Here's a fascinating linguistic survey of expressions for cursing and swearing in German compared with Dutch and Swedish (not English). It's been the most downloaded article on the journal's website for years:
http://www.bgdv.be/Dokumente/GM-Texte/gm59_nuebling_vogel.pdf
(Damaris Nübling / Marianne Vogel, "Fluchen und Schimpfen kontrastiv. Zur sexuellen, krankheitsbasierten, skatologischen und religiösen Fluch- und Schimpfwortprototypik im Niederländischen, Deutschen und Schwedischen", in: Germanistische Mitteilungen 59/2004, 19-33)
As hinted by Oltermann, crosslinguistic comparison can be a great antidote to cultural stereotyping.
Torsten
