FOREWORD ix<br > women. Others should perhaps also be so marked， but the infor-<br > mation is lacking. Women do not often like bawdy limericks， in<br > which they generally figure as both villain and victim. A few<br > disorganized females have been found in recent years， however，<br > willing to match the standard cruel and castratory anti-woman<br > limericks with equally cruel and castratory anti-man limericks of<br > their own concocting.<br > One further depressing note. Despite the presumed New<br > Freedom since the late i96o s， at least as to sex (the hatches are<br > down tight on political freedom these years， which may be why<br > they are easing up a little on the sex?) almost all the collectors and<br > all but three of the original limerick poets have urgently insisted<br > that their true names not be published. Sometimes with a panicky<br > insistence that rather surprises one in this "postlapsarian world (as<br > Dr. Rayna Green has called it) deluged with X-rated films，<br > bottomless bars， and leather shops." Meanwhile， perfectly lunatic<br > fantasy sadism is shamelessly unleashed on an international scale<br > in all the "media arts，" as mass brainwashing for the genocides<br > to come -- when the food runs short.<br > One wonders sometimes why certain limerick fanciers so<br > enthusiastically write， recite， and circulate the rhymes of which，<br > in the end， they are so ashamed. One part of the explanation is<br > doubtless the fact that a surprisingly large percentage of limerick<br > specialists -- at least those I have met or heard of - are of the<br > homosexual persuasion. Norman Douglas， for one， the Grand<br > (Dirty) Old Man of the limerick art， expressed neither shame nor<br > shyness about his psychosexual peculiarity， as his courageously<br > signed volume Some Limericks (1928) tranquilly displays on<br > many a page. Not every limerick poet， even today， dares to<br > parade such studied forthrightness. Yet one of the problems of<br > editing the present volume has been keeping the new "Gay<br > Liberation" limericks of the t96o s and since down to a reasonable<br > proportion of the text， while diminishing somewhat the gossipy<br > bitchiness to which they are prone， especially the Oedipal ten-<br >