word can be the mightiest sword, and though I wield them and wave them about with a corked tip, I do like the edge. A word can’t cut the crap if it’s got no edge. I relish swearing. I like the power. It’s a gift given to our verbal exchange. I enjoy it as the zesty garnish added to our automatic, pod-cloned everyday discourse. It can be the performance-enhancing drug to a lame and lagging sentence, the bustier and stiletto heals, the black ace from the dealer, the dark sunglasses… the f**king ’68 Mustang convertible. With a single profane chocolate chip what was once dough is now a cookie, what was once cowering against the wall of the dance floor now wears a snazzy white suit and points his finger high. Swearing gives personality to a series of grouped letters herded by punctuation… yet remains misunderstood. Perhaps it’s for the best, a rebel is never quite the same when he’s invited into convention, a wolf is not a wolf after it’s invited indoors. The key is to keep the little scoundrels offensive though not offending. Let’s keep profanity in the black cowboy hat, but let’s talk for a while about why we love the bad guy so much.
The Great George Carlin said:
Sh!t
Pi$$
F**k
Cun+
C@cks@cker
M#thrrf**krr
And Tits;
The Seven Words You Can’t Say On TV.
The Magnificent Seven: Seven words that will eternally be honored and condemned. Whether or not these harmless exiles will ever be uttered on the picture box governed by those that believe words are more detrimental then portrayals of violence, they will always have power. There will always be a wanted poster hanging for these desperados and I for one thank Mr. Carlin for that. These little darlings are like Robin Hood, feared by the establishment, honored by the public, an outlaw with arrow-splitting aim. A folk hero anti-role-model for the generations to come.
We must be cautious in teaching the children the timeless art of comparing others to their private parts and excretions. Hearing a youngster belt out a surly swear at a sibling may never be as warm and delightful as say… exclaiming them yourself, but nonetheless the torch must be passed. Kids test their boundaries as they emerge and mature into the world. It’s always going to be the negligent parents whose children seek out firearms and needled arms in the place of structure and the overly disciplined children who run to them in escape of tyranny.
Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’ve done the next generation a service when your expletives bleep out, and you tell them to ‘do as you say not as you do’, and you forbid them in the name of etiquette from a verbal power you know they will inevitably embrace, as you did and your parents did before you.
There is a greater value in profanity than just playful rebellion. There’s honesty and creativity, there’s the moments you utter your deepest frustrations to yourself under dark clouds of glorious filth.
What comes out of your mouth when you stub your toe? Truth. What do you bellow at the neighborhood bully when he’s too far for your fists? Rage. What do you exclaim at the height of an orgasm? Ecstasy. How can such things be blasphemy?
Teach your kids to swear. Don’t stifle them when their experimental spirits erupt a f**k here or a sh!t there. Give them license to the play in moors of our language so they can gain a better perspective of the pasture. There was once a time when ‘sex’ was a dirty word parents uttered in the dark from a across the space between twin beds. How foolish does it seem now to have ‘sex education’ swept under a rug and hope kids will lose interest? To me it seems about as foolish and prudish as punishing a kid for using a word… a simple expletive… that probably was originally heard from the person who lays down the punishment. Well, I say teach your kids to swear. I say that the prudes can have their history because they certainly won’t have the future. I say f**k the prudes, it’s only the sticks and stones that will stop them.
Education is the key. Allow adrenalized exclamation the freedom to cultivate and it will find its proper place. I’m not suggesting that we’d all be better off if every parent with a child under twelve present them with a loaded gun and encourage them to toddle off with their playmates. Nor do I think that those parents would be well advised to take a tour of safe injection sites or conduct lessons on joint-rolling techniques at the dining room table. I wouldn’t recommend a four-letter word section of f’s, s’s, and a’s be covered in grammar, nor would I think it prudent to reward the children for calling grandma an old c*nt. It’s the parents who speak openly and accept calmly the wonder of children that earn their trust in return. Stick to positive reinforcement and you can avoid hearing about f**king br*cc*li at the Sunday Dinner Table. Correct them when they refer to your boss as a prick instead of an a$$hole, and praise them when they find a new way to put three ‘good ones’ together into one sibling insult.
I say this both tongue-in-cheek and tongue-dangling straight out in a demon waggle. I don’t like anything being left out of the game for the wrong reasons. Amidst the fear of fear and getting offended in defense, we keep putting the wrong offendant on trial. It’s hypocrisy to tell our young that swearing is somehow morally wrong when in our most honest moments we tend to curse a raw streak. Hypocrisy will never disappear, but its cohorts can be deterred. The Puritan-inspired tradition of pre-emptive offense, with regards to political correctness, must be left the f*ddlest*cks behind. We have to forget what offends us and remember what’s worth defending. Free speech will always be more valuable than costly censorship. Disregard the insults not directed at you, fight the fights worth fighting, change the channel if you don’t like what you see, and remember that words can never hurt you.
Teach your kids to swear. Let them play in the dirt. Prove to them you’ll never be afraid of what they have to say. Teach them to let fly with boundless conscious thought, responsibly but brazenly. If for no other reason, allow them their foul language to take away its danger. To make something legal is to make it far less interesting. Let’s curse out a path to a place where we aren’t afraid of any words, where we aren’t offended for the sake of outdated sensibility, where meaningless symbols aren’t injected into words to cork their jagged tips, where we can get offended by worthwhile causes, like bad fashion sense and overly sassy writing. I want this place to have hypocrisy sitting a little bit closer to the back of the bus, while the tastiest fruits, flowers and thorns of our great language hang their asses out the window… mooning French and German and the other wannabes.
This place also has to have free porn.
Enjoy your F**king Day,
Hughes
PS. I hope you enjoyed the dust-off.
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