BOOKS

Notices and reviews of books, articles, plays and poetry dealing with homosexuality and the sex variant. Readers are invited to send in reviews or printed matter for review.

THE ANATOMY OF DIRTY WORDS, by Edward Sagarin, Lyle Stuart Publisher, New York, 1962, pp. 220.

It has been pointed out previously by this writer that the two themes of the history of Western Europe are the gradually increasing acceptance of the concept of democracy, the idea that the goods of life should be enjoyed by all men who have the interest and capacity to profit by them, rather than by a selected and favored few, and rationality, the idea that man's thinking should ever approach reality more closely. As one contemplates the history of thought, he is amazed at the obstacles against which rationality has had to contend: large areas of phantasy, superstitions, stupidity, greed, and sheer ignorance. And yet withal, each century since the Renaissance in the fifteenth century has shown a definite victory in some area. In our own times many aspects of man's concern are being questioned with a new vigor. Among these sex in its various manifestations is occupying a prominent place. The present volume is a study of the language of sex, a subject of more controversy almost than the facts of sex itself.

When England was conquered in 1066 by William I, the original AngloSaxon population received an influx of Norman French which thus created a twofold language situation. As Latin was the language of the Church and

the learned world, it added a third linguistic element. The Anglo-Saxons became the serfs or lower classes, the Norman French the nobles or aristocrats, and priests and diplomats a third element in the population, these three levels lending their social status to the languages. With the passing of the years, lines of division were obliterated and modern English resulted. But curiously enough, the status levels persisted and to this day words of reputed Anglo-Saxon origin are considered inferior and Latin or Latinized expressions of superior usage.

Thus in the areas of elimination and reproduction there is an entire vocabularly generally termed AngloSaxon, or four-letter, that has been tabu in printed form and polite society, although known and used universally by men and boys from their earliest years. It was called obscene and remained outside all serious study until the present period when increasing rationality, considering all human concerns as grist to its mill, has commenced to break down the tabu. The author, Sagarin, finds that the original, literal meanings of this subterranean vocabularly have been widened into figurative and symbolic connotations which are definitely harmful to our thinking. The elimination of waste as a bodily function has come to give a highly distasteful character to the reproductive function which should be the most beautiful and significant

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