what the bleep

[tennesseemcvay]

So just made my first post in the short story competition and noticed that some of my dirty words were bleeped out. I then reread the forum guidelines and noticed the part about any obscene, vulgar or sexually-oriented posts. Well my story is about a pimp in space and those are three words that I would use to describe it. It's not done for shock value, just for the sake of the character. I mean he is a pimp so it sort of comes with the territory. But I don't want to make waves or get in trouble. I understand there are rules for a reason and that some people are more sensitive to these sorts of things than I may be and I must respect that in a public forum. So my question is do I need to put up a disclaimer or take down the post or what? I don't want to get in trouble or banned for posting the story and if that is the case then I will remove it. Just as soon as someone tells me how to do something like that. I'm not so good at the internet.

[KatG]

Contact the people who are running the contest, tell them that you made an honest mistake and missed the info about content limitations, ask them if you should remove the story or put up a disclaimer. It's their contest and they make the rules.

[tmso]

Just an FYI to those currently running the contest, most of the contest overlords in the past have stipulated a disclaimer on stories with a mature content (foul language constituents mature content).

[tennesseemcvay]

Went back to it and added a disclaimer but the site seems to put bad words in asterisks anyway so it should be safe.

[zachariah]

Write what you want - haters gonna hate.

[Slynt]

Personally I think it's silly. Anyone who is mature enough to be able to read or write a story and especially stories of the scifi/fantasy kind should be freethinking enough not to be bothered by any word, as long as those words are truly what the author feels need to be in the story. BUT this is not my site or anything so I just stopped using naughty words really because a **** really takes me out of what I'm reading.
I also see that as a general rule it may be useful in the sense that it stops people from writing truly naughty and gratuitious stories that are really nothing more than disturbing fantasies
The counterargument I guess is, that "anyone who is mature enough blabla" should be mature enough not to use profanity.
But repression doesn't get us anywhere, and fast at that.
So I accept the censorship, doesn't mean I have to like it. Also, now I'm gonna stop before I get into trouble and read some March flash fiction.

[kater]

But repression doesn't get us anywhere, and fast at that.
So I accept the censorship, doesn't mean I have to like it. Also, now I'm gonna stop before I get into trouble and read some March flash fiction.

This is a pg/pg-13 site, meaning possibly young children on the site hence the asterisks

[txshusker]

I often will go back and edit the original post enough that the reader can "know" what the word is, but it's not all there : sh-t, or something like that. I suppose that's not really in the spirit of the site's rating as kater states () but I prefer that to the asterisks. Most people just use disclaimers if consistent or explicit.