Comments on: Wicked Witch of Publishing Joins Great Scrotum Debate of 2007. “The Higher Power of Lucky” Fuels Bonfires Across America

By: Carla Golden

Carla Golden — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 03:15:45 +0000

Ahhhh, here we go again. We’re back to censorship of words for body parts. Can’t say “vagina” and can’t say “scrotum”. While the Word Police are at it, they should make the Amish change the name of their towns in Pennsylvania How embarrassing for the children… “I came from Intercourse.” “I live in Blue Ball.”

By: Steph

Steph — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:48:43 +0000

Hmmm … I am not sure which surprises me more - that a single word would spark such an uproar or that there actually is (as I just learned from your blog) a “SexLexis” - i.e. “Dictionary of Sexual Terms” AND a “Dictionary of the F Word.” My, my, my! I love your web log entry! I really needed a good laugh today.

By: Anonymously Yours

Anonymously Yours — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 21:23:40 +0000

For 15 years I thought the highway sign on Rt. 80 was announcing the Pennsylvania town of Scrotum, when in fact (when driving by at 60 mph instead of 85 mph) I noticed it proudly signaled the next exit as “Scotrun.” Get my drift?

Oh, and I think I saw that well-endowed squirrel last week…chasing one of our dogs! Aw, nuts, maybe it was another squirrel.

At age 11, I told my mother that…

I was not going through the period stuff….I was going to just skip it and immediately start “car dating.”
I knew how ladies got pregnant. Billy Smith’s mother told me she drank out of her husband’s tea cup.

So, there. Who needed that funny book with the pictures…I had it all figured out.

My mother took up smoking that year…followed shortly with drinking. I, on the other hand, took 6 years of biology, microbiology, and anatomy. I still haven’t figured out sex…but the occasional drink puts everything into perspective.

How does that squirrel run?

By: Simon Leigh

Simon Leigh — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:46:00 +0000

I do hope the rattlesnake wasn’t harmed or shocked during the making of this scene. It may just have been curious, not having a scrotum itself (just as well!).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 18:16:22 +0000

All this reminds me of a character in Wambaugh’s “The Choirboys” who referred to perps and other bad people as “scrotes”.

By: Bill Liversidge

Bill Liversidge — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:51:00 +0000

Reading through the Comments section of your most informative Post I was distressed to read that Frazer is a “left-leaning publisher”.

I believe the cause of his condition may well reside in the scrotum, about which you write so eloquently. Fortunately, his inclination from the perpendicular should be amenable to corrective surgery.

By: Maralyn Rittenour

Maralyn Rittenour — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:14:52 +0000

I had lots of comments to make on this riveting tpic but I guess the NY Times said it all today on the OpEd page.
Go Times.
PS Your blog is getting livlier all the time.
Go Wicked Witch

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 18:02:03 +0000

Poor Americans!
It is problem to show tits, penisses and ass on tv but not a problem to show a killer shooting his victim? What do you want your children to become? A normal family or a bunch of killers? What is the biggest sin, killing someone or having sex? What did Jesus tell you; procreate or kill? Come on guys!

By: Lynne

Lynne — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:58:04 +0000

A few of the links referencing this posting on The Publishing Contrarian:

“Nuts, In Every Sense of the Word” at Gehayi

“What’s So Wrong with the Word Scrotum?” at The Most Cake

“Ode to a SCROTUM, Everyone…ODE!!!” at Swamp Spells and Then Some

“Oh, the Outrate! The Horror!” at Brandywine Books

“President’s Day” at PersonaNonData

“Youth Literature is Filled with Scrotums” at Gelf Magazine–Looking Over the Overlooked

By: Gina Burgess

Gina Burgess — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 03:21:29 +0000

This is like the R rating back in the 70s. R rating back then is like PG 13 today. That book would never have been written for children in the 70s or 80s. It could only make it today.

The subject matter in that book should be above a 10 year old’s head, but unfortunately it isn’t. This is the age of that cartoon character smarty Bart Simpson and King of the Hill and other such stuff that shows on Saturday mornings, which I had no idea had gotten so suggestive until I watched them with my step granddaughter.

I’m on the outraged librarian’s side. If my 10 year old brought that book home in 1987, I would have called the school up and rocked the principal on her heels (using lady-like language, of course). If my granddaughter were to have brought that book home in 2000, I would have rocked the school’s librarian and the princpal after first carefully explaining to my step daughter why it was so upsetting–because, gasp, she wouldn’t know why.

It isn’t a children’s book subject matter. The first chapter incites interest in seeing a scrotum simply because the protag is interested in seeing one–or not. Come on. Why is that even necessary in a children’s book?

I was introduced to the word when I was 8 because I asked where babies came from just to make sure that my friend wasn’t telling me a fib. She wasn’t.

[Insert deep and gusty sigh here]

I am deeply disappointed that children grow up so fast these days. There’s no protection for them anymore. They are exposed to things that make me shudder as an adult. It is so sad that a children’s book author has to write a story about 12-step programs inspiring a child to look for the Higher Power. There’s a word for that, but it may be too strong a word for “worldly sensitive” ears. I’ll say it anyway. Rubbish.

What is wrong with a children’s librarian wanting good books with good subject matter? In this world of ours, have we become so jaded that we think children can’t be interested in stories like Beatrice Potter wrote? Or Joan Aiken? Or even Phyllis Whitney? Or must we all succomb to the spell of J.K. Howling?

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Gina is a grant writer in Newellton, Louisiana. She’s in the process of writing Running from Shadows.