If you are very sparing with your swearing they have a lot more impact than if you just throw them around like periods. :)
In my family for example if they hear me swearing they know I am truly angry. Where as if they hear one of my kids (adults) going through a swearing age they really have no clue when they are truly angry because they use swearing as if they were periods or commas in a sentence.
Plus, even though they are simply words. Consider it respect for others. If I choose to swear I may offend someone and in reality I can say the same thing I wanted to say without the swear words.
I've seen no rule stating you cannot swear. I haven't seen anyone get bashed for it. They simply seem to intuitively and almost hive mind like decided not to do it.
You have a great point, swearing is used in my many different cases, some more effective than others and along with this it may or may not cause people to be offended. But in all honesty I think everyone has the right to say exactly what they want and shouldn't be scared about what people think even if they just want to add impact or if they just like to say fuck.
Yeah I wasn't telling anyone not to say it. I could care less. It is a word. I don't think people should be offended by a word. If I want to offend you I can put words together in a combination that I assure you would do a better job than swear words. :) I was merely SPECULATING as to why maybe people are not swearing much here. Intuitively they didn't think it was necessary would be my guess.
Very nicely put, I don't think I could agree more. People get too upset just by the use of a single word.