Dirty, Dirty Trash Talk

Using 'Snakes on a Plane' and Samuel L. Jackson's affection for the word mother-f***er as a launch pad, Beliefnet (the best spirituality site on the Web, period) asks today if we are a "cursing culture" and, if so, what the spiritual cost for that is, if any.

Writer Alice Chasan covers several bases, including whether we as a society have become "unshockable," why people curse, and various viewpoints about the positive and negative aspects of using cuss words.

There isn't really anything G-A-Y about this, I'm just interested in the topic and wonder what you all think about it.

Unless ... Do people think gays curse differently? Certainly gay men own the word bitch, and it means something very different when I toss it around than when, say, a straight guy wearing a wife-beater tank says it.

And some people say the word c*ck-sucker like it's a bad thing which, frankly, I have just never understood.

I totally own up to the fact that cursing makes me feel better. It may have something to do with having grown up in Nevada where, you know, you can kick the sh*t off the heel of your boot but you can't kick it out of your heart.

Of course I do moderate when, where and how I curse, but the very fact that I have to think about not cursing must mean that it comes to me as naturally as breathing.

I'm not a particularly religious person, so I don't subscribe to the idea that cursing is a sin or sacrilegious, as some do in the Beliefnet article:

“In the Christian community, such language is completely unacceptable,” says Ben Witherington, Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. “While the obscenity you refer to is not sacrilegious in the normal sense, it is a clear violation of one of the Ten Commandments: Honor thy father and mother. I would not see this as something that gives you a one-way ticket to hell, but as the Bible says, what comes out the mouth reflects what's in the heart, and such language shows that a person is not spiritually well.”

Witherington would probably be forced to forgive my language if he actually heard some of the humdinger swear-word phrases my dad used to toss around when we were kids. I thought I was honoring my father by using perfect diction when saying a**hole.

Chasan also talks to several religion professionals (<< my secular-speak for priests and rabbis) who clearly don't believe that cussing is a sin, though some say it does demean us as a society.

Check out the article, 'Swearing and the Soul,' then discuss the merits or faults of having a potty mouth.

Also, Beliefnet has a fun Swearing Trivia Quiz which I was doing great at until the end when it gets to questions involving some guy named Revelation 5:11, at which point my score went completely to hell.