Everybody knows the futility of trying to look up a “dirty” word in the dictionary. Even a quite ordinary word such as cunnilingus is not listed in every dictionary – a quick browse through my Webster’s just confirmed that. And as for the f-word itself, I have been mystified as to why dictionaries, to this day, with the exception of the Oxford, don’t often include this important noun, adjective, and verb. I guess it’s all part of what author A.D. Peterkin, a Toronto psychiatrist, journalist, and poet, would describe as “cuss control”; the need to have polite verbal intercourse at the cost of knowledge.

Just in time for the turn of the century, Peterkin has created a progressive thesaurus that demystifies the language of sex. The Bald-Headed Hermit & the Artichoke (euphemisms for private parts of the male and female anatomy respectively), is a compilation of phrases that refer to all aspects of human sexuality, from breast and testicles to fetishes and sexual paraphernalia. In his introduction Peterkin notes how “pig Latin, rhyme, alliteration, acronym, abbreviation, approximation, foreign language, mythology, metaphor, and secret code have all been recruited to name what was thought to be unnameable.” The book is a celebration of the human imagination; for instance, there are over 1,400 phrases and euphemisms for the word penis. It is also, unfortunately, an exercise in degradation, given the enormous list of pejorative descriptions that are used to describe female body parts and functions.

As this book is archival, even the derogatory terms must be included. That Peterkin has included language from previously silent sexual communities such as gays, the transgendered, various fetishists, and libertines, is truly interesting and progressive. A quick read through this thesaurus shows us how the very language of sex is changing in these enlightened times. At the same time, with its references to practices such as freak-fucking and coprophilia, this volume is primarily for adults only.