First, the background.
Austin Powers was on television last night. Normally, when a movie is on network tv, they censor out all the naughty bits, so of course, the segment with
the Swedish Made Penis Enlarger Pump, was understandably altered to be heard as 'swedish made enlarger pump'. no, wait.
Had I heard my ears correctly? Had they blanked out the word 'penis'? Isn't penis the actual word off of which many euphemisms, has spawned off of?
Euphemisms, I might add, which can be much more inappropriate for young ears, and were
not blanked out.
Now maybe, in my short life, I have not been exposed to enough
bad television to learn which words are, and are not appropriate for
network tv. However, I think penis very appropriate. I think if we
censor out the word penis, then children will begin to believe that it is a
bad word.
If penis is a bad word, then what, exactly, are kids supposed to say? If we as adults have trouble saying a word which is the real name of an
organ, then how do we say the word
fuck so easily?
Think about it. A little boy, taught his whole life that he has a 'garden hose', since penis is a bad word, and so are the euphemisms for it, is molested. He goes for help. He finds a cop, or a teacher. He says 'that man in the alley touched my garden hose. The teacher will think nothing of it. The kid will have been unhelped. The pedophile will go unsuspected. This is not a world I'd like to live in.