the third sex

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As an Englishman, writing on the subject of ladyboys I sometimes have a problem when I consider that half of the members of this site are American.

Writing in praise of a beautiful bottom, I would naturally use the English word “bum”, which has been in currency since the middle of the 14th century as a slang term for the buttocks. Americans however would consider that I have added a sexual interest in hobos to my list of perversions, and in vain I would protest that they have been using the word “bum” to describe a tramp or loafer only since the middle of the 19th century.

In fact even the British have taken to using the American meaning, at least when using phrases such as “bumming a lift” and “bumming around.” We even say “what a bummer” when something goes wrong, although to persons of a certain age a bummer is a homosexual. This however belongs to the days before a homosexual became a gay, and quite likely no longer raises a snigger amongst English schoolboys.

(”Gay” however does raise a snigger even amongst those old enough to know better when it is spotted in its original innocent meaning, which lasted up until the 1960s.)

I am not able to use the word “ass”, because for the English an ass is a donkey. I am on shifting sands here, I do admit, because “ass” has also been used in England as a variation on the word “arse” for many hundreds of years. In fact, the word “donkey” was coined at some time in the late 18th century to remove the potential for embarrassment when talking about a beast of burden. But to modern-day Brits, an ass is still either a small horse or a stupid fellow, and has little or no sexual connotation.

I am not able to use the American term “buns” as this is the product of a bakery and has no sexual meaning, while a “butt” is to us a barrel in which we hold rainwater. If I use the French word “derriere”, which I think is really rather sexy, bringing to mind saucy French maids and frilly knickers, I might completely mystify a lot of people, and cause many more to think I am being precocious.

Why do I suddenly raise all these questions of language? Well, I have just spent a highly enjoyable but chaste four-week holiday in London where, kept indoors for much of the time by freezing cold weather I wallowed in a biography of William Shakespeare and also a large tome on the history of London and its various dialects, both purchased with book tokens gratefully received as Christmas presents.

So, to sign off I will defiantly reproduce this piece of doggerel spotted recently in a British newspaper and purporting to be the translation of an old Middle Eastern poem:

There is a shepherd boy over the river
With a bum like a peach
And he’s waiting for me
But I cannot swim.