Scrotum

[Dreadsox]

Should a children's book be banned if the word "scrotum" appears in it? It's not like vagina!!!!

http://news.aol.com/topnews/article...e/20070217193109990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

 

[corianderstem]

I just rolled my eyes so hard, I think I sprained something.

 

[anitram]

“This book included what I call a Howard Stern-type shock treatment just to see how far they could push the envelope, but they didn’t have the children in mind,” Dana Nilsson, a teacher and librarian in Durango, Colo., wrote on LM_Net, a mailing list that reaches more than 16,000 school librarians. “How very sad.”

Oh, something here is sad alright.

And this:

“I think it’s a good case of an author not realizing her audience,” said Frederick Muller, a librarian at Halsted Middle School in Newton, N.J. “If I were a third- or fourth-grade teacher, I wouldn’t want to have to explain that.”

Aren't these kids like 9 or 10?? They can't be told what a scrotum is? What kind of society is this?

 

[corianderstem]

A scrotum-less society, apparently.

 

[trevster2k]

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!?

I am certain most kids have a seen a dog licking himself and wondered what was going on? I know the solution, pants for dogs.

Here we go again. My view on this stuff along with sex, drugs, etc is the more mystery and taboo you give children, the more interested and drawn towards it they become. Cause doing things you aren't allowed to do is way more fun than stuff you are.

 

[Liesje]

I gotta say scrotum is one of my least favorite words, but still....

 

[angelordevil]

I gotta say scrotum is one of my least favorite words, but still....

It's a horrible, clinical-sounding word. However, banning it is absolutely crazy--especially in light of what kids are exposed to these days through media.

 

[Liesje]

well just so I don't sound too discriminatory, vulva is also one of my least favorite words

 

[trevster2k]

well just so I don't sound too discriminatory, vulva is also one of my least favorite words

Seinfeld turned that word into a very popular word, Mulva?

 

[redhotswami]

its because of crap like this that so many students friggin explode into alcohol abuse and careless sexual promiscuity when they move out of homes and go to college.

 

[angelordevil]

well just so I don't sound too discriminatory, vulva is also one of my least favorite words

But it sounds much better. More sophisticated. Scrotum sounds like a bike part.

Seinfeld turned that word into a very popular word, Mulva?

I've never heard that! I don't watch a lot of tv...Seinfeld should be an exception, however...that show is hilarious.

 

[indra]

well just so I don't sound too discriminatory, vulva is also one of my least favorite words

When I was in high school my mom bought a Volvo (this was in an area where not a whole lot of people had foreign cars) and one of the neighbor ladies (a loud talker too) would always pronounce it vulva. This woman's daughters went to the same school I did and sometimes when she would come to pick them up she would ask me (in that very loud voice) "So how's your mom enjoying her new vulva?" That always turned a few heads....

 

[Rono]

A scrotum-less society, apparently.

finaly a solution for the abortion discusion,.....

 

[deep]

I gotta say scrotum is one of my least favorite words, but still....

i used to feel the same way

but then it grew on me

 

[Angela Harlem]

And scrotum is worse than nuts, balls, and assorted other generic genital nicknames?

 

[adrball]

can't really understand why the writer felt the need to put the word in, but still not a reason to ban it.

 

[BVS]

Children shouldn't know their body parts.

 

[BonosSaint]

Coming from a state with towns named Intercourse and Blue Ball and one named Scotrun that a lot of people read quickly on the exit sign as Scrotum, no problem. Didn't seem particularly titillating. Clinical word with a clinical definition. Actually, I kind of like the word. I do get a kick out of books being banned when they seem to traumatize the adults more than the kids.

And I agree with Trevster. I sought out every book I wasn't supposed to read and the forbidden aspect of it carried more weight with me than if it hadn't been banned. What did the adults not want me to know?

 

[Dreadsox]

The article describes the word scrotum in this context:

[Q]The book’s heroine, a scrappy 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word through a hole in a wall when another character says he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the scrotum. [/Q]

It's a Newbury Award winning book, which is USUALLY all I ever tried to buy for literature circles in my classroom.

I can hear Cartman saying a "rattlesnake bit my dog in the nutz" which I would not ban either.

[Q]“The people who are reacting to that word are not reading the book as a whole,” she said. “That’s what censors do — they pick out words and don’t look at the total merit of the book.” [/Q]

VERY TRUE

 

[Dreadsox]

And scrotum is worse than nuts, balls, and assorted other generic genital nicknames?

I suppose it depends on the context......

I prefer the phrase "licking the privates". it's generic enough but to the point....but it just does not sound sexy. Hmmmmm

 

[BonosSaint]

There was another forum I belonged to briefly that would automatically censor words no matter what the context. If I wrote the prick of a thorn, it would be p****--to the point of ridiculousness.

Sometimes I see Beavis and Butthead as censors. "She said 'scrotum', heh,heh."

Determining context takes work. Seeing a word does not.

 

[fly so high!]

Should a children's book be banned if the word "scrotum" appears in it? It's not like vagina!!!!

http://news.aol.com/topnews/article...e/20070217193109990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

I would feel uncomfortable reading that aloud to my kids.....i reckon the convo would go go something like this:

Child: "What's a swotum?"

Mum: "well dear........a Skro-tom is a bag of skin and muscle that contains the testicles"

Child: "what's testittles?"

Mum: "Tes-tick-kils" or testes are the male generative glands found in animals. Boys have them........they have two of them."

Child: "Where are the Tes-Tick-kils?"...."i don't think i have "Tes-tick-kils"

Mum: "The tes-tick-kils are located between the penis and anus"

I mean for God's sake! Really....... would you seriously go through this at bedtime........I think the anatomy lesson can be for another time.....the author needs her head read! the reason for her to put it in the book in the first place.....was,what?.......she liked the SOUND of the word......well, i like the sound of..........Labia!....yeah lets put that in a childrens book............it can go something like this.........."the rattlesnake bit the bitch on the LABIA!!!!!"

 

[Angela Harlem]

tell us what you really think...

 

[DrTeeth]

Poor Roy

 

[Dreadsox]

I would not even go into it with detail. I was say it is a boy's private part. I would take the moment to refresh my child's memory about private meaning for you and your doctor to touch only.

But that is me. I would not get into the anatomy of things.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

It's a word, it's a body part. How is it any different from vagina? Because the "exact equivalent" is penis in some sexual way? Adults sexualize those words, kids don't unless and until they know about sex. And they're not going to know or learn about sex from reading the word scrotum in a book such as this one.

Shouldn't boys know about their body parts in that region anyway because of testicular cancer-if for no other reason? If a 19 year old hockey player can get that and find a little lump himself and a doctor is impressed by that, shouldn't boys feel comfortable enough to do that so they can potentially save their own lives? And how are they ever going to be if they're shamed about the word somehow from an early age?

 

[trevster2k]

I don't think this is about what the children see, it's about putting some adults in uncomfortable situations.

 

[Ormus]

I don't think this is about what the children see, it's about putting some adults in uncomfortable situations.

Indeed. I don't think we give children enough credit; and, as someone who remembers what it was like to be a child whose parents felt free to "lie" to me, I never appreciated the gesture when I'd come to school and every other kid already knew these "dirty words."

If I ever have children, they're going to get it straight from me--in an age-appropriate manner, of course, but I'm not going to shy away from reality. After all, they're just words, and they represent objects that are not inherently dirty or obscene at all.

 

[Vincent Vega]

It's a word, it's a body part. How is it any different from vagina? Because the "exact equivalent" is penis in some sexual way? Adults sexualize those words, kids don't unless and until they know about sex. And they're not going to know or learn about sex from reading the word scrotum in a book such as this one.

Shouldn't boys know about their body parts in that region anyway because of testicular cancer-if for no other reason? If a 19 year old hockey player can get that and find a little lump himself and a doctor is impressed by that, shouldn't boys feel comfortable enough to do that so they can potentially save their own lives? And how are they ever going to be if they're shamed about the word somehow from an early age?

It doesn't have to be cancer. A testicular torsion is sheer horror (believe me). And it's very dangerous.

I think the only people that always make this connection are the pruddish, often conservative people, that think they have to save the children and the good values.
When people that are more liberal, or children as well, read certain words, they usually see the word within the context (not always of course). They don't think about the sexual connotation.
But the people that jump in and want to ban these words, or the complete books, are the ones that always see penis/vagina=sex, testicles/vulva=sex and so on.

Why can't they just differentiate?
In my opinion, this is what leads children to think different about these certain body parts, because they also recognize those discussions going on and how some adults try to spare them from certain parts of their bodies. Children aren't blind or deaf, but see what is going on.

 

[coemgen]

Why don't we just use the term "bean bag" when we work with the children.