Which got me thinking. If collating 800-plus bawdy songs, toasts, and poems (some of which I wrote myself) into a several hundred pages-long document and self-publishing it counts as “writing a book,” I’m the author of a banned book. That is, a book that would be banned if Libs of Tik Tok<\/a><\/strong> knew about it!<\/p>\n I didn’t grow up with bawdy songs, and only started singing them when I was in my 30s, flying fighters in Europe with the U.S. Air Force (which is basically just a big rugby club with lethal weapons). Seven years ago, a group of sexual assault victims brought suit against the USAF. One of the items they introduced into evidence was a fighter squadron songbook, which they claimed showed an institutional culture of sexual violence against women. As far as I can tell, litigation is ongoing \u2014 the only online references I can find date back to 2015, the year the suit was filed. If anyone knows more, please clue me in, because it’s a story I want to follow.<\/p>\n I blogged about bawdy songbooks \u2014 mine and others’ \u2014 in April, 2015, and will share with you what I wrote then:<\/p>\n Eventually I put together my own songbook.\u00a0Hash\u00a0chapters all over the world use it; I get\u00a0requests for copies every week. There’s a copy in the American Folklife Archive of the US Library of Congress.\u00a0I’ve shared my versions of classic and little-known bawdy songs with scholars and folk singers.<\/p>\n Hey, it’s a hobby, but an increasingly disreputable one. Today, witness the witch hunts on Twitter, people are quick to take offense and pile on. There are a hell of a lot of songs in my collection\u00a0that belittle women and depict them as depraved sexual wantons. Many\u00a0are racist\u00a0(though I must say not to the level of those frat guys\u00a0on the bus\u00a0with their n-word chant). The truly gross ones are\u00a0traditional military songs about war: have you heard of a little ditty called Napalm Sticks to Kids? Jesus.<\/p>\n![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8704\/17031068022_7b402820a5_n.jpg\")
I started learning and collecting bawdy songs when I was in the Air Force; every fighter squadron I flew with had an\u00a0unofficial songbook (that’s one of my old squadron songbooks on the left). Midway through my USAF career\u00a0I started running with the Hash House Harriers, who, like rugby players and fighter pilots, share a love of bawdy song.<\/p>\n