Naming Body Parts
In an Advocate interview with the star from the movie "Testosterone" from the 17 August 2004 issue–I've lost the page with his name on it: when asked how he felt about modeling underwear and did it make him uncomfortable, he said
I'm not shy about anything. I'm pretty cool with walking around in my underwear. I'm happy with my … my thing … my friend … whatever you want to call it.
How about, we wonder, calling it a PENIS. So much for being really cool and comfortable about … you know … his "thing".
This reminds me of a report that I read a few years back in Consumer Repots. The report concerned tampons. The first page of the four-page report was devoted entirely to talking about how the magazine, when it had first reported on tampons a decade before, had felt the climate of the times and therefore resorted to circumlocution and euphemism when talking about, um, feminine hygiene. Hadn't we come such a long way into more modern and enlightened times, they pronounced! Boldly they continued, explaining when and how to use the tampon and how to insert them.
Noticably lacking to my eye, particularly after the page announcing their total freedom from avoiding the delicate, was any mention of what it was that the tampons were to be inserted into. The mouth? The ear? Between the toes? Perhaps, um, the little flower (the thing, the friend…)? Such progress!