Controversy is raging in the publishing world. It appears that this year's winner for the Newberry Medal (the Pulitzer of children's literature) has sparked a firestorm. Said book, "The Higher Power of Lucky," has been banned by libraries across the country because it contained a word that librarians and parents alike are finding horrifying. The offending word? Scrotum.

From today's New York Times:

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.”

I think Lucky nailed it, actually. For any of you that has witnessed a naked man bending over from behind, you'd agree. That whole scrotum thing always makes me think of goats. And let's just leave it at that.

What is it about these clinical, anatomically correct words that make people so uncomfortable? Hollaback Girl recently sent me a news link about a production of "The Vagina Monologues" being staged in Utah. Local residents complained about the word "vagina" appearing on the theater marquee. The brouhaha reached such a fever pitch that the theater management was forced to change the marquee to "The Hoo Haw Monologues" which, frankly, is freaking hilarious. I'm convinced some geriatrics wandered into the theater under the impression this show may be a tribute to "Hee Haw."

When I was growing up, I don't think I ever heard the words vagina or penis used to describe our anatomy. My paternal grandmother and maiden aunts pointed to the offending area and called it "down there." Until I went to a health class in the 4th grade, I didn't realize "down there" had a anatomical name. We never used those names at home.

My family was certainly not afraid to talk about body parts. Case in point: we referred to that round brush attachment on the vacuum cleaner as "The Pussy Brush." Yeah, no repression in my family. But being the free wheeling family we were, we couldn't rely on the pedestrian expressions already in popular culture. We had to make up our own words and my dad was the one who coined "dooja."

Dooja was my family's all purpose word for genitalia, both male and female. And we used that particular, strange word freely, often and with ease. For example, we were often tasked to bathe Super, our big yellow mutt of a dog. Marv and I would have to stand in the tub in order to wash the breadth of his smelly and voluminous coat. As we were knee deep in skanky water, trying to hold the brute down while washing him, my mother would call to us in her sing song English accent, "Kids, don't forget to wash his dooja!" She said it every time and we'd flip a coin to see who had to do that part.

Even my maternal Grandma adapted dooja, although she brought her own terms to the table too. She liked the expression "Parson's nose" (which could have meant "scrotum"--I was never actually sure) and she used the term "naughty bits." Grandma was bawdy, bless her.

In general, I think we are more comfortable using slang expressions than anatomically correct ones. Even I feel a little squeamish when I witness progressive parents asking their children to identify the difference between boys and girls. Seeing a child say, "Well girls have a vagina and boys have a penis," is a little too academic for me. That's usually my cue to tell them, "No, honey, it's a dooja."