Do not self-censor when you write. Many aspiring and even some established writers do this. If the subject is too embarrassing for you to write about, then you probably should be writing about something else. Never use ----- or what I mentally recite to myself as blankety-blank-blank-blank in dialogue. If your character is cursing, then use expletives. If your characters are engaged in sex, then get into it. Or get out. Write something else. Something you're comfortable with. Suggesting sex or swearing is not acceptable in today's presentation of popular culture. You have to show it. On the flip side, editors are so used to writer's trying to shock them with graphic sex, violence and coarse language that, unless, the scenes move the plot along, they will be seen as gratuitous and contrived to get attention and that won't work either.
Self-conscious writing is not the same as writing that is self-aware. Becoming self-aware after your masterpiece is done is an excellent habit to get into. It's called editing. It is also being savvy of what markets want. If your target market does not want graphic sex or coarse language, you are submitting to the wrong market. Or you have written the wrong story.
Unselfconscious writing makes the reader totally unaware of the presence of the author. Take yourself out of it. The reader should never be aware that the ideas, attitudes and behaviours of the characters are the author's. Otherwise you break the magic spell, which is the story.
One of the best examples I've come across is BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY by Helen Fielding. This novel was no bestseller by accident. Read its first line: "I WILL NOT: drink more than fourteen alcohol units a week". With this opening, we already get a sense of who Bridget is and we don't imagine that she is a character being written by somebody else.
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