I don't believe it is pointed out for the benefit of those that swear but often by teachers, parents, ect to dissuade others from taking up the habit.

I think it's generally a way of pointing out how -not- impressed or affected by it they are.

When people dare to swear they over-step socially acceptable boundaries. In so doing, they ignore the social constraints that bind most people which gives others the impression that they feel they are bigger and cleverer than others. In fact, it is more of a cowardly approach, in my opinion.

Well, it's like when people ask why I love horror movies so much, and proceed to tell me that they're predictable and most are stupid. It's like, I already know that, what gave them the idea that I watched them for intellectual enlightenment? It's just for fun, and people who say this would be surprised sometimes at the depth of certain films. I see something similar with swearing, because cussing is emotional amplification, and it helps to release all sorts of emotions, good and bad ones, in a healthy way. Better than forcing yourself not to swear during your whole life and perhaps picking up worse methods of emotional channeling. Might sound stupid to hear this about swearing, however it's been dominant in just about every society in the world for centuries, it certainly does not exist, and persist into existing, for nothing. Okay, so that's going too far, but it's exactly as you say, people who swear probably don't imagine that they're portraying the apex of human culture and they know it. People are too stuck up with their tightwad moralities and values and imagine that whatever goes against, or ignores their disciplined norms threaten the very order by which they have come to be "successful persons", and they're probably resenting that other folks are free with their emotional display, or at least, haven't denied anything to themselves. Point is, people who swear on a regular basis probably do not attempt to be something they are not, unlike all those others who condemn them for their social freedom. More than anything it's probably projection; they would swear at them like crazy, if they didn't have some phony social image to maintain. Now that's just one little thing...cussing and its reactions probably encompass a whole lot more, and all sortsa people swear really, but this is a surefire example, at least one I believe I've seen many times.