You Say Scrotum, I Say Hoo-Ha

By Susie Bright, SusieBright.com. Posted February 21, 2007.

Squeamish school librarians, screaming at a single word they deemed "offensive," have put the screws to a scrumptious award-winning children's book called, of all things, The Higher Power of Lucky.

Have our public-knowledge custodians lost their scruples?

With One Word, Children's Book Sets Off Uproar

by Julie Bosman

The word "scrotum" does not often appear in polite conversation. Or children's literature, for that matter ...

Yet there it is on the first page of The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, this year's winner of the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children's literature. 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.

"'Scrotum' sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much," the book continues. "It sounded medical and secret, but also important."

The inclusion of the word has shocked some school librarians, who have pledged to ban the book from elementary schools, and reopened the debate over what constitutes acceptable content in children's books ...

"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."...

Andrea Koch, the librarian at French Road Elementary School in Brighton, N.Y., said she anticipated angry calls from parents if she ordered it. "I don't think our teachers, or myself, want to do that vocabulary lesson," she said in an interview ...

Ms. Nilsson, reached at Sunnyside Elementary School in Durango, Colo., said she had heard from dozens of librarians who agreed with her stance. "I don't want to start an issue about censorship," she said. "But you won't find men's genitalia in quality literature."

Let's uncover the anatomy of a literary sex panic, shall we?

A couple dozen prudes got squicked-out, starting with the strangely un-investigated Ms. Nilsson, who is leading the tiny parade of shocked citizens. Reporter Bosman and the Times kicked up the rest of the shocking-pink dust, without diligent reporting.

Ms. Nilsson isn't just a "teacher," she's a leader from the Durango Christian Science Church. When the media reports on issues of language or sexual attitudes and customs, it's incumbent on them to inquire about their informant's religious background and how it affects their decision-making. Who cares what Dana Nilsson thinks about librarianship, if her first priority is her Scriptural views of morality?

This story has pushed the Flying Spaghetti Monster envelope. Ever since Kansas ruled against evolution, and our current President encouraged a world-view that was created in seven days, there is a sense among scientific and empirically-minded Americans that our educational system has lost its marbles. These people, including myself, are the majority, not the Sunday School of the Week Club. We're easily alarmed by any evidence that we've have been swallowed into a Jonah's Whale of a fairy tale that never stops spouting off.

The Times' sample of quotes reveal a group of obvious religious conservatives who betray more about their own ignorance, phobias, and lack of library professionalism than they do about the state of the English vocabulary -- in literature or social life.

Anyone who says that "male genitalia are not in quality literature" needs to have their resumé examined. What's more, this is hardly the first time that the word "scrotum" has appeared in children's books. Think again, Ms. Bosman!

See more stories tagged with: books, libraries, censorship

Susie Bright is an author, editor, and journalist known for her original and pioneering work in sexual politics and erotic expression. She writes about sex and politics every day at her blog.

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