Until October 28, 2010, the phrase "bunga bunga" was a scarce presence online. It appeared on a few Indonesian news websites; "bunga" means flower, and "berbunga-bunga" means joy in Bahasa Indonesia. Then Italian newspaper La Repubblica broke the news that el-Mahroug, a voluptuous 18-year-old exotic dancer, told Milanese prosecutors that the Italian Prime Minister, now 74, held regular orgies at his Milan estate. They included a sex game called "bunga bunga." They also included minors. Now a search for "bunga bunga" turns up more than four million results, and its own blog, bungabungaparties.com. But what does it actually mean?

What the hell is "bunga bunga"?

The story of bunga bunga begins over a century ago with a prank by Irish aristocrat Horace de Vere Cole. According to news reports from 1910, Cole and a group of friends dressed in blackface, pretending to be the Abyssinian royal family, and traveled to Weymouth, England, to inspect British warships. Yale English Professor Wes Davis wrote, "It's unclear where the Mirror reporter got the idea that the fake Abyssinians had used the phrase 'Bunga, bunga,' but after the account appeared, the words soon turned up in music hall songs, and boys used them to taunt naval officers on the streets."

Cecilia Robustelli, a linguistics professor at the University of Modena, told me, "In Italian, when you want to imitate Africans, you use very nasal sounds." Robustelli is aware of the Abyssinian backstory, but, she said, "I doubt Berlusconi knows anything about that -- that's a bit too intellectual, I'm afraid."

More likely, she suggested, Berlusconi, as with many Italians, is familiar with "Civilization," a song from the late 1940s whose chorus runs "Bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't wanna leave the Congo." Berlusconi is also know for telling an old, vulgar joke about two colonial officers who are captured by a sodomitic African tribal chief who forces them to submit to "bunga bunga." In his updated version -- political humor at its finest -- the colonial officers are replaced by two opposition ministers.

El-Mahroug, the exotic dancer who unleashed BungaGate, told prosecutors that "Silvio told me that he'd copied that expression -- 'bunga bunga' -- from Qaddafi: it's a rite of his African harem."

Robustelli said the phrase's repetitive structure gives it an "iconic value."

"When you repeat a word, you tend to express an inner involvement in what you do, like a mother to their child: 'Mangia, mangia!' It means do it, and do it again. When you hear the sound of bunga, it's like when you push something: Bunga!"

Sabrina Ferri, an Assistant Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Notre Dame, said she hears whispers of colonialism and capitalism in the phrase. "It implies a conscious distinction between those who are inferior, subjected to someone else's will, and those who are superior. Why are they superior? Because of money and power." It's domineering, she said, but also "childish and infantile and comic, with a grotesque quality."