CNN’s Anderson Cooper was covering the steroid-use scandal in professional baseball last night when he asked medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta a question about steroids’ effect on the size of men’s testes. But instead of actually saying “testes,” he called them “bits and pieces.” He was too embarrassed to use the proper word!

After Gupta answered, Anderson apologized and said his question was “ridiculous.”

Was he for real? What’s ridiculous is the fact that a 40-year-old man giggled like a little kid when it came time to say “testes.” See for yourself:

We learn the proper names for all our body parts in school, but when it comes time to talk about our sexual and reproductive organs, people start to blush. Why is it so taboo to use proper names for genitalia? Using words like “bits and pieces” instead of “testes” communicates a sense of shame about sexuality—that it’s embarrassing and shouldn’t be talked about.

Guess what: Sexuality isn’t shameful—we should celebrate it! Shout those words out loud! Vaginas and penises and scrotums, oh my! They’re the actual names for parts of your body, and it’s 100 percent OK to say them.

Need practice using the proper sex terms? We’ve got a glossary full of them!

Tags: anatomy, drugs, guys' health, sex terms, TV

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15, 2008 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Everyday Sex Ed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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