Photo: Rose, Tinted B&W (No. 5)

This is from the Rose Test Center at Washington Park, in Portland. As I shoot it I cannot help thinking about the root of the Latin word for our genitals: pudere, which means to be ashamed of or to be modest about, from which we get the term pudenda. Still used in textbooks today to avoid using naughty words on impressionable minds, pudenda is weighted by the sour wish of the high priests to make something nasty of something beautiful. What if our genitals were named rosa instead of pudenda? A sweet-smelling invitation, rather than object of scorn!