So my swearing had an unexpected consequence that I'm not happy about. It was the basis of a short conversation on a political page that I visit, and that conversation caused a member to leave. Our faithful leader attempted to wrangle the situation back towards the center by deleting my post and a few that came after, then adding a post of his own explaining that he thought the conversation had gotten "a little out of line," both of which had me a little miffed. But only a little. I completely understand the role of moderator and how you have to sometimes take actions that make some people unhappy.
Mostly, I'm unhappy that something I've done helped someone make a decision to leave. But I'm more unhappy that he was upset. And still more unhappy that he used me and my words to judge an entire group. But more than anything, I'm pissed. I'm pissed off that I was judged. I feel like a giant Scarlet Letter was pinned onto me, and then smaller ones handed out to my cohorts.
I had a long, meandering conversation about it with my husband the next morning. Finally I actually told him what was said by me and this other person, he gave me more leeway (rope to hang myself?) because of the man's exact words, and in the end we worked out the most reasonable compromised response that I could live with. I had wanted a unilateral decision on swearing, regardless of situation. He eventually got me to agree that it will always be situational. So I wasn't going to mention the words I said or this person's response, but apparently one is important and if I'm going to reveal it, I can't not reveal the other.
I will have to generalize, because I don't really remember it exactly and now it's lost in the ether. And who knows what was said in the conversation after I went to bed that's now deleted with it?
It started with me saying, "Congress can kiss my grits. Was that 80s enough for ya?" (We had been talking about 80s politics repeating itself) Then I came back and said something along the lines of, "No, I think I'm going to go with, 'Congress can go fuck itself, fuck being my favorite word [....] I think things would be better if everyone gave fuck a chance."
As far as I know, the responses I got were 1 or 2 people appreciating what I said. Kind of. Maybe.
The next morning I woke up to this response, "Goodbye, [name redacted]. Although I have rarely made comments on this site, I have enjoyed the interaction among the various viewpoints. I really don't want to sound judgmental, but the language/images/attitudes have gotten too coarse for me. I don't use this kind of language, so I definitely don't want to invite it into my home or heart through a website that I can simply block or turn off. I simply cannot be a reflection of who Christ wants me to be when I voluntarily expose myself to those things that are neither righteous nor uplifting."
Other people posted agreement/apologies. I posted one word in response, "*crickets*", because I had no idea what to say and I was going to remain silent until I figured it out. I was furious. I wanted a decision by the internet, right then and there, about why "swear words" are unacceptable in a country that is supposedly secular and not dominated by Christianity or any other religion. So I stripped the issue down to bare bones, and posted this question to my Facebook page,
"Pop Quiz: is it more important not to insult someone, or to be honest about who you are?
Does sparing someone's feelings become irrelevant to you based on the other person, your feelings/needs, or just the situation?"
I got some interesting responses. I wanted Eric's response. His immediate response was that it's always situational. So I asked him if the other person's feelings or his feelings have more weight or if it's still always situational, and he agreed with the latter. I asked him why another person's dislike of swearing outweighs the importance of my being true to myself, I'm not going to say "I'm not gay" just because there's a priest in front of me. He said this is different because you can't change being gay, but you can choose different words to express your meaning instead of using offensive words.
So I continued to find different scenarios that I found similar for him to weigh in on. I asked him if he would lie to a priest to keep from offending him, ie: would you tell him he looked fat? Again, he said it was situational, depending on if he was asked straight out for his opinion, how serious the question was, just how fat the priest was, if it was the guy looking for confirmation that a diet was working or not, etc. I asked him if I was expected to not go out in public wearing only a bikini top and a miniskirt because I might offend someone, or should I cover everything up just in case, just not my face because this isn't a Muslim country and we're not into Burqas. I can't recall what he said, hopefully he just ignored me being catty.
At some point he said, "You have to pick your battles." You have to decide what's important to you to fight for. This was getting to the heart of the matter. I found it important to fight for. I think words are important enough to fight for.
So I asked him that, supposing I was a completely reasonable and respectable person who never wanted to insult or offend anyone, did that mean I should never swear because someone by chance might hear me and be offended? He said no, in personal conversations it would be alright. Even if you're in a public place and you're speaking in conversational tones, you have the right to say what you want and not have others take offense by a little something that they can overhear. In the check-out line at the grocery store surrounded by kids would be different. So I finally told him what the hell all of this was about, and asked if it is truly reasonable to expect me not to swear in a forum of friends when I don't know who else is listening that I might offend.
He said no. He was finally on my side! He added that if I was asked to stop, I should acknowledge the request, but also acknowledge that I was doing the person a personal favor and going against my own beliefs to satisfy his. I told him what the guy had said, hounding on the word that echoed in my head, "righteous." He had a chuckle over the "not to be judgmental, but.." line. He reaffirmed that the scenario he had just laid out would be sufficient, something along the lines of, "I didn't know I was offending you, this language doesn't offend me, this is the way that I talk, but because you've asked me to I will refrain just this once at your request." He agreed that the guy had gone above and beyond asking politely, that he had indeed been judgmental, but this was probably the best way to go.
The conversation sputtered out when I jumped onto one more scenario, what if I had been praying? No one would dare ask me to stop if I was praying. Not proselytizing at the top of my lungs in your face, just praying to myself. He said that they would have a right to ask, especially in public, but we both agreed that it would be highly unlikely that I would be asked to stop.
And so there you have it, the answer to my dilemma. I don't want to offend anyone. I am a reasonable person. But I do think this is important enough to fight for. Words are sacred to me. I am offended by anyone who thinks that words can be offensive. I question the feasibility of surrounding oneself with only words that are "righteous" and/or "uplifting." The idea that a word can be considered "evil" or "profane" or "unclean" makes me livid. American culture has taken back the word "queer", Dan Savage is working on "faggot", you can say the word "shit" on TV now. I want to see us take back the word "fuck".
I searched the web to see what the Bible actually says about swearing, and what I discovered could be a whole separate post. But this oneDoes The Bible Ban Profanity? by Julie Morse, had me first infuriated and then finding the author reasonable - a truly maddening experience.
Most of all though, I am personally offended that I was trying to convey something so vital to me in such a small phrase, and instead of anyone getting it (so much of an in joke that I'm the only one that got it!),
Part 1: Mysie likes the word fuck. She finds it liberating, and wants it liberated.
Part 2: We had just been discussing another generation growing up fearing nuclear war. "Give peace a chance" is a popular hippie phrase, taken from the song by John Lennon (and Yoko Ono and about a dozen or so others apparently, according to Wikipedia), to suggest an alternative to war. A similar phrase from the hippies, "make love, not war", couples with it nicely. Couples. Peace = make love = fucking.
Add them together:
Give fuck a chance. Don't fuck with anyone, don't fuck anyone up, just say what the fuck, go have a good fuck, and chill the fuck out. You'll feel a lot fucking better.