@tb1570 – you raise a great point. I have had some concerns over the ownership of the words I write on this site. So I have corresponded recently with Ben and Andrew and they have told me that they are revising their community policies in various matters. So I highly suggest you send Andrew a private comment with a link to the thread, so that he may read your concerns.
Censorship is very interesting on the Internet, specifically because there is no guarantee towards free speech and no obligation to protect the integrity of a website (or lack thereof). This website is privately owned by whomever pays for the bills, and thus it is at their discretion whether to permit or disallow any type of comment with no needed justification. They have not taken such a draconian approach however. But there will always be someone who is disappointed when their comment is deleted, even if it does break the guidelines, and even if every single moderator agrees with the decision. Some people are just like that.
Now your comment, which I did not see personally (and that would have helped a lot in this discussion). And no one take offense to this please, that’s not what I intend. Your comment would, in my non-moderator opinion, not be deleted for having swear word, it would simply be considered Off-topic chatter (as it does not address the issue of sex during menstruation), which goes against the Fluther guidelines. Of course, I understand that you responded to a comment which could also be defined as Off-topic chatter, however poofandmook made attempts to make it as unobtrusive as possible and is a tiny comment observing the situation at hand. In my opinion, this is fundamentally different from your comment, which was (I’m basing this on your description of it) a list of words for the female anatomy including some crude ones. If the c word was on it, this may also be a reason why your comment was moderated, as for many people this is a derogatory term and may cause a derail of the discussion if people take offense to it being used.
But this is a symptom of a larger issue – how much joking and casual chatting is acceptable or desirable? And this is a tough question to answer, because everyone has a different view on what the right level is. So if new rules are added, some people will always be disappointed. You can’t please everyone. But, as you suggest, you can make it transparent so that people understand what is accepted of them while participating here.