About the use of sexual epithets [View All]

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

We say "fuck" and "fucking" as all purpose emotion-strengtheners because of the decline of religion.

We process bad words in a different area of the brain, which is why some stroke victims can only cuss, or lose the ability to cuss.

The modern sexual epithets have been substituted for older religious taboo words because the religious terms no longer fire the bad-word aspect of expression.

That's why we have some nonsensical phrases like, "I don't give a fuck."

"Damn" has been replaced by "fuck" because damn just isn't a bad enough word any more.

Same for 'fucking' as an adjective in place of 'damned.' "Where's the fucking remote?"

At this point use of 'fuck,' and even "mother-fucker" has been largely disconnected from sexual context. (Just as 'damned' was long ago disconnected from images of the final judgment and hell-fire.)

If discrimination against all people who have sexual intercourse was rampant I might feel differently about "fucker" as a slur. Calling someone a member of a culturally 'secondary' class to put them down (woman, gay, black) is always offensive by implication.

So some words like 'cunt' and 'cocksucker' are not removed from all context, and remain offensive in ways 'fuck' does not. As epithets they leave the listener wondering what's so awful about a vulva or fellatio that would make such references stronger negatives than the word "Republican."

In some AA audiences 'nigger' has no power. In Britain 'cunt' has little power. But in most contexts in America they are both frightfully offensive words. It's a matter of how far a bad word has drifted in usage from conjuring specific meaning.

(The FCC recognizes this all-purpose bad word phenomenon in an odd way. You can use bad words to hurt people, but not to describe things. It is okay to call someone an 'asshole' on TV after 10PM, but not to refer an actual anus as an asshole.)

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ON EDIT: This post is spurred by me considering why I distinguish "cocksucker" as a genralized swear to describe a Republican or other bad person in the way we accept "dumb motherfucker." In most (though not all) of American society "Cocksucker" still conjures a real meaning. It means you are not a manly man, which is the only "good" class. Women and gay men who suck cock are presumed to be somehow contemptible, or else it wouldn't be a slur.