My wife and I had the pleasure of spending a week in Hobart (Tasmania) not long ago. It was a wonderful holiday and we’d recommend it highly, but I bet you’re wondering what that has to do with the title of this post.

One night while watching the news there was a segment on a dog that had eaten some grass seed, quite possibly accidentally when the owner or a neighbour had spread the seed on the lawn and the dog inhaled or licked it up somehow. The crux of the story was how painful and dangerous this undigested grass seed had become when it was lodged in the dog’s penis.

Pardon? Penis? Did I say that?

In the news segment neither the reporter nor the vet interviewed used the term penis. The reporter commented on how the seed had become lodged in the dog’s “boy bits” and the vet (of all people) used the even sillier term “wee wee.” (Now to be fair the reporter may have cautioned the vet not to say penis since it might not make it to air; nevertheless, the vet should not have obliged, respectfully.) There was nothing sexual from the use of the term, the dog was in pain, not hard up.

When I taught Grade 9 Science in Ontario, Reproduction was a quarter of the course. It included mitosis, meiosis, asexual and sexual forms of reproduction, the structure of flowers, and included a good amount of time on human reproduction (or at least its biology/plumbing aspects). At the beginning of the human reproduction segment I would outline the main points we were to learn (as I did with the other segments); however, being cognizant of the unease in the class I would get my students to say the words “penis” and “vagina” out loud a couple of times - it helped to get the giggles out and made the rest of the teaching palatable for everyone involved. (Oddly enough, my last two classes were predominately girls, which did not bother me but made them a little more uneasy, not to mention the seriously out-numbered boys.)

Penis and vagina. They’re just words right? Anatomical words at that. Besides, far worse words are said on air to describe anatomy, so what’s wrong with the proper words of penis or vagina? Which brings me to the beaver.

In 1920 a magazine called The Beaver was founded by the fur trading institution The Hudson’s Bay Company, which not surprisingly traded in beaver fur, among others. The aim of the magazine was to highlight Canada’s history and it has done so admirably ever since. Except that recently the name of the magazine has become a bit of a distraction, a titillation if you will.

You see “beaver” has a double meaning in this situation; the first is plainly obvious, it’s just a fur-bearing water mammal with a rich historical claim to being a part of Canada’s history, but the second meaning is as a euphemism for a vagina, and as such it has caused a stir when many of The Beaver’s potential readers were searching for it over the internet, the magazine that is, not a vagina. Not surprisingly then, they often ran into porn sites instead of the correct one. Therefore the publishers of the magazine Canada's National History Society have decided to change its name to Canada’s History, fittingly.

I say all the power to them for making this bold and brave decision, who knows what kind of confusion words and phrases with double entendres might lead to. Can you imagine the palpitations someone might experience searching for information on skinning a beaver only to find instructions on how to give yourself a Brazillian. And see, it’s called a Brazillian, so isn’t it good to know these sexual terms and phrases are international. Which leads back to our trip to Tasmania.

You see here in Australia, a Map of Tassie, is a phrase used to describe the patch of pubic hair on a female since it resembles the shape of Tassie (Tasmania). Honest, go have a look... at a map.

I’m not really sure how long it was after Tasmania was charted before someone noticed the resemblance, but I bet it was worth the exploration. When I started teaching here the odd student would make me say “root” to get a few giggles in class, since outside of its biological context it has the same connotation as “screw” does to represent sex. So I can only imagine how many students in Tasmania would get their teachers to say “map of Tassie” for a giggle or two. Geography class must be fun. I can hear a Uranus joke here as well.

The reality is any word or phrase can take on a sexual connotation over time, it just takes an imagination, and possibly a map. The original founders of Canada must have known the term beaver was going to rise in sexual prowess, that’s why it’s not on the Canadian Coat of Arms, as opposed to the Australian Coat of Arms which bears both a kangaroo and an emu - two animals happily served up on a dinner plate here. You see, in Canada, eating beaver...has a whole different meaning.

John Daicopoulos