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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24749
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24749
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The sexual act can be tender or it can be violent. Its violent aspects can be consensual or non consensual. There are many different words for it, reflecting each of these connotations. F\*\*\* is one of the more violent of these words. But f\*\*\* also has other connotations: to cheat, for instance, or to make a mistake. When applied to the sexual act, it tends to express lovelessness, casualness, and indifference.

It is a grubby violent word (which is the reason I obscure it when I must make reference to it). There was an attempt to normalize it at one point but it came to nothing. Thirty years on, it is still a stock phrase of shock comedians. Overuse has not softened it, presumably because people do not want it softened, they want a grubby violent world for loveless sex, cheating, and incompetence.

Every word has its baggage and its baggage is what gives it its power, for good or ill. There is a reason that we have to invent clinical words for acts like sexual intercourse that have such powerful emotional overtones (which are in turn reflected in the various words we use to describe them). You should not expect to be able to rob any non-clinical term of its overtones. Nor, frankly, should you wish to. It is the overtones of words that give them their emotional power, which is exactly what you need in fiction.

Original score: 2