And since when is the correct name for a body part "sexual."

When it describes a sexual body part. But try it yourself: go up to a [male/female] work associate and say, "My! Your [penis/nipples] are quite erect today!" and see whether or not you get called out for making  inappropriate "sexual" comments.

That you consider the word scrotum "sexual" tells us more about you than about the word, gerry.

Yeah -- that I'm normal. The scrotum contains part of the male sexual reproduction organs, by definition.

Years ok, when I taught at an alternative education high school, some of the kids and I were out playing softball between classes.  Since I'm not much of a runner, and since I'm kinda sneaky, I was asked to pitch.  The game moved along and a good time was had by all...until one of my students hit a line drive right to my Old Man.  Taking a hit to the Wedding Tackle is never fun and this was no exception.  To say that my Beans and Frank were throbing is an understatement.  The pain in my Berries and Twig was so great that I dropped to my knees*.

Later, on the accident report, I indicated that I had been struck a blow to my scrotum.  What else could I say?

*I still threw the kid out at first though...then I rolled over in the dirt and whimpered.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

A) That was high school, by which time children are at or past sexual maturity.

B) I'm pretty sure you filed the report with the high school administration, which is composed of adults.

C) I doubt that even with high schoolers, you'd feel comfortable using the word conversationally. "You've got a good scrotum there, kid" just doesn't have much general acceptance.

Some people have a foot fetish.  The fingers and hands can be used for sexual gratification, as can the fist.  The tongue and mouth are sexual body parts if the penis is, given that the penis does not serve an exclusively sexual function, either.  

So far, our new list of words that cannot be used in books for children:

foot/feet
finger(s)
hand(s)
fist(s)
tongue(s)
mouth(s)

Your post also indicates that you consider "nipples" a reference to a sexual body part as well.  I suggest you contact your elected representatives immediately to encourage them to draft legislation criminalizing the breastfeeding of infants for the sexual abuse it is.  Imagine those twisted mothers shoving a sexual body part in a child's mouth...it disgusts me.

Or does context matter?

In regione caecorum, rex est luscus.

I suggest you contact your elected representatives immediately to encourage them to draft legislation criminalizing the breastfeeding of infants for the sexual abuse it is.  Imagine those twisted mothers shoving a sexual body part in a child's mouth...it disgusts me.

Tipping Sacred Cows

Good lord.  

In regione caecorum, rex est luscus.

Or does context matter?

Context does matter. In this case, the context is: an author, who has complete control over the language and direction of a story, chose to use both as a way to include a word outside most children's knowledge, and outside accepted vocabulary of the majority of similarly-marketed books. She forced the issue.

I was talking about the context in which the word was used in the story, not the real-world context in which the author chose to use it.  However, I suspect you purposely misconstrued my meaning since you don't really have a good explanation for why the word is so horrifying in the story's non-sexual context.

When I was in school, we had comprehensive sex-ed in the sixth grade.  I was 11 at the time.  We learned all of the proper names for the male and female genital anatomy and saw all of the colorful diagrams.  This book was written for 10-year-olds.  I'd hardly call that forcing the issue.

In regione caecorum, rex est luscus.

Discussing erect nipples or penises IS inappropriate.  And if she had described how the dog was licking its balls & getting off, I would understand why it is considered sexual.  But we have had a workplace discussion about one of our partners being hit in the family jewels, in the company baseball game.  Was it a sexual discussion?  No.  In this context, the use of the word scrotum wasn't sexual.  Heck, we've discussed the neutering of pets, and even have sponsored a spay/neuter clinic.  Do you consider the discussion of that sponsorship to be sexual?

In other news, some other somewhat well known children's books include the word scrotum.  Quick.  Hide All Creatures Great and Small.  It's smut.

Thalia

What's the harm of including it?

About the same harm as a woman lawyer conducting a trial in a bikini. It won't make the world end. It won't cause any real damage to the children. What it will likely do is ensure that the children who read it will remember it as "the book about a dog's balls" and ignore the rest; hence my legitimacy complaint.

Most books focus on entertaining kids, not teaching them.

Focus and design are two different issues. Think of Picasso's "The Old Guitarist": the focus is a man with a guitar; the design is, well, blue. Children's books are written upon subjects which entertain, certainly. The architecture of their construction, however, is rather constrained -- sentence structure only so complex, vocabulary only so difficult. They are very much written to teach.

Clearly you have been perusing a different set of books than I have.  With respect to this particular book, though, the reviews on Amazon do not say "hahah, balls!" they say "an interesting story."  It didn't win the Newberry Award because people couldn't stop giggling about balls.  It won because it was an interesting book, that was popular with kids, and well written.  I might add that a much larger factor in the book is the fact that the protagonist's mother dies, when the protagonist is a pre-teen.  But somehow reading the words "scrotum" is more scarring for kids than reading about a child whose mother dies & whose father is sufficiently "absentee" that he never makes an appearance?  

Thalia

Please. The only people who will remember the book in this way are adults who are reading about this controversy. The children who are reading the book are likely to have forgotten about that bit by the end of the book, or will remember it as just a passing part of the book.

If adults don't flag something up as 'rude' for children, then children are unlikely to notice that it is 'rude'. Treat the anecdote in a straight-forward manner, without batting an eyelid, and the child won't notice any big issues with the sentence.

A woman lawyer conducting a trial in a bikini is reinforcing degrading stereotypes, while sentences about a child who doesn't know the meaning of the word 'scrotum' is just a harmless story about how useful a good dictionary really is.

Scrotum is a sexual word?  How about epididymis?  Vas deferens?  Prostate?

Blah, blah. Spare me the hair-splitting. The issue at hand is appropriateness of language for children. When any of the above start to appear in Richard Scarry books, I'll concede the point.

If his 5-year-old grandchild is in the room, is he making an inappropriate sexual comment?

If that level of detail is directed to the 5-year-old -- you know, the way a children's book is -- then I would question its appropriateness, sexual or no.

It was a dog's scrotum.. that makes it bestiality, not sexuality.

Tipping Sacred Cows

The issue at hand is appropriateness of language for children.

And relevant to the issue at hand is whether the anatomical name for a body part involved in sexual function, but used in a non-sexual context, is inherently inappropriate for children old enough to already be aware of the cruder names for many of those body parts.

If that level of detail is directed to the 5-year-old -- you know, the way a children's book is -- then I would question its appropriateness, sexual or no.

But the question of whether such a statement is inherently sexual (a question you chose not to directly answer) is relevant to your argument, since you're saying that the use of the word scrotum in this book is inappropriate because it is, in your words, a sexual body part (apparently in any context).

In regione caecorum, rex est luscus.