The title of this blog pretty much covers it, people. Some "moral" morons have decided that profanity doesn't sit well with them and, therefore, should be ripped out of eBooks to protect the precious bodily fluids of all children and adults. How noble!
I realize you and your app are the easiest of targets, and others have responded by effing this and effing that and mothereffing everything about you. I applaud them. But that's too obvious and easy, like letting a bully know his horses**t is getting under your skin. I make my living as a writer and editor, and reside in America. Despite all I loathe about my birth-country, the benefits still outweigh the hazards. Are you not aware that "censorship" in America ended with the supreme court ruling William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch not obscene? Do you even know the work of Burroughs? Perhaps not, and that's okay. It isn't for everybody, and I would never hold that against you. Some people like anchovies, some don't. In my experience, if I don't care for a thing, I avoid it. Period. I certainly don't presume moral superiority over any man, woman, or child. It's not my place; nor is it yours.
I'll even spot you a bit of agreement. Sometimes profanity bothers me. It's all about context. You're mature adults and should know this. There's a vast difference between my writing, in a fictive work, "That motherfucker pissed me off, and I'm gonna fuckin' kill him," and me in "real life" having so severe a problem with someone to go so far as to utter that specific threat. In a book, it's okay. It isn't real. It's fiction. It ain't true. It's a dramatic device to evoke genuine emotion. Not to mention our quickly dying Bill of Rights sorta allows this freedom people in other countries lack, and can in fact be killed for employing.
What's wrong with you? You should be thanking your stars to have this freedom, and not tied up in some imagined privilege that's supposed to protect you from harsh reality. You don't have the right to project your fear and intolerance on others. You do have the right to express those fears, and that should be enough. Be very glad of that—thanks to you, it might not last. I'm not important enough to even show up on your filth-radar, but I fear for your children.
If you slip, and the hammer hits your hand, what do you shout? "Gosh"? "Golly"? I doubt that very much. You don't know me, I don't know you. But I'm reasonably sure you're just as human and prone to pain as the rest of us.
I'm begging you, get this Clean Reader notion out of your very human head. Please. Because if we lose our right to swear, curse—call it what you f***in will—what's next?
Think about it. Please.
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