I am a golfer; of course I swear. I know only one golfer who doesn’t. However, it is also useful to understand that cursing can be fairly neatly divided into three categories, scatological, eschatological, and sexual.
Depending upon the kind of person one happens to be, those categories will be invoked unevenly. Most people I know who swear are reasonably free with scatological type swearing; it is the least fraught with either theological or misogynistic pitfalls. I am of this type. Freud would doubtless suggest that I got stuck in the anal retentive phase of development, but that is the way it is.
It is also helpful to note that there is a significant difference between hurling imprecations at someone, which can become quite personal, and involve suggesting acts that are physically impossible, and swearing about some event, in my case that is usually a golf ball sailing blithely into the trees. Indeed, I never swear at people; regardless of how provoked I am I refrain from the use of old Anglo-Saxon terminology when arguing with someone, and remain firmly within the Latinate constructions and metaphors of the English language.
Within these general parameters, I find that swearing is at times cathartic, and conduces to my overall mental and spiritual wellbeing.
