I think most people have missed the point of Judge VanDyke's "swinging dicks" dissental. Of course he used vulgar and coarse language. (I for one would not use this approach in my writing.) That was VanDyke's point. He was trying to draw a double standard. Thirty members of his court expressed their outrage at VanDyke writing about "swinging dicks," but not one of them was willing to review a case that involved actual "swinging dicks." How can it be that describing "swinging dicks" in a women's spa is a bigger problem than the state permitting actual "swinging dicks" in a women's spa? Judge VanDyke proves the old saw is true: "The pen is mightier than the sword." Or, as Sean Connery would say on SNL Celebrity Jeopardy!, "The penis mightier."
This is a common feature of contemporary debate: it is worse to use problematic language to describe something that to acknowledge how that thing is actually problematic.
First, the most salient example concerns abortion. For years, people were appalled when pro life advocates would display gruesome photographs and videos of abortions being performed. To this day, there is outrage at the detailed statement of facts in Gonzales v. Carhart about how partial birth abortions function. Justice Kennedy's majority opinion felt compelled to explain why he was using such graphic language: "The Act proscribes a particular manner of ending fetal life, so it is necessary here, as it was in Stenberg, to discuss abortion procedures in some detail." Here is an excerpt:
