Female and male college students completed a questionnaire designed to determine their beliefs about the common motives for using obscenity. Using a sample of obscene words generated by the participants, the study was designed to compare responses of females and males as well as beliefs about why females and males use obscenity. For all participants, the most important motives cited for using obscenity were 'psychological'. In addition, females were judged to use sexual anatomy words because of so-called 'sociological' motives. The results are discussed in relation to the methods used to gather the data and to sociolinguistic issues that arise from the relation of gender to obscenity.
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