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Bruce, Your Site Deserves an “R” Rating

After publishing on Twitter the post, Defiance City Schools Blocks Student Access to This Site, I received the following response (not from the school):

r rating

I responded:

the f word

While I do use curse words on this site (and allow commenters to do so), I am not a profuse swearer. There’s nothing said by me in my writing that is “harmful” to young children. Certainly, parents should monitor and control what their youngsters read on the Internet, but I doubt reading the word fuck will cause harm. Besides, the focus of the aforementioned post was middle school and high school students. I have grandchildren who are in this age bracket. I guarantee you that they have already heard the F word, and I have no doubt that they have even used the word. “Fuck” has become my generation’s shit, hell, damn. Culturally, the word has been disconnected from its sexual connotation.

I get it. Some readers wish I wouldn’t swear. They wish I would have an atheist heart with an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist mouth. That’s not going to happen. As the stats above show, I don’t use curse words in my writing very often. And when I do, I typically mean to do so.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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9 Comments

  1. Avatar
    dale m.

    God !!! Jesus Christ !!! Hell !!! All curse words. I don’t see the Bible getting an R-rating. I’ll tell U what does get their R-rating …… Free Speech !!! If this is a public school, there are plenty of atheist organizations that would gladly take them to town and back. Sue them !!!

  2. Avatar
    Matilda

    Their response is hilarious. No one has commented yet on what seems obvious to me….the Streisand effect, the forbidden fruit thing. How weird to think teens need to be protected from ever hearing the F-word which is used literally everywhere. A senior counsellor with a respected national telephone helpline here in the UK told me that most parents would be horrified to know what their teens share every day, routinely on the school bus, in the school yard or in their bedrooms on their phones. Glad you rattled the school’s cage, Bruce.

  3. Avatar
    Obstaclechick

    Folks that complain about a few F bombs really ought to read the content of their holy scriptures. There aren’t F bombs, but there’s a lot of rape, genocide, slavery, and mutilation. Some of those atrocities were supposedly ordered by a deity, while some weren’t expressly forbidden.

    Bruce, I love your site, F bombs and all. You call it as you see it.

  4. Avatar
    William

    I bet 99% of websites are banned on a school website, I kind of agree… but for what it’s worth, if I put a search in for your website with Google adult filter on, your site isn’t blocked. Ironically some fundamental sites are, which I presume is due to their gory images as they try to misrepresent abortion.

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