Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Feb 21, 2007

What a hoo-ha

In the last couple of weeks there have been news items about body parts that caused a bit of a hoo-ha. For a start, a theatre putting on The Vagina Monologues changed their sign to The Hoo-Ha Monologues in response to a complaint–because heaven forbid that we refer to our body parts by their correct scientific names.

Now, I don’t know what is sillier–calling an evidently adult body part for an adult’s play by a child’s name, or the entire premise of The Vagina Monologues in the first place, but if you’re going to put on the play, you really should do it wholeheartedly and not bow to the whines of a conflicted passer-by who’s too prudish to explain to her daughter what the components of her body are called.

A few days later, I learned that a certain children’s book had been banned from libraries because it happened to contain a reference to the word scrotum. In the story, the narrating young boy heard a reference to a word he didn’t know and found it intriguing. That one reference got the book banned. Now, I admit to thinking that the reference was a little incongruous–it didn’t add much to either plot or character, as far as I could see–but guess what? It doesn’t matter. Kids don’t know the meaning of a lot of words, and they’re going to find their way to many that might be “rude.” Finding things out is their job as growing-up children. And if some of those words are embarrassing…get over it! They’re not going to just miraculously vanish into the dictionary graveyard if you don’t explain them!

So I just don’t understand this selective prudishness. Every time I see video games and cartoon books it seems to me that sexuality is emblazoned right across the covers with Barbie-proportion breasts and bulging superhero tights. If these overtly sexual images are not considered harmful, then what on earth is wrong with knowing the correct anatomical name for your body parts? Why fuss over a scientific name and then expose one’s kids to impossibly-proportioned cartoon bodies? It makes absolutely no sense to me.

By pretending that sexuality is not an important function of our bodies, we partake of something that is hugely dishonest and hypocritical. Like it or not, we walk around in bodies, with all that that implies. For heaven’s sakes, a hoo-ha? Who thought that one up anyway–Mr. Ding-Dong?