Perched on the edge of Manila Bay a couple hours northwest of the capital city, the town of Sasmuan is the smallest of the 19 municipalities in the Filipino province of Pampanga. The town is surrounded by carefully tended fish ponds on all sides, and it's a local center for shrimp and tilapia farming, as well as the site of one of the country's oldest churches, begun in 1735. But for many years, curiosity-seekers in Sasmuan didn't stop for the aquaculture or the architecture. They just wanted to giggle at the city called "Sexmoan."

Sasmuan used to make maps of the Philippines NSFW.The name Sasmuan is believed to come from the Kapampangan word sasmo, meaning "a meeting place," though it may also derive from sasa, a type of bamboo plant that once covered the region. But the Spanish friars who colonized the area had a hard time with the name and approximated its spelling as Sexmoan. (They pronounced the "x" like an "s," if that's any consolation.)

Come for the church, stay for the Sex Fishport.As English became more common on the island of Luzon over the years, the town's Spanish name quickly went from a historical curiosity to a national punchline. The town's river-landing had a large sign labeled, for some reason, "Sex Fishport," which couldn't have helped. It was common for Filipinos to mistakenly refer to the town as "Sexymoan."

Our long, sexy national nightmare is over.The whole thing was a source of "embarrassment, disdain, and contempt among residents" due to "the inference of the word 'sexy'," wrote Emigdio Lingad, a local congressman. The town's marimba-player-turned-mayor, Abelardo Panlaqui, had fought to change the name for years, but the crusade went nowhere until he made more powerful friends. With the help of Lingad and a Filipino senator, the brother-in-law of then-President Corazon Aquino, Panlaqui was able to get a bill through Congress in 1991 renaming the town back to "Sasmuan."

A nearby town is bringing sexy back.For some reason, Panlaqui celebrated his legislative victory by designing a new logo for Sasmuan—a red heart with the word "Love" on it. That sexy logo is now long-gone, but if you miss the old-timey charm of "Sexmoan," Pampanga might still have the place for you. Just a few miles northeast of Sasmuan is the city of Macabebe, which is pronounced, roughly, "make a baby." Macabebe is much a larger town than Sasmuan—which is what you'd expect, I guess.

Explore the world's oddities every week with Ken Jennings, and check out his book Maphead for more geography trivia.