Okay. That was my impression as well. I don't know why you said you get upset, because I certainly hadn't had the impression you were upset about that. But I'm still not clear on why you wrote what you did, since you don't seem to be upset by people being offended at your avatar, and no one I know of ever said you were. Communication theory. It is not an emotional subject to me. It is merely one of the many subjects I teach. At the beginning of post #1342, by pretending that "a picture of a finger" is not offensive. The communication of a "middle finger salute" is an idea, intended to display disdain (at least) for others. "A picture of a finger" is merely the medium of communication. Unless that statement (that "a picture of a finger" should not be offensive) was simply made in bad faith, it would appear that you think the medium of a communication negates the idea that is communicated. That the medium of communication somehow negates the communication itself. I even gave specific examples of it, such as people saying that offensive statements posted on a message board are merely "pixels on a screen", or that racist terms are just "words". That the medium of communication somehow negates the communication itself. But unless it is somehow a defining characteristic, it doesn't make a lot of sense to use it as an insult. Why not insult someone by calling them a car (for example), because cars sometimes fail to perform properly? I point this out because I note that in general, a lot of people use references to sex in very negative ways. Both female and male sex organs are used as insults, and talking about sexual intercourse, even in a relatively mild way like "You sure screwed that up", is generally used as something harmful. It would certainly appear that there is a deep-rooted unconscious aversion to sex in American society. There are a few such terms in French, but it is not even of the same order of magnitude as in American society. Language use would seem to indicate that, in general, American culture has been steeped in a generally negative view of sex, while French society has not been, or at least not even close to the same extent.
You win. You are much better adept at word games than I am. And, my frustration level this morning is already up to my eyeballs. So ..., whatever point here ... you win. I wouldn't say it's American culture and a deep aversion to sex. I think you may be transferring here as of the two of us, over the years, you seem to have a bigger hang up about sex than I do. I use the word "dick" in the same way citizens in the UK use the word "cunt". What word do the French use? Yes, I know you're far too refined to use such language, but I know you know the word that those who are not as refined as you use.
Course, the metaphor I would have gone with was The Doctor punching down the diamond wall in the confession wheel, but...this is more universally relatable to non-nerds.
Interesting that I can never see Garamet's posts in Firefox because the images are hotlinked to Facebook and I have excluded Wordforge from my Facebook container.
This interests me. Why do you say this? I consider sex a pretty uncontroversial subject. I do not consider it "dirty" or "icky" or anything like that, I defended the concept of homosexual marriage long before just about any other Evangelicals were doing so, and I fully support the right of people do do whatever they want between consenting adults, whether it happens to "float my boat" or not. So what "hang up" do you think I have about sex? There just aren't that many. There aren't any words in French with reference to sex that are as strong as "cunt" in English. And the word "fuck" doesn't even exist in French. About the commonest term in French that is a direct reference to sex is "con", originally a reference to female sexual organs, but that is not a strong word at all. I wouldn't use it, for the same reason I wouldn't call someone an "idiot", but it is not really any stronger than that. There are a few others that are used sometimes too, but as I said, using sexual references in insulting ways, though it certainly does exist in French culture, is not even close to as widespread as it is in American culture (or, as far as I can tell, in English culture, but I don't know English culture nearly as well as I know American culture).
I googled French swears and, whilst there are some pretty strong ones, Async is correct that they don't match the English. One suspects that any sexual swear the English use to insult someone, the French are too busy actually doing.
Just don't call the European ones "the silent killer." Oh, and it turns out American badger's badass attitude, like a lot of American things, is all bullshit.
There is truth in what you say! Actually, I did think of another common French swearword that is sex-related. It is a vulgar term for a prostitute. It is used as both an insult and an exclamation of disgust and/or anger. But the commonest French swearwords focus more on icky substances than on sex. They use the term "salaud", for example, which translates more or less as "dirty one" but is actually fairly strong. And of course the biggy is "merde" with all its variations. It is a stronger term in French than in English.