Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Oh my goodness! If you dislike what your children can pick up at their school library talk to the librarian and tell her that you want a list of the books with this content or tell them that you do not want your child to take Out specific books with specific content. It's done at my school all the time.
All I have to say that sitting here saying how inappropriate books are isn't going to do anything if it is not reinforced by action. I am a junior, and I pretty much read whatever I want and the books in my school library do have sex scenes but all the ones that do have a moral at the end. All stories are not written by pedophiles. I read a book ( can't Remember the name) where the author was a 17 year old girl who had sex scenes in her memoir, want to know why? It had sex scenes because she was explaining how discusting she felt because she was being forced into prostituitin by her drunken, abusive father. She later goes on to explain how because of these experiences she grew up to help other girls et out of abuse situations.
And for all of those people who say that teenagers can't relate to these book ( as I said before these should not be in a child's library, high school is different) your wrong. Teenagers in today's society are faced with a lot just as they've always been. Only difference now is that these experiences are allowed and accepted to be written and now there is a higher abundance of technology. So when an author says they slept around because they thought it would make them more "popular" a girl who sent a naked picture of herself to a friend who sent it to a friend who sent it to a friend can relate. A girl who is sexually abused or raped can relate to a story which has a sex scene involving beig thrown up avaunt a wall etc.
If YOU don't like your child to take out these books do something about it for YOUR child, dot try to remove all the books with this content because YOU are unhappy that YOUR child has access to them.
I guess I should have reported him for child abuse.
My mother caught me reading The Flame and the Flower (the original bodice ripper) when I was six. I'd found it in a stash of books in the basement, and it was very interesting. My parents were horrified. The next weekend, though, my father took me to the library and got me an adult library card, and he introduced me to Hemingway and Steinbeck and other authors he admired. That summer I read several adult books, each of which my father and I discussed, what the story was about, what I liked and disliked about it, the writing style, and what books like it that I might be interested in. The foundation of an education.
My mother caught me reading The Flame and the Flower (the original bodice ripper) when I was six. I'd found it in a stash of books in the basement, and it was very interesting. My parents were horrified. The next weekend, though, my father took me to the library and got me an adult library card, and he introduced me to Hemingway and Steinbeck and other authors he admired. That summer I read several adult books, each of which my father and I discussed, what the story was about, what I liked and disliked about it, the writing style, and what books like it that I might be interested in. The foundation of an education.
My parents were classic old-school Southern Methodist sexual prudes. Dad especially despised porno or strip clubs and thought men that liked them were weak and immoral. I'm not as religious as my parents but my opinions of this stuff aren't that far off.
But even they knew that a books that just might happen to have some sexual content were about more than just that sexual content. Ditto movies. I wasn't going to be prohibited from watching a masterpiece like David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia just because there was a homosexual rape scene (albeit not a graphic one). The value of exposure to such art far outweighs any risk.
I've cited to Lolita previously in this thread but I'll do it again. Yes, it is on the surface a story about a middle-aged man's sexual obsession and eventual sexual relationship with a teenage girl, but more importantly it is (debatably) the best use of the English language I've ever seen in a novel. It's brilliantly written, even more so considering that English wasn't even Nabokov's native language - he learned it from his nanny. In fact, that was kind of the point - that Nabokov could describe something so sordid in a manner so sublimely beautiful.
Earlier in this thread I also got into a heated exchange with someone who discounted the value of a liberal arts education. I thank God every day that I got a halfway decent one, thanks to parents who knew how important it was to be more than the mere scientists they were.
My parents were classic old-school Southern Methodist sexual prudes. Dad especially despised porno or strip clubs and thought men that liked them were weak and immoral. I'm not as religious as my parents but my opinions of this stuff aren't that far off.
But even they knew that a books that just might happen to have some sexual content were about more than just that sexual content. Ditto movies. I wasn't going to be prohibited from watching a masterpiece like David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia just because there was a homosexual rape scene (albeit not a graphic one). The value of exposure to such art far outweighs any risk.
I've cited to Lolita previously in this thread but I'll do it again. Yes, it is on the surface a story about a middle-aged man's sexual obsession and eventual sexual relationship with a teenage girl, but more importantly it is (debatably) the best use of the English language I've ever seen in a novel. It's brilliantly written, even more so considering that English wasn't even Nabokov's native language - he learned it from his nanny. In fact, that was kind of the point - that Nabokov could describe something so sordid in a manner so sublimely beautiful.
Earlier in this thread I also got into a heated exchange with someone who discounted the value of a liberal arts education. I thank God every day that I got a halfway decent one, thanks to parents who knew how important it was to be more than the mere scientists they were.
I think the love of reading is something that needs to be nurtured. I have an eight-year-old nephew who hates school, hates books. And I think it's so sad. Books transport us, in time and place. I, like you, am so thankful that I got a liberal arts education, but even more, how well prepared I was for that education by a father who instilled curiosity and wonder into my life, and who constantly pointed out the inter-connectedness of the world we live in.
I have to wonder how many of the books on this list DON'T have some kind of sex in them, and would be thrown on the bonfire of censorship by some of the people in this thread.
I don't know what's more obscene, the trash books on the reading list, or the comments on this thread attempting to justify that books which depict pedophilia, sex orgies and drug use are o.k. for the consumption of middle school and high school children.
I fail to see why it's not okay.
Especially for high school students.
People really need to stop being prudes about this stuff.
And the books discussed in this thread (the one that Rita read) do not contain pedophilia, as it's been said. It contains a scene where a 13 year old seduces someone. That's a little different than a 32 year old being a predator.
I have to wonder how many of the books on this list DON'T have some kind of sex in them, and would be thrown on the bonfire of censorship by some of the people in this thread.
It's interesting comparing the two lists side by side. I can't believe that Ayn Rand and L Ron Hubbard dominate the top ten on the Reader's Choice list, but there are so many great books left off the other list. Ulysses by James Joyce, I found to be an opaque read, if you know what I mean. All of Joyce's books should be read aloud. When you read aloud, you read more slowly, and you can appreciate the rhythm of his writing, plus the way the words feel in your mouth. I think that that's because Joyce descends from a storytelling tradition, an oral tradition, and there's a musicality in such traditions. I think that's true of Mark Twain, as well. The rhythm and the beat of the writing is altogether different, but his writing has a musical quality as well.
"If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen."
— Dashiell Hammett
I guess I should have reported him for child abuse.
Yeah, I read Kane and Abel when I was 10 and 1984 when I was 12--pretty graphic.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
