Scrotum, scrotum everywhere!

Dear goodness me. I figure if you're a reader of this blog, you're aware of the controversy about the appearance of the word "scrotum" on the first page in this year's Newbery Award winning book, Susan Patron's The Higher Power of Lucky. Everyone's yakking about it, from the New York Times to Fuse8 to Read Roger to... well, suffice to say I'm late. Go to AsIf! for lots o' meat on this.

But flash back with me to last summer, when I got to hear Susan Patron read from her then upcoming novel. She read to a group of writers, and we all got to hear the first ever reading of the first chapter of the book. Did we hear scrotum? Yes, of course. We talked about it, laughed about it. Felt badly for the poor dog bitten there. Yes, that's right... the scrotum belongs to a DOG, ya see. Now, look, it was definitely an ear-catching word, but beyond that... well, hardly seemed to be anything to be worried about.

And it still seems such a strange thing to me. Basically, a book for 9-12 year olds causes controversy for using a non-sexual word for a dog's anatomy. Yeah. It fits the book, fits the character, and at the end of the day... hey, we can hide from talking about anatomy or accept that kids can handle the truth.

Seems to me like a t-shirt is called for to raise money to support buying copies of Lucky. I propose the following slogans:

I Have a Scrotum
I Support Scrotums
Does My Scrotum Scare You?

Anyone feel free to use it, just put the money to a good cause....