Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting our First Amendment Liberties

@$#*%! Our most taboo word and how the law keeps it forbidden.This entertaining read is about the word "fuck", the law, and the taboo. Whether you shout it out in the street or whisper it in the bedroom, deliberately plan a protest, or spontaneously blurt it out, if you say "fuck," someone wants to silence you, either with a dirty look across the room or by making a rule that you cannot say the word. When it's the government trying to cleanse your language, though, you should worry. Words are ideas. If the government controls the words we use, it can control what we think. To protect this liberty, we must first understand why the law's treatment of "fuck" puts that freedom at risk.

This book examines the law surrounding the word and reveals both inconsistencies in its treatment and tension with other identifiable legal rights that the law simply doesn't answer. The power of taboo provides the framework to understand these uncertainties. It also explains why attempts to curtail the use of "fuck" through law are doomed to fail. Fundamentally, it persists because it is taboo; not in spite of it.

Christopher M. Fairman is a Professor of Law at Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He is a leading national expert in civil procedure, legal ethics, and the word "fuck." He is a gifted teacher with awards and recognition at the high school, college, and university level.