Bawdy Language

New show coming soon on Showtime on how sex became a proper study of Science . How Virginia E. Johnson, a writer, researcher and sex therapist who with her longtime collaborator, William H. Masters, helped make the frank discussion of sex in postwar America possible if not downright acceptable, died on Wednesday in St. Louis at an assisted living center. She was 88

Masters and Johnson moved sex out of the bedroom and into the laboratory, where it could be observed, measured, recorded, quantified and compared.

Contrary to popular belief, there was absolutely no difference between a vaginal orgasm (the good kind, according to Freud) and a clitoral orgasm (the bad kind).

• The length of a man’s penis has no bearing on his ability to satisfy his partner.
• For elderly people, a group long considered sexually demure if not altogether chaste, vigorous sexual activity was not only possible but normal.

… Wow!

Directly from the desk of Dr. Bawdy – http://bawdylanguage.com/blog

In and  around the locker room there’s  little talk of breasts, but lots of conversation about tits.

A woman has bosoms, a bust, or a breast,

Those lily-white swellings that bulge ’neath her vest

They are towers of ivory, sheaves of new wheat,

In a moment of passion, ripe apples to eat.

You may speak of her nipples as small rings of fire

But by Rabelais’ beard, she’ll throw fifteen fits

If you speak of them roundly as good honest tits.

—“Ode to Those Four-Letter Words”

Read more – “Bawdy Language,” the Book

The device is said to draw its name from the mysterious Dr. Condom or Conton, a physician at the court of Charles II (c. 1660–1685) who allegedly created the item to help put a cap on His Majesty’s growing number of illegitimate children. Students of that period, though, have been unable to locate the good Doc- tor, and they’re not even sure he really existed.

Other theories regarding the origin of the word range from a Colonel Condum in the Royal Guard to Condom, a town in Ger- many recorded as a fortress of considerable strength, to an oilskin case that held the colors of the regiment (18th–early 19thC). Some think the word may even be a unique blend of cunnus (for the female pudenda) and “dum” or “dumb”—together rendering the organ incapable of functioning.

Another  claim  regarding the  invention of the  condom, and  its first published description, was made  by Gabriello Fallopio (1523–1562)—whose name is most  closely  associated with  the Fallopian tubes—in De Morbo  Gallico, published two years  after his   death,  in  which   he   encouraged  use   of  linen   sheets  as condoms.

Letter Perfect

The  condom achieved its  greatest popularity during  the  seventeenth and  eighteenth centuries, often appearing in print  as c-d-m and  frequently spoken of as a letter  (French, Italian, or Spanish,  the  letter  and  envelope being  virtually  one),  a form of correspondence which absolutely, positively, had  to be there  overnight.

Read more – “Bawdy Language,” the Book

M’lady’s privates consist of a number of parts.  Those which are featured most prominently are the vulva1 (c. 1548,  Latin for “wrapper”), and  the  vagina2  (c.  1682,  Latin  for “sheath”). However, the whole world knows  them  better  collectively  as the cunt.

Cunt  is a  grand  old  word,  not  underground, not  slang.  You’ll find  variations of it in  Old  and  Middle  English,  Middle  Low and Low German, Old  Norse,  and  Dutch. For  years,  it was  believed that  cunt  derived  from cunnus, the Latin word for the female  genitals,  but  no one  could  explain how the  t got into  cunt.  It was  left for Eric Partridge to discover the word as related to the Old English cwithe,  “womb,”  finding  the  root  of the  matter in  cwe,  (or  cu), which  signifies  “quintessential  physical femininity”—a root  that appears in  a  host  of words  from  “cradle”  and  “cow”  to  “queen” and  “cunning.”

Cunt  has  been  taboo in  writing  and  in  speech since  the  fifteenth  century.  Between   1700   and   1959   it  was   considered obscene, and  it was a legal offense  to print  it in full.

No ordinary four-letter word,  cunt’s  always  been  rather special. It’s a “sexual  energizing  word,”  one  which,  according to Partridge, conveys “the sexual pleasure produced by a woman in a man  and indeed all  that  woman-as-sex signifies  to  a  man  both  physically and  spiritually.”

It’s a cavern of joy you are thinking of now A warm, tender field just awaiting  the plow.

It’s a quivering pigeon caressing your hand

Or that sweet little pussy  that makes  a man stand

Or perhaps it’s a flower, a grotto, a well, The hope of the world, or a velvety  hell.

But friend, heed this warning,  beware the affront

Of aping a Saxon:  don’t call it a cunt.

—“Ode to Those Four-Letter Words”

Read more – “Bawdy Language,” the Book

The  fart’s  fine  lineage  not  withstanding, other  reference works have  been  more  standoffish. The esteemed Oxford  English  Dictionary unequivocally declared fart “not  fit for proper  use.”  Nobody knows  why the  OED  chose  to close  down  this  innocuous form of personal expression or how the  decision was made. One  can  only imagine  a group  of eminent scholars gathered in their  ivory tower, deliberating upon  the  fate  of words,  having  a  beer  or  two,  and shooting the breeze.

“Personally, I favor letting off some  rectal steam.” “No, no! I much  prefer an anal  escape of wind.”

“Really gentlemen, it’s hard  to top voiding wind from the bowels.” “All in favor of the fart…”

And so the fart fell from grace—expelled from polite society  and relegated to second-class status. Farting  around (c. 1900)  came to signify purposelessness; anything overly  pretentious was  arty- farty.”  Farting  off  (c.1968) made  you  inattentive and  neglectful, leading  to one blunder after another, causing you to fart away (c.1928) or squander your opportunities.

The  Random  House  Dictionary  of the English  Language  defined a fart as  “an  irritating  or foolish  person.” One  in his  dotage  was written  off as an  old  fart. Worthless items  and  activities were not worth  a fart in a windstorm (both  20thC). And when  your  mind went  blank  and  you  did  something incredibly dumb, or  experienced an  inexplicable aberration in  your  software  program, you had  a brainfart (c. 1983).  “I normally remember my social  security number, but I had  a brainfart.”

Read more – “Bawdy Language,” the Book

We’re  most  nuts  about our  balls (10thC), the  term  by  which  we know  them  best.  Balls  have  demonstrated  exceptional versatility and  service  to the  language. If you’re looking  for courage, look no further.  It takes  balls to acquit yourself  like a man,  often balls the size of  watermelons. Even  Hemingway’s heroes required real cojones (Spanish for balls) in order  to show  grace under pressure. Ever  so necessary, they’re  unfortunately not  always  sufficient. As Fast Eddie  Felson  (Paul  Newman) reminded Vince (Tom Cruise)  in The Color of Money  (1986):  “You’ve got to have  two things  to win. You’ve got to have  brains and  you’ve got to have  balls. You’ve got too much  of one and  not enough of the other.”

Newspapers seldom  have  balls in  such  matters. As part  of a policy adopted in 1993–94, The San Francisco Chronicle sup- presses even the hints  it formerly gave readers to “offensive”  words (e.g. sh-t  or a—hole), choosing now to either  omit them  altogether or use  in  their  stead “cute”  equivalents, such  as  “Spaldings” (a trade  name for sports  equipment) for balls.

The oldest  English  word for the testicles that  we have  on record is the  beallucas (before  10thC). We  later  had  the  ballokes (c. 1382)  or  ballocks and  the  verb  to  ballock (19th–20thC), from which  we got our  “Ballocky  Bill the  Sailor”—a  ballsy old  salt  if there  ever was one.  Time and  his yearning for acceptability would mellow him into the children’s favorite,  Barnacle Bill, with hardly  a hint of his salacious character.

Part 1 Part 2

Read more – “Bawdy Language,” the Book

Truly ballsy but also somewhat bollixed or balled-up were the Skopts,  a religious  sect at the time of Catherine II and  Alexander I, which  initiated new  members into  the  cult  by  searing  their  balls with a hot  iron.  For some  unexplained reason, the  sect  died  out— but  their  rites  lived  on,  entering the  language as  our  “baptism of fire.”

Balls  have  also served  us well as an important interjection, part of our long-standing tradition of using the better  half of the body to register  emotion. They express surprise and  exasperation (“Nuts!”) as well as incredulity and  disappointment (“Nonsense!”).

“Baloney!”  you  say?  As Partridge reminds us,  that  word  comes not from the sausage but from the Gypsy pelone—for balls.

Functionally speaking, it would  be difficult to imagine  the sports world  without balls.  Absolutely critical  to most  of our games,  they are governed by definite  rules  as to their use.  It’s proper  for men  to play  ball  with  balls  provided by  management, but  it’s forbidden that  they  play  with  their  own  balls. And when  a ball  bounces up and  hits the catcher in the balls, it is said to “ring his bell,” though the sound is that  of a dull thud  followed by a shrill cry.

Hedy Lamarr: “I’ll meet you in front of the pawn shop.”
Bob Hope: “Okay, Dottie, and then you can kiss me under the balls.”
—Sketch on The Pepsodent Radio Show.
(Hope’s line in the script was a simple “Okay.”)

Part 1 Part 2

Read more – “Bawdy Language,” the Book

Christianity has done a great deal for love by making a sin of it.

You might not have guessed it from the Old Testament, but for the Jews, fucking has always been a matter of doing the agree- able (19thC)—no guilt, no pain, no anxiety. Good sex was considered a mitzvah, an exemplary deed. The most pious reserved Friday night for doing it with their wives, choosing the most holy day, the Sabbath, to perform this most sacred and blessed act.

We’re Cross with You

The Christian attitude toward sex, on the other hand, left everything to be desired. It originated with the Church leaders and authorities, who did much to shape and influence future attitudes on the topic.

Before you could say “hellsfire, brimstone, and damnation,” people began feeling guilt. Soon they found themselves doing the naughty (19thC), feeling naughtiness in the pleasure prior to, during, and subsequent to the act.

The medieval Church worked hard to eliminate guilt by simply cutting down on the number of occasions on which one might feel pleasure. It recommended abstinence on Thursdays in memory of the capture of Jesus; on Fridays in memory of his death; on Saturdays in honor of the Virgin Mary; on Sundays in memory of the Resurrection; and on Mondays in commemoration of the departed souls. The act was also forbidden forty days before Pentecost and Christmas, and was never to be performed on special feast days or during Lent. Thus was born the appointment book.

Read more – “Bawdy Language,” the Book

I was walking along this fucking fine morning,
fucking sun fucking shining away,
little country fucking lane,
and I meets up with this fucking girl,
fucking lovely she was,
so we gets into fucking conversation,
and I takes her over a fucking gate into a fucking field,
and we has sexual intercourse.

How to use the “F” word.

Read more – “Bawdy Language,” the Book

Amongst his many talents, Dr. Bawdy is also an intrepid investigative reporter. Thanks to his efforts and a good camera, he can now share with you the first photos of Anthony’s Weiner. We first met him at Nathan’s hot dog eating competition. It was there that Joey Chestnut, winner of the contest endorsed Weiner in the mayoral race.

Anthony’s Weiner in competition with the others

Anthony’s Weiner in solitary contemplation

As a good Jewish American and a firm (what else?) supporter of Israel, Anthony’s Weiner professes to be 100% Kosher and a cut above the rest. Hebrew National, what else? We will resist saying how he does so with great relish.

Asked to explain his tweeting activity, he refused comment, saying “ I answer to a higher power.” Pressed further, as to when he might elaborate further, Weiner added, “When the moment is right.” This did not go over well with the press, however, who charged him with failure to rise to the occasion and flip-flopping.

More on Anthony Weiner

Doctor Bawdy offers two of his favorite links for Anthony Weiner:

David Letterman on top Ten Names other than Carlos Danger – http://www.buzzfeed.com/video/andrewkaczynski/letterman-mocks-anthony-weiner-with-top-ten-other-sexting-na

Best TV Jokes on Weiner: http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/democrats/a/Anthony-Weiner-Jokes.htm

Directly from the desk of Dr. Bawdy – http://bawdylanguage.com/blog