I thought the point of the asterisks was to put the meaning (i.e. the word intended) out of reach of someone too young to be able to fill in the blanks. Once you're old enough, you know what it says, but then again you are (presumably) old enough to handle it (e.g. not to use it in front of grandmother, who would kick your a** if she heard you say "a**").

The whole point is civility. Presumbably before f*** was considered crude, there was something else considered cruder. (Although is there really a need to talk about f***ing in public? In the privacy of one's gynecologist's office, perhaps, but in those days they didn't have gynecologists.)

We have a sort of back-burner ongoing debate about expletives with our 18 year old. He claims that since the denotation of f*** and some euphemism therefor is the same, they should be interchangeable. Well, they aren't. Social opprobrium is also part of the baggage a word carries. Those who think otherwise really show how little they know about language. Those who pretend otherwise, in order to shock people, are merely beneath contempt.

Just my opinions,
Alex