Not everywhere, unfortunately. But, at least here you can. For the time being.
Several years ago, I got an account suspension and a comment deleted on a hobby forum I was super active on. The offense? I used the word “clusterfuck”. The kicker was that at the time, search engines still supported queries like “fuck site:www.abcdef.com” and would give you a list of results specific to that website, so I tested it out, and sure enough a few dozen different threads showed up, some new, some years old, with the word “fuck” in them. Sadly, that forum is nearly dead now, partly from the puritanical moderation and lack of communication / responsiveness from those in charge.
Also, the one that irks me and seems to be fairly common. A lot of sites will have rules against using slurs and profanity, but then are somehow completely okay with someone using the term “cocksucker”. That term is pretty much exclusively used with negative connotation and in homophobic context, at best it’s perhaps merely misogynistic, as though that’s any better. But quite often allowed. Even on the Reddit, may the lord save you if you call someone the r-word, but outside of a few specific subreddits, it’s apparently perfectly fine to call someone a cocksucker.
The r-word is disliked for being ableist and having an extensive history, not for being advertiser unfriendly. Cocksucker on the other hand would be much easier to reclaim, as it simply denotes a common action that like half of humanity would willingly do.
Not everywhere, unfortunately. But, at least here you can. For the time being.
Several years ago, I got an account suspension and a comment deleted on a hobby forum I was super active on. The offense? I used the word “clusterfuck”. The kicker was that at the time, search engines still supported queries like “fuck site:www.abcdef.com” and would give you a list of results specific to that website, so I tested it out, and sure enough a few dozen different threads showed up, some new, some years old, with the word “fuck” in them. Sadly, that forum is nearly dead now, partly from the puritanical moderation and lack of communication / responsiveness from those in charge.
Also, the one that irks me and seems to be fairly common. A lot of sites will have rules against using slurs and profanity, but then are somehow completely okay with someone using the term “cocksucker”. That term is pretty much exclusively used with negative connotation and in homophobic context, at best it’s perhaps merely misogynistic, as though that’s any better. But quite often allowed. Even on the Reddit, may the lord save you if you call someone the r-word, but outside of a few specific subreddits, it’s apparently perfectly fine to call someone a cocksucker.
The r-word is disliked for being ableist and having an extensive history, not for being advertiser unfriendly. Cocksucker on the other hand would be much easier to reclaim, as it simply denotes a common action that like half of humanity would willingly do.