It’s no surprise to find that Australia is a filthy, filthy place.

It’s only to be expected, in today’s world of 24-hour scat porn and on-demand underpants commercials.

The more refined days of yore, when kindergarten teachers still refused to use the F-word in class and there was nothing more erotic than a woman who kept her gloves on, have clearly passed on for good.

But still, it comes as something of a jolt to be reminded of just how deeply obscenity and disrespect is embedded in our nation, even unto its very geography.

The newly-released Marvellous Map of Actual Australian Place Names — a name redolent with dark irony if ever I saw one — makes clear that this is a country founded on, maintained by, and revelling in, filth of the most intestine-turning kind.

More ‘pornographic’ than ‘funny’

The map was produced by the suspicious-sounding firm of Strumpshaw, Tincleton and Giggleswick, or ST&G, to disseminate among the public knowledge of places such as Horny Point and Intercourse Island: actual place names which they call “funny” but which I call “pornographic”.

Look, if you will, at some of the place names that our forefathers saw fit to burden us with.

I’m talking about names like Bastard Point, in New South Wales. Now, what kind of disturbed mind would come up with such an appellation?

I mean, yes, we all know that bastards exist, and they have to come from somewhere.

The Marvellous Map of Actual Australian Place Names (click to enlarge). Photo: ABC

But isn’t it possible to acknowledge the unfortunate fact of bastardry, without pointing out to the entire world the spot from which they spring?

‘There’s provocative, then there’s recklessly invitational’

It’s a similar story with names like Big Nobby and Rooty Hill.

I’m not denying they’re accurate descriptions of the populace and/or common activities of those areas, but we needn’t act so proud about it. There must be other things going on in Rooty Hill that we could recognise on the maps.

I could say the same about Curly Dick Road, in Meadow Flat: I don’t dispute that there are people living on this avenue whose anatomy would, in polite circles, excite comment; but this seems to me to be all the more reason to hush it up, not broadcast it.

And as for Glory Hole Cave: I mean there is provocative, and then there is recklessly invitational.

Another example of outlandish place names that need to be scrapped. Photo: ABC

As citizens, all of us have a solemn duty: to ask ourselves, “What kind of country do I want to live in?” Well, this is not the kind of country I desire. I want to live in a country I can be proud of, a country I can speak of with confidence to those far across the seas.

I do not want to live in the sort of country that plasters its maps with vile monikers like Burrumbuttock, Cumbooglecumbang, and Poowong.

I don’t want to ever risk taking my children on a holiday across Bitch Creek (apparently named for the difficulty of access), down Titwobble Lane (seemingly dubbed for the bumpiness of riding on it), or up to Son of a Bitch Spur (named for… I’m not sure. I don’t even know what a “bitch spur” is, let alone what its son would look like).

What I say is: this has to change.

However sad a realisation this might be, it is clear that Australians cannot be trusted to name their own locations. It is time for government intervention, to clean up this country and usher in a new, less depraved era of cartographical nomenclature.

-ABC