First, I have a principled opposition to the entire concept that obscenity is bad. All the hallway monitors of the world can go shove their pointless purity instincts up their collective prudish asses.
Second, the word “fuck” has importantly different connotations from e.g. “make love” or “sex”, and those connotations are generally more correct here; the obscenity makes the statement more accurate.
FWIW, I don’t buy that you believe this. I think you think obscenity and curse-words serve a purpose, and that purpose is not “it should be ignored and people who are upset are prudish”. Both spoken and written communication benefit from a wide range of emotional affects that words can be laden with, and curse words benefit from being somewhat disruptive and disconcerting and jolting.
I think this pushes a decent amount in favor of not using “fuck” as a description of casual sex. It’s a curse word in my inner vocabulary, and I don’t buy you actually want to use import those connotations. And at the very least I think it’s reasonable, given it’s function, for other people to parse it in a way that makes it a jolting and disruptive thing to read, somewhat equivalent to someone raising their voice, and to accommodate that.
“Being disruptive and disconcerting and jolting” is not how I would describe the purpose of curse words. I mean, they can be used that way, but I don’t think it’s the central purpose, I think it’s a side effect of a more useful purpose.
In the case of “fuck”… I’ll quote from Chapter 10 of Passionate Marriage (nominally a book by a therapist on keeping sex alive in long marriages):
“Good sex” and “a good fuck” aren’t quite the same. [...]
Lexicographer Hugh Rawson notes that the English language lacks another transitive verb expressing the basic idea with any degree of vividness. Having sex reinforces sex as behavior rather than as part of our nature. Sleeping with is self-contradictory. Making love and meaningful relationship don’t always live up to their label. Fucking and “making love” differ subjectively and behaviorally. Rawson observes that the taboo we place on this term, combined with our lack of suitable synonyms, results in a fair amount of hypocrisy. Our euphemisms denote how we avoid eroticism. [...]
The trouble is, the kind of sex it is acceptable to be wild about is “making love”. People—women, in particular—are not supposed to fuck. I use the word fuck here because:
It’s the label millions of people use for this subjective experience.
In many people’s minds, it represents one polarity on the continuum of “making love”.
It keeps issues of sexual intent and aggression center-stage.
I claim: the word “fuck” denotes a particular kind of sex. It’s supposed to be very erotic, aggressive, objectifying, primal. The reason the word is jolting is because the kind of sex it denotes makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Our mainstream society is not comfortable with fucking. That’s not a feature of the word, it’s a feature of the real phenomenon the word refers to.
Yeah, OK, fair enough. I am reasonably sold on this being a better word choice here, but am sad about there not being two terms. “Fuck” is primarily a curse word in my vocabulary, and I don’t see any particularly good reason for not having a different word with the right connotations that expresses having sex in non-euphemistic ways.[1]
Such is life. Let it be known that in the absence of the quoted paragraphs, I don’t think I would have understood what you meant to convey (or like, it would have only been one of a few hypotheses of what you tried to convey, with another one being more dominant).
Hmm, when reading “fuck”, my first reaction was to feel the vibes of a kind of ~sleazy man that ranges from actively harmful to merely having different tastes than me. Then I thought “Ah, it’s John, he probably didn’t mean that”.
I’d say I then implicitly got like a fourth of the intended meaning. The main other meaning I got was “casualness”. I tend to use “fuck” a lot as a generic intensifier in casual conversation, though I (ironically) don’t tend to use it to talk about sex, seemingly mostly due to a flinch about coming off as sleazy (I do not feel the same flinch when I imagine saying “Alice fucked me”). I think this is why I thought that that’s most of what was meant.
disagree. i have no problem with fucking, but flinched at your word choice here.
for better or worse, ‘to fuck’ also connotes conquest. this is a fun and erotic dimension to the experience for those participating, but in this clinical/reflective setting it reads very awkwardly. compare:
Fraction of women I’ve claimed fully who have in fact come back for more: about 80%
ew! gross dude! don’t think like that—not outside of the bedroom! definitely don’t talk like that.
the distinction you make—that fucking is a particular kind of sex—is a true distinction. but i’m not sure how it’s relevant here? if you were measuring something like “fraction of women i’ve had loving, tender sex with who have come back for more: 20% / fraction of women i’ve fucked who have come back for more: 80%” then… fine! i agree with the word choice in that context: it emphasizes something important in the discussion.
but here… what is the word offering that the phrasing “Fraction of women I’ve seen again: 80%” does not provide? excepting of course the implicit advertisement for your services (“if you like getting your pussy ate by a vampire[1], jsw has a really big stash of viagra”). but take that to okcupid, please!
Yup, conquest is also part of the kind of sex denoted by “fuck”.
You mostly seem to be proving my point that the reason the word is jolting is because the kind of sex it denotes makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I claim the majority of people want to fuck and/or like to fuck. (Certainly the overwhelming majority I’ve fucked love it!) So why are you so uncomfortable with people talking about fucking, outside of their own bedrooms? Seems pretty sus to be grossed out by the topic, if you actually do not have any hangups about that kind of sex!
As for what the word choice offers: more information and accuracy, just like I said upthread. Why use less precise and descriptive words, when more precise and descriptive words are readily available and don’t even take extra space? This would just be common sense in any other everyday domain. And indeed, I am talking about fucking in much the same way I would talk about any other everyday domain. Why wouldn’t I?
I don’t conceptualize them that way. I fucked someone; that does not mean I conquered them in any sense beyond the fucking itself. Perhaps you are bringing in a frame where fucking someone implies bringing them low in some way that extends beyond the sex. But I never said anything like that, do not think anything like that, and do not generally live in that frame. This is your associations talking, not mine, and frankly it does not sound like a healthy way to relate to fucking.
hey, i don’t think that you do, and have not at any point. but we’re not legislating what’s in your heart, we’re trying to understand why some had a negative reaction to your word choice.
my understanding of your model of the offense:
people see the word ‘fuck’
they think of ‘very erotic’ sex
they are not comfortable with this, for possibly complex reasons
they are offended.
i suggest instead that what’s happening is
people see the word ‘fuck’
they think of what is (to them) a far more common usage of the word: a sort of conquest/damage
gross!
anyway, sorry if i’ve given the wrong impression in this thread. i don’t think you’ve done anything wrong; i think you were misunderstood. you used a word one way, but readers took it another.
you’ve since clarified what you’ve meant, which is all that the norms of productive discourse can ask.
i disagree with your model of the reader, and present an alternative. but i get the feeling you’re not that interested in this and/or are very confident in your understanding.
This is a cultured place, why the gracious obscenity? If that’s a part of the kink, I suggest putting it into a collapsible section.
(didn’t read the post, just saw this shit in my feed)
First, I have a principled opposition to the entire concept that obscenity is bad. All the hallway monitors of the world can go shove their pointless purity instincts up their collective prudish asses.
Second, the word “fuck” has importantly different connotations from e.g. “make love” or “sex”, and those connotations are generally more correct here; the obscenity makes the statement more accurate.
FWIW, I don’t buy that you believe this. I think you think obscenity and curse-words serve a purpose, and that purpose is not “it should be ignored and people who are upset are prudish”. Both spoken and written communication benefit from a wide range of emotional affects that words can be laden with, and curse words benefit from being somewhat disruptive and disconcerting and jolting.
I think this pushes a decent amount in favor of not using “fuck” as a description of casual sex. It’s a curse word in my inner vocabulary, and I don’t buy you actually want to use import those connotations. And at the very least I think it’s reasonable, given it’s function, for other people to parse it in a way that makes it a jolting and disruptive thing to read, somewhat equivalent to someone raising their voice, and to accommodate that.
“Being disruptive and disconcerting and jolting” is not how I would describe the purpose of curse words. I mean, they can be used that way, but I don’t think it’s the central purpose, I think it’s a side effect of a more useful purpose.
In the case of “fuck”… I’ll quote from Chapter 10 of Passionate Marriage (nominally a book by a therapist on keeping sex alive in long marriages):
I claim: the word “fuck” denotes a particular kind of sex. It’s supposed to be very erotic, aggressive, objectifying, primal. The reason the word is jolting is because the kind of sex it denotes makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Our mainstream society is not comfortable with fucking. That’s not a feature of the word, it’s a feature of the real phenomenon the word refers to.
Yeah, OK, fair enough. I am reasonably sold on this being a better word choice here, but am sad about there not being two terms. “Fuck” is primarily a curse word in my vocabulary, and I don’t see any particularly good reason for not having a different word with the right connotations that expresses having sex in non-euphemistic ways.[1]
Such is life. Let it be known that in the absence of the quoted paragraphs, I don’t think I would have understood what you meant to convey (or like, it would have only been one of a few hypotheses of what you tried to convey, with another one being more dominant).
Which of course isn’t in any possible way your fault!
Hmm, when reading “fuck”, my first reaction was to feel the vibes of a kind of ~sleazy man that ranges from actively harmful to merely having different tastes than me. Then I thought “Ah, it’s John, he probably didn’t mean that”.
I’d say I then implicitly got like a fourth of the intended meaning. The main other meaning I got was “casualness”. I tend to use “fuck” a lot as a generic intensifier in casual conversation, though I (ironically) don’t tend to use it to talk about sex, seemingly mostly due to a flinch about coming off as sleazy (I do not feel the same flinch when I imagine saying “Alice fucked me”). I think this is why I thought that that’s most of what was meant.
That is useful info, thanks.
disagree. i have no problem with fucking, but flinched at your word choice here.
for better or worse, ‘to fuck’ also connotes conquest. this is a fun and erotic dimension to the experience for those participating, but in this clinical/reflective setting it reads very awkwardly. compare:
ew! gross dude! don’t think like that—not outside of the bedroom! definitely don’t talk like that.
the distinction you make—that fucking is a particular kind of sex—is a true distinction. but i’m not sure how it’s relevant here? if you were measuring something like “fraction of women i’ve had loving, tender sex with who have come back for more: 20% / fraction of women i’ve fucked who have come back for more: 80%” then… fine! i agree with the word choice in that context: it emphasizes something important in the discussion.
but here… what is the word offering that the phrasing “Fraction of women I’ve seen again: 80%” does not provide? excepting of course the implicit advertisement for your services (“if you like getting your pussy ate by a vampire[1], jsw has a really big stash of viagra”). but take that to okcupid, please!
affectionate!
Yup, conquest is also part of the kind of sex denoted by “fuck”.
You mostly seem to be proving my point that the reason the word is jolting is because the kind of sex it denotes makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I claim the majority of people want to fuck and/or like to fuck. (Certainly the overwhelming majority I’ve fucked love it!) So why are you so uncomfortable with people talking about fucking, outside of their own bedrooms? Seems pretty sus to be grossed out by the topic, if you actually do not have any hangups about that kind of sex!
As for what the word choice offers: more information and accuracy, just like I said upthread. Why use less precise and descriptive words, when more precise and descriptive words are readily available and don’t even take extra space? This would just be common sense in any other everyday domain. And indeed, I am talking about fucking in much the same way I would talk about any other everyday domain. Why wouldn’t I?
conquest is fun and erotic. conceptualizing your escapades as conquests is gross.
I don’t conceptualize them that way. I fucked someone; that does not mean I conquered them in any sense beyond the fucking itself. Perhaps you are bringing in a frame where fucking someone implies bringing them low in some way that extends beyond the sex. But I never said anything like that, do not think anything like that, and do not generally live in that frame. This is your associations talking, not mine, and frankly it does not sound like a healthy way to relate to fucking.
hey, i don’t think that you do, and have not at any point. but we’re not legislating what’s in your heart, we’re trying to understand why some had a negative reaction to your word choice.
my understanding of your model of the offense:
people see the word ‘fuck’
they think of ‘very erotic’ sex
they are not comfortable with this, for possibly complex reasons
they are offended.
i suggest instead that what’s happening is
people see the word ‘fuck’
they think of what is (to them) a far more common usage of the word: a sort of conquest/damage
gross!
anyway, sorry if i’ve given the wrong impression in this thread. i don’t think you’ve done anything wrong; i think you were misunderstood. you used a word one way, but readers took it another.
you’ve since clarified what you’ve meant, which is all that the norms of productive discourse can ask.
i disagree with your model of the reader, and present an alternative. but i get the feeling you’re not that interested in this and/or are very confident in your understanding.
Alright. Sorry for being grumpy at you, and thank you for the model.
Shove your insults up your own ass, mate.
<3 that’s the spirit.