Saturday, February 24, 2007

Scrotum: the Thinking Child's Ballsack

I've been reading and hearing all week about how the nation is up in arms about some idiot author who had the audacity to include a scientific word for a part of the human body in her book aimed at children ages 9 to 12. I mean, really -- who in her right mind would conceive of including a scientific word for a part of the human body in a book aimed at children ages 9 to 12? Okay, sure, we can admit that it was funny in Kindergarten Cop when that boy told the Governator that "boys have a penis, and girls have a vagina," but that was just pretend! In the real world we know that boys have wedittles and girls have hoohoos (or whatever demeaning words you like to teach your children), and neither wedittles nor hoohoos should ever be discussed outside the family bathroom.

In case you're not sure what I'm talking about, here's the Reuters (which appropriately looks like but unfortunately doesn't rhyme with "neuters") version of the story. The word in question is "scrotum," mentioned in the Newbery Award-winning children's book, The Higher Power of Lucky, written by Susan Patron. I'll be ordering my copy just to spite the reactionary librarians who've banned it from elementary school bookshelves as a result of the offending word. One of the shocked librarians had the gall to tell the New York Times, "you won’t find men’s genitalia in quality literature." God damn puritan bitch. Can anyone say, "needs to get laid"?

Once again we have a case of "curiosity kills the cat" syndrome from the conservative right. Whatever you do, don't teach children scientific words for parts of the human body! After they learn what a scrotum is, what's to keep them from having sex with monkeys or performing abortions on each other in broad daylight? Please! God help the nation so foolish that it fears the word scrotum.

Ignorance makes me angry.

1 comment: