Nearly four hundred years have passed since Puritans settled our shores, but we’re still burdened with their legacy of sexual neuroses. Librarians are reluctant to stock The Higher Power of Lucky, a book that won the prestigious Newberry Award for children’s literature, because the word “scrotum” appears in the first sentence. Of course, our delicate sensibilities can just as easily be corrupted by terminology for the female anatomy. A Florida theater changed its marquee to read “The Hoohah Monologues” after receiving complaints from local parents who lacked the maturity or parenting skills to respond to curious inquiries from their children about the meaning of the word “vagina”.
I can’t help but marvel that most American adults don’t resort to the oblique phrase “down there” when referring to their genitalia. Credit sex ed in public schools and the Internet for keeping the forces of ignorance and prudishness at bay.
