Bad Words

Posted on March 23, 2004 in Censorship

It’s politics Tuesday!

And I have to join Jack Balkin in asking just what are we protecting children from when we ban the word “fuck” from the airwaves?

The FCC defines broadcast indecency as “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.” In its Golden Globe Awards decision, the FCC held that virtually any use of the F-word, as it is known at the FCC, was indecent, because it is always sexually suggestive. (For those of you who were wondering, the F-word in FCC stands for federal.). This decision strikes me as fucking implausible. Did that turn you on? No, I thought not.

The case against fuck strikes me as irrational. As a substitute, I sometimes use the word “fork” as in “forking piece of garbage” or “Fork!” when I chat. This substitution produced a strange result when a chat friend declared that she couldn’t stick a fork in her mouth after I used it in that fashion. The question is who is responsible for her bad feelings? Me or her?

I am for respecting boundaries and I will observe them when pointed out to me, but I oppose allowing the government to get involved. The recent “Golden Globes” decision shows why: where the FCC considers fuck to be “language that denot[es] certain of those personally reviling epithets naturally tending to provoke violent resentment or denoting language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance” it does not ban the use of the word — damn, I cannot say it. Let’s go along with Jack and call it the six letter N-Word.

The only kind of hate speech which I feel is prosecutable is that which calls for violence against other people. If you stand up outside my house and stir up a crowd to drag me out of my home and beat me, you’re as good as culpable even if all you did while the rabble had its way with me was smoke a cigarette or say an “Our Father”. Likewise, I am waiting for the day when someone really shoots someone for being a liberal, moved by one of Anne Coulter’s columns. Annie, I would gladly see you go to jail for this. Better still, I hope the Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center gets involved and puts you and your syndicate into lifelong hock.

No one has been killed by the word “fuck” except when irate Fundamentalists or drunken bikers are involved. If you don’t like the word, say so. I rarely use it in real life. I respect your ears as a person, but you should respect my fingertips, my mouth, and my mind as well. Would you want big government to require the use of special hearing aids to tune out the words? I support your right to ask me not to use the words you don’t like in regular conversation. As a free man I will honor your request gladly.

In my blog, on the other hand, you have no right except the right not to read the article. I think television and other broadcast media should be granted the same. If you don’t like what you see or hear, turn the channel.

Fuck. This topic’s like an oily rag waiting for spontaneous combustion: the arguments are old, predictable, and sure to enflame.