When people spell curse words with asterisks in place of vowels does that make the words any less harsh?

My cousin and I are in a debate. I asked her why does she censor her curse words in her facebook statuses. In a nutshell she said she does it to make the words less harsh. Do you think that f*ck is any less harsh than spelling the word out? Also she mentioned it's a perception thing and not a technical thing. In that sense would your perception of someone that spells their curse words with asterisks be any better than if they just spelled the whole word out?