What's in a Word?

I'd like to digress from my usual talk of Middle Eastern culture, to rant a bit about the national leadership of the Boy Scouts of America. I know, I know, it's been done, but now it's personal.

Considering the ongoing mess in the Middle East, I think everyone, and young people especially, should learn all they can about the region. What better way to get started than by reading an exciting action/adventure novel set there during an important recent historical event. (See Sandstorm sidebar). Right?

So I tried to sell the book to BSA for their scout shops and catalog, only to be told that, while they enjoyed the book greatly, they were unable to stock it. It had, they said, "some objectionable content." Pressing for details, they said in Chapter 4, brash, wise-cracking sixteen year-old Aussie Brian tells his pals he has to take "a massive piss." Ouch. I was so stunned by this I forgot to ask whether I could have passed the test by using "massive pee." How about "massive whiz?" Maybe just "massive tinkle?"

I shouldn't have been surprised, knowing the BSA national leadership stance on social issues. I was willing to overlook this to give the boys a taste of a part of the world they may be asked to go fight in, in a few years. Or maybe I just wanted to sell a few books. But --- would I have left out the part about piss, pee, whiz, tinkle, had I known their position? Hell no.