Self-censorship or just editing?

In my story Girls Who Play Nurse, I write a line where the guy is asked why he picked a female to examine him and to be honest and not embarrassed. (It's a medical fetish/spanking story) by the way. He makes a comment, "well I'm straight for one. Not that I have anything against homosexuality."

I thought about that and, about offending someone, but I realized that it was a good and honest answer. It was one that a person would probably say since they were asked to be honest.

I agree with Linda on a few things, but you have to realize that we live in the real world, and people use that kind of language to one another, but never in someone's home as Linda points out. I would show them the door as well.

The thing is this in my opinion. In the early days of TV shows where characters were angry with one another: Gangsters, Husbands and Wives, Boy and Girlfriends, it just didn't seem real. The reason is that it was in the writer's 'script world' and not the 'real world.' They couldn't use that kind of language in those days, and they ended up sacrificing reality for censorship. Today, they sometimes get carried away with it if you ask me.

In my stories I have to admit that I use that language in certain stories. It's not that I enjoy doing it, it's just something that that character would probably say and not give a rat's butt about offending someone. I like a sense of reality in my stories even though, My and Other Author's Characters, would be arrested in the real world for saying and doing. I can't write a story about kids from the hood and make them sound like they just graduated from Oxford or Yale. It just doesn't work. They're going to call one another and everyone else the nastiest names they can dig up. It's reality. Sad but very true.

However, I don't appreciate anyone talking to me with every other word being F this F that, the F-ing this and the F-ing that. They better put it away, zip up, or take it someplace else.

B

That's right bendover. One does have to walk the line between making the words seem realistic and making them acceptable to read. I occasionally allow my characters to swear, but I always spank them afterwards

The inappropriate use of swear words is commonplace.

"I picked up this fucking girl at a bar. I took her out in my fucking van. I drove out to this old fucking road in the boonies, way out to the fucking end of the road and I parked the fucking van. We got in the fucking back of the van, I pulled her fucking panties down and then we had sexual intercourse."

By the way, the Library's built in spell checker said that all my words are OK but the censored version that Bendover used are incorrect.

I love it. That's what it's all about.

LOL tiptopper.... I love the ending of that entry. You got me.

B

The over use of common swear words, and that includes the F word, is a sign of an uneducated mind in my personal opinion, whether it be in fantasy spanko land or real life. That being said some of the characters in our stories are very uneducated or crude, in which case swearing is more common and more acceptable in the story.

I know we say swearing is common, but I work in the retail industry and for 8 hours a day I never hear one staff member swear, and then as soon as they are off duty, the swearing starts. I do not know if one thinks it makes an favourable impression or it is peer pressure to appear "normal" to one we associate with, but I often wonder if it is not just laziness in one's speech. How many of us strive to repeat the same word over and over again in our stories?

How many of us strove never to swear in front of our kids, but now the kids know more swears then I do. Spell checker, grammar checker, whatever, I tend to not finish reading stories that swear a lot, and hardly use them in my own stories. I also realize a few of my stories should have contained some swear words for effect and to reflect the circumstances, but I could not bring myself to include them.

Using swear words is an writers choice and most people never even notice them when they are included. Like many things on this site such language is up to the author, and rightly it should be.

You're right CS. Most of my swearing stories are simply idiot characters I've created in the form of teen punks and functionally illiterate clowns in order to give a strong buildup to the spanking scene. He Should Have Known the Facts if one of them. He would have gotten off with his pants paddled instead of his bare bottom in front of those he disrespected. That was my entire point to the attitude.

B

I believe that there is no such thing as 'bad' language, only language which is inappropriate in a given situation.

For example, guys (or girls) on a night out in a pub might find the conversation liberally sprinkled with the word 'fuck'. But would they use that word in front of their mothers? Or children? Or their priest/minister/rabbi? Probably not.

When writing fiction, decide what your character would say, and write it that way. Unless, of course, as in my case, the character would say the word I won't write, say or tolerate - which, as you may have guessed, isn't 'fuck'!

I know! I know the word! Call on me! (waving my hand around high in the air)

Of course, if you DO call on me, I won't say it, because I don't use that sort of language either. I seldom employ any swear words, when writing or speaking, which makes the occasional utterance so much more effective.

I wish you people would quit using slang...the word is fornicate!!! (At least I was always told that)