Chaitali a wonderful piece. I'm so glad you've written on this since it has irritated and annoyed me endlessly.

I've also noticed that when a girl/woman is standing near men then the abuses get louder and much more frequent. Wonder if it provides them with a sense of increased virility, machoism or what????

Eventually however I do feel that everyone just becomes deaf to what is being said and heard and these abuses continue as habit. I used to say 'shit' a lot and someone once pointed it out to me and then said why dont you instead try to use an adjective to describe how you're feeling. I began to try and do that and suddenly I realised that saying 'shit' repeatedly was actually also just a laziness with regard to expression. That's what really made me stop because I found that it was really difficult or challenging at least to replace the word for another appropriate one. So I wonder how much of this is also just eventually connected to laziness of expression.

Having said that not for a second am I ignoring or undermining the mesages that these words send out and how they are reflective of our own selves and of how we relate with the feminine.

Great piece.

Dear Chaitali

I feel like standing up and clapping for your article. I mean what is it with men, swearing and sexual swear words???? As you say I think it is just the most vulgar way of asserting 'power and domination'. It annoys you, embarrases you and humiliates you and yet no one seems to really thing about the violence (especially sexual violence) of swear words.

As for you point on language attracting more violent language makes perfect sense to me. Which explains why sexual aggression is forever increasing. I remember slapping my younger brother really hard when he used MC once in front of me. Since I hadnever hit him he was really shocked, then I sat and explained what he was saying about people's mothers and how they would say the same about his. I remember seeing a stunned 'I never thought about it look' on his face and you know after that he has never used it...at least I have never heard him. Maybe we just don't protest enough.
Thanx for a gr8 point. :)

Yes Chaitali it is true. Swearing is centred around sexual terms and feelings which are usually aggressive and demeaning. especially to women. But you know the more I think about it the more I realize that its a repressed anger and fear which makes us swear. At college we had this group of guys who would not speak a word without f... this or that a and when I look back at them they were actually losers. i mean academically they were all over the place, tried reallly hard to look 'cool and maybe that's where swearing came in handy.

So I wonder how much peer pressure has to do with this. My confession ...:)..I hardly said shit at school and in college there was a time I was freely using f... until one day out it came in front of my father and I think we both just stared stunned at each other. My dad's a real cool guy and he just turned away but the look in his eyes left me feeling so awful I decided to stop swearing. That's when I realized how I never really felt like it (inside) but just did it to sound bindaas etc. But the interesting thing is that when I stopped I realized how I didn't need the word, made me feel dirty and aggressive somewhere inside and yet i had continued..

And today its just not the men but many women who use foul language and I wonder if they think about how it affects them really????

anyways thanx for a thoughtful post.

Hi Anusheh, Ananya, Shagufta,

Man, woman, laziness, peer pressure, wanting to be cool, as expressions of our anger whatever be the reasons, the main thing is that as individuals we don't give enough thought to the aggression and violence that we build in our language and speech. It means that the sexual for us is an empty space devoid of feelings of intimacy, affection and love.

I'm not preaching but just making us all aware a of how we (mis)treat the sexual world. Asking everybody to think twice before swearing by the sexual.

Great work you did with your brother Ananya. And bravo to you Anusheh and Shagufta for stopping and reflecting on the aggression and uselessness of these words.

Swearing is a release, maybe of anger too, but a less harmful release than say socking someone. You may have a point about the sexually aggressive nature of swearing but IMO a lot of it is just thoughtless venting of frustration anger and sometimes just fun. Its a generation thing, we all do it so why not just relax about it.

Dear Vistar,

Welcome to the blog!

Frankly I don't see much difference between the men in the bus swearing with MCs and BCs and the young boys/girls gesturing the finger at their friends/others or saying fuck you in every sentence.

I wonder whether swear words using the female body/sexuality is really such a thoughtless and mindless way of venting our emotions? Frustration and anger can find other words for expressing themselves.

And just because many people do it, for fun or whatever reason, it does not mean that it is right.

Hey all,
It's a great conversation, but for the fact we all know that it wont change the world- from the Gamblers's world-Las Vegas to Kiwi's - New Zealand all r same only the way differs.
Well i agree with both the genders but this is endless.
I too beleive in teasing but i always keep in mind that it's shouldn't be any kind of harrashment to any one-- it shd be light and both shd enjoy the beautiful thing

c'mon people,

i hate guys who swear in front of women. osds deserve no sympathy. but .....

remember at work
when the going gets tough,
only BC/MC gets them going.

thts the way it works in india. u talk sweetly to the workers, drivers, chowkidaars etc etc and then see what happens. sometimes bc/mc works to get u r point of view ti this section of people.