The "F Word"

I really thought I was beyond being shocked by pop culture, but this week it happened again. I learned that two of the top 10 songs on the Billboard Pop Music chart have "the F word" in their title.

Now, I knew that this word has been used in lots of pop music for quite a while. My first memory of it was on the Woodstock album, with Country Joe and the Fish. But the "fish" cheer was, at the time, so unusual, so daring, so risqué that everyone who knew about it was talking about it. (If you don't know what I mean, I'll just say that the entire crowd at Woodstock, led by the band, was chanting a word, and the word wasn't "fish.") I'll confess now that my friends and I would play that cut of the Woodstock album over and over while wearing headphones in the library during study hall. Teenage rebellion!

Today, it wouldn't get a moment's notice.

My eyes began to be opened this summer when a song called "I Wan't to be a Billionaire" by Travie McCoy featuring Bruno Mars was at the top of the pop charts. It's a happy sounding ditty in which the artist daydreams about how great it would be to be a billionaire on the cover of Forbes magazine, singing "I want to be a billionaire, so freakin' bad..."  Since I've got teenagers, I must have heard this song a hundred times on the radio, and although I don't agree with the idea that money will make you happy, I really like the music and would find myself singing along. That is, until I saw the video which hadn't been edited for broadcast.  That's right - in the video the artist sings in a light, lilting voice, "I want to be a billionaire, so F*&%-ing bad..."  I admit it. I was floored. More than that, I was deeply offended.

Why was I offended?

• I felt I'd been deceived. A beautiful song on the radio led me to believe that it was ok for my kids to be listening to the same song on YouTube. Beware! Even if you're listening to what your kids are listening to on the radio, you may not be hearing what they're hearing with the same music on YouTube.
• The song was ruined for me. Now, whenever I hear it, even the broadcast version, in my head I hear the vulgarity. 
• The word itself is offensive.

Which really brings me to my point. Why is "the F word" offensive? It's because "the F word" vulgarizes something that God made sacred.

• It takes the act of love-making, a magnificent gift given by God to express love between a husband and wife, and turns it into a curse. 
• It reduces sexual love to something base, ordinary, and purely physical.
• It takes the act that God uses to create new life, to create human beings in his own image, and makes drags it into the gutter.

When people use "the F word," it's almost always used as verbal violence. "F you!" Or, it takes something sacred and uses it for emphasis "No F-ing way!" It takes something beautiful and makes it a description of something ugly "He's so F-ed up." And, of course, even when it's used to describe actual sexual intercourse, it's almost never used to describe the loving, covenental relationship between a husband and wife.

While I don't like it, I kind of understand when people use "the excrement word" to express exasperation, anger, and emotions that are simply hard to express with polite language. What's distressing is that this and other "curse words" have become so prevalent in music, movies, and even daily life.

But "the F word" shows more than any other how far our society has moved away from God, and a God-centered view of the world, life, and human sexuality.

God's Word teaches us "You must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips."  Colossians 3:8 (NIV)

Yes, it really matters.