Can you cuss in the military? Technically swearing is prohibited. But should it be? Maybe not!
Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits “indecent language” or that which can offend a person’s decency, modesty, or propriety or is morally shocking because of its filthy, vulgar, or disgusting nature or tendency to create lustful thoughts. Any language that can corrupt morals is subject to the offense.
Service members can actually get a bad conduct discharge and even forfeiture of allowances and even some confinement.
But here’s the thing. The military swears all the d*mn time. There’s a phrase “curse like a sailor” — troops are literally known for it. And that actually might not be a bad thing.
An article in National Geographic even suggested that swearing is f**king good for you. Emma Byrne, author of the book, Swearing is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language, revealed that swearing promotes trust and teamwork and even increases our tolerance to pain.
Oh except for women. For women it’s un-f**king-feminine — but it wasn’t always. In 1673, a man named Richard Allestree published a book called The Ladies Calling where he said swearing was unladylike and that women who did it would begin to take on masculine characteristics, like growing facial hair.
People actually believed him and still carry a prejudice about women who swear today. Women are judged more harshly when they swear. According to Byrne, women who swear can actually lose friends and social status while men who swear bond more closely with their peers.
Researchers from Stanford and Cambridge published a study in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science that suggested that people who curse more tend to be more honest. Swearing provides more nuance and thus allows people to express emotions more truthfully.
In an interesting turn of events, a study from Lancaster University and Cambridge University Press found that women are now more likely to swear than men. The female use of the f-word grew 500% in the past two decades, while men cut their use nearly in half.
I guess we don’t f***ing like being censored!!!
I’m less curious about the habits of men and women and more curious about which branches of the military are more likely to swear. I haven’t been able to find any research on it so let me know in the comments what your experience was. It also might vary from job-to-job. I know that when I worked with pilots, they cussed all the time. Then when I PCS’d and was talking to a bunch of spooks, I was reprimanded for saying that something was sh*tty.
They were trying to deploy a guy who was expecting his first child and I wanted to swap his band with a guy eager to volunteer for his first deployment and they wouldn’t let me swap them and it was sh*tty.
Interestingly, the reason I’m using the word “sh*tty” instead of…I don’t know…”merde-y” is because of the Battle of Hastings, which determined which cuss words we use today.
If you guys want to know more about dumb military rules, check out my rant about it and leave me a comment telling me what you think about swearing in the military.