oh my god this does not happen to me very often, but when it does it drives me insane. it's usually older men who say it and i think they genuinely are trying to be polite in doing so, but it leaves me like "Uhhh...." every single time. if it's someone i'm engaged in a lengthy conversation with, i usually at that point will try to make it a point to curse a little or speak my filthy mind a little more in some sort of effort to get these guys to see that women do really have many of the same thoughts and ideas as men and think many of the same things are funny and four-letter words will not actually cause our ovaries to self-destruct. every little bit helps, right?

I have only noticed this on occasion, but it does not surprise me. Another side of this is that women are expected not to swear. I am kind of conventionally white-girl attractive (dimples, blonde hair) and was raised in suburbia. I look like such a stereotype of innocent. And when I swear I frequently receive looks of utter shock/people laughing at me because the words are apparently so incongruous with how they think I should speak based on my appearance. It is tiring.

I was gaming with friends once and made a stupid mistake and died because of it, so of course I let out my frustration with bad words. We were hosting Japanese students, and one of the male students in the room looked and me and said "you are girl." Turns out this idea has gotten into Japan, too. We let him know that it's ok for girls to swear, too, and he seemed to be ok with it.

Yeah, our feeble lady brains can't handle all the fucking obscenity.

Even if I gave a damn about being a "lady," I'm pretty sure I could handle some curse words.

I've never been in a classroom where the teacher apologized for swearing, but I've noticed that my father and his friends sometimes apologize in advance for their colourful language. It seems like they do it among themselves, too, though, so I'm less put off by that than I would be if one of my profs decided that only women would be offended by their language.

Yeah, this happens to me all the time. My standard response is "Fuck that shit, don't apologize for expressing yourself". What I think is particularly weird is that lots of guys, once they discover that swearing doesn't put me off, have considerably higher opinions of me. Because it means I'm less girly or something. Grr.

In 8th grade we had one of those end of the year class party days and the teacher let some students bring in a movie for us to watch. They chose Austin Powers and he let them show it, I guess not knowing what it was ahead of time. Afterwords he got up and said he wanted to apologize to the girls in the class for having allowed that movie to be shown.

I remember a speech by my vice principal back in high school were he told us to clean up our language. Then said swearing in "mixed company" was what bothered him the most. Good ol' locker room swearing was fine for the boys, but not in front of the ladies, apparently.
I think obscenities are great when used properly. In a comedian's raunchy act, when you have just stubbed your toe, when you're pissed off, or otherwise incredulous... When people just pepper everyday language with f-bombs it kinda ruins the magic of swear words.

I've noticed this quite a bit. Just the other day I let something slip in front of my twelve-year-old cousin--I think it was "ass" or something of that nature--and he looked at me, thoroughly astonished, and said "You just swore! Girls don't swear!"

Honestly.

I usually respond with a "wtf" look and say something like "dude, I don't fucking care."

It gets the point across without having to go into the exhausting show of lecturing him on how stupid and sexist it is to only apologize to me.

You should be proud for speaking out! I assume you're in high school, which only makes you a year or two younger than me. Sadly, I never pointed out sexism when I was in high school, and I really regret it. So, hats off to you!

My father-in-law will often give my husband a hard time about his language when we are all together. THere are mostly women in the immediate family, including the new baby, and god forbid the three month old hear that sort of language! ... But we were visiting them just the other week, after we had gone on vacation with my in-laws. THe whole week, my husband I both swore, especially after a few beers, hehe, and nothing was said. As soon as we got back to their house and his two daughters and granddaughter was there, my husband was reminded that "your wife, mother, sisters, and niece are here!" Maybe he just feels comfortable around me and knows I don't care, but assumes his daughters will? I don't know. My father-in-law is AMAZING, I love him... and it's been cute to sort of be the weird liberal feminist in his house, and how he has reacted to me. He often asks me how I feel about something, as if I am a voice of all feminists, or will say something a little "old-fashioned" and then apologize to me, and we end up having a good dialogue about it. I think a lot of this is generational, or just how he was raised, and it's been fun to see his mind change about gender and homosexuality, specifically.

I have a family member who works at an all boys camp and every time that I am there, and I am sitting with his coworkers, and one of them swears, this is exactly what they do. I completely agree, it is soooo annoying. My response is always "it's not like I've never heard that before" or "it's not like I've never used that before." Seriously though, it's ridiculous. Who doesn't love a good f-bomb?

This happens to me a lot. Most of my friends are male, and I like playing competitive videogames with them, so you can imagine there's a lot of swearing involved. The friends-of-friends who haven't met me before do tend to apologize to me, and only me, even if there are other guys in the room that they haven't met either. I usually cover my ears and cry out "my virgin ears!" before pretending to faint... that usually elicits some laughter and the understanding of just how ridiculous the stereotypes that spark that kind of behavior are. I can understand apologizing for swearing since it's one of those things you're not supposed to do (for who knows what reason), but please, I am not any more susceptible to the supposed ill-effects of swearing any more than a man is.

It happens to me frequently, that men will apologize for using foul language around me. I simply tell them "I've been around cursing men all my life, hearing it from you isn't going to offend me. Besides, I probably have a filthier mouth than you do."

I just laugh it off when they apologize, they are genuinely trying to be polite, which I never fault anyone for. Yes, its archaic and sexist to think that swearing will offend us womenfolk, but it's really not offensive to me that they apologize. Go ahead and correct them and let them know foul language doesn't offend you.

@Antonia-everytime I hear someone remark about "virgin ears", I lick my finger, give them a wet willy and say "not any more they're not!" which gets many laughs while being, admittedly, grosser than gross.