Punishment for Cursing

I had a hilarious ESL class last night. We did part of a unit on Thanksgiving that talked about the Pilgrims coming to Massachusetts. The chapter mentioned that many of them were "Separatists" from the Church of England, a concept which I had to explain at length. I also mentioned that these people were very religious and lived by a strict code.

One of the students -- a young Brazilian woman who is both a fervent Christian and irrepressibly curious -- was fascinated and wanted to know lots more. "Like what?" she asked, which is her favorite question.

"Well, if they thought a woman had relations with another man outside of marriage, the woman had to wear a red letter on their clothes, and everyone would point at them. People were also punished for cursing."

"What is cursing?"

I wrote "curse/cursing" on the board. "Cursing means to say curse words or bad words. For example, we say 'damn' a lot nowadays, but back then the word 'damn' was a very bad curse word."

"Like this, 'damn'?"

"Right, you'd get in trouble for that. Maybe they would tie your hands."

"So what if I say 'shit'?" the Brazilian woman asked.

"Um, oh boy, maybe they would throw you into the ocean or something" I said (I make up stuff like this all the time in class).

"So what if I say 'c*cksucker'?"

The whole class explodes laughing.

"Hahahahaha, they would fall over dead I guess..."

The same day I was given a teacher form that asked me to note any really memorable events in the class so that they could be turned into little stories and put in the newsletter. Unfortunately, I don't think I can use this Thanksgiving story. I wonder if there are any historians out there that know the appropriate level of punishment for the word in question.