The Bald-Headed Hermit & the Artichoke
Have you ever been deeply entrenched in a conversation about analingus when suddenly you realize that your vocabulary on the subject is rather limited? Perhaps the situation calls for a word for that act not quite so clinical as the one used above, but talking about “eating ass” still seems just a bit too vulgar? Well, if you happen to have a copy of The Bald-Headed Hermit and the Artichoke: An Erotic Thesaurus handy, maybe you’ll be able to wrap up your conversation about “bog snorkeling” and be on your merry way.
A.D. Peterkin’s 150-page volume contains this and other synonyms for a variety of more or less sexually charged words. There are several highly entertaining and at times even fascinating entries, with occasional origins of terms scattered throughout the book. The slang “Dick” for example apparently owes its inception to a London hangman in the 1890s named Derrick (Dick for short) who was notorious for pulling his noose tight enough to induce erections in dying prisoners.
From Abdomen to Wife, the thesaurus covers considerable ground, but does leave something to be desired. Peterkin’s claim that it is “the first of its kind” is somewhat dubious considering some of the entries listed in its bibliography, and overall it is more of a humorous coffee table book than a scholarly tome. While there are many interesting entries, there are as many that lean towards the banal, presumably the result of the author’s attempt to be thorough.
Since profanity is inherently taboo, it seems an almost impossible and perhaps unnecessary task to try and accurately document it. Besides, much of what makes words like this fun is that you can’t look them up in a book. However, one gets the sense that part of Peterkin’s reason for compiling the book is to make people question why much erotic language is considered profane at all, a noble pursuit in my opinion, and the book is fairly successful at accomplishing this.
As Peterkin points out in the introduction, “Erotic slang, like sexuality itself, is in constant, frenetic, celebratory evolution, limited not by technology or actual practice but by sheer imagination.” This is true not only for erotic language, but for language in general, and because of this no erotic (or otherwise) thesaurus will ever be truly complete.
Still, The Bald-Headed Hermit and the Artichoke is a valiant first edition of an erotic thesaurus, and Peterkin does seem to realize its inevitable shortcomings, inviting readers to contribute any words that he has left out (they can do so at the publisher’s website). Overall, fun to browse through, giggle at, and occasionally even be informed by, but those without a particularly strong interest in erotic language might be somewhat disappointed.
