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I'm guessing the same people who don't see the issue here don't think it's a big deal that Abercrombe & Fitch sells thongs for 7-year-old girls.
It's absolutely true that 14-year-old kids are most likely already familiar with graphic depictions of sex. The Internet has made accessible to everyone (including children) what was only available to adults in seedy sex shops 20 years ago. That doesn't make it right.
Our children are being sexualized at a younger and younger age and school approved reading material with heavily sexual content justifies and normalizes teenage sex. Not long ago, people treated their sexuality with far more reverence and respect. Today it's treated with the same level of dignity as any other bodily function and it's being taught and exposed to younger kids. At what point do we draw the line?
I'm guessing the same people who don't see the issue here don't think it's a big deal that Abercrombe & Fitch sells thongs for 7-year-old girls.
It's absolutely true that 14-year-old kids are most likely already familiar with graphic depictions of sex. The Internet has made accessible to everyone (including children) what was only available to adults in seedy sex shops 20 years ago. That doesn't make it right.
Our children are being sexualized at a younger and younger age and school approved reading material with heavily sexual content justifies and normalizes teenage sex. Not long ago, people treated their sexuality with far more reverence and respect. Today it's treated with the same level of dignity as any other bodily function and it's being taught and exposed to younger kids. At what point do we draw the line?
How do you make the leap/connection of 7 year old girls wearing thongs to a 14 YO reading an excellent book. You should get your mind out of the gutter. You are sick.
I'm guessing the same people who don't see the issue here don't think it's a big deal that Abercrombe & Fitch sells thongs for 7-year-old girls.
You're talking about a company who markets intentionally controversial clothing and accessories. That wasn't the first time they were in the news. It's also an irrelevant Red Herring.
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It's absolutely true that 14-year-old kids are most likely already familiar with graphic depictions of sex. The Internet has made accessible to everyone (including children) what was only available to adults in seedy sex shops 20 years ago. That doesn't make it right.
We had the internet in the nineties too. And you'd be a fool to believe teens weren't aware of sex and masturbation in the fifties, sixties, etc.
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Our children are being sexualized at a younger and younger age and school approved reading material with heavily sexual content justifies and normalizes teenage sex.
First and foremost is that you must acknowledge that the human body is sexually capable of producing children at age 11. Our teens deal with a tremendous amount of hormones and emotions due to puberty--and shunning their sexuality as some kind of distateful sin hasn't worked.
I already covered in the thread--comprehensive sex-education works.
But this isn't about sex-education. It's about a book, which one person found controversial, because he thinks his daughter doesn't know what masturbation is.
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Not long ago, people treated their sexuality with far more reverence and respect. Today it's treated with the same level of dignity as any other bodily function and it's being taught and exposed to younger kids. At what point do we draw the line?
You know what dignifying our sexuality has done (after all, treating sex as some kind of unholy sin is cruel)? Our teens have fewer births, pregnancies, and abortions, as those who are being taught otherwise. And our teens haven't become sexual-deviants as you seem to believe. It's rather the opposite. We gave them knowledge and they used it responsibly.
But as someone else said. If you treat them like babies, that's how they'll act.
The adults that publish this crap seem to get their jollies out of living out their sexual fantacy in a very vacarious manner through children...Leave the kids alone and let nature take it's course..The freaks that insist on giving this type of matieral to mere kids have a problem that no one dares to address - that they are closet pedophiles for the most part.
The adults that publish this crap seem to get their jollies out of living out their sexual fantacy in a very vacarious manner through children...Leave the kids alone and let nature take it's course..The freaks that insist on giving this type of matieral to mere kids have a problem that no one dares to address - that they are closet pedophiles for the most part.
Eh. This is almost a non-issue, since the parents had the right to opt out and had to sign a permission slip. That seems like a fair and reasonable way to handle the situation. Nobody had to subject their kid to anything they didn't want to subject them to.
If this family missed the permission slip that's kind of on them. And since high schoolers have been reading books with "controversial" content (some of it sexual) for decades, its not like we can argue its a new thing that has never been done.
The problem with "opt out" is that the book is still read by the rest of the class, who discusses it and gives oral presentations and book reports on it. This can go on for weeks. So the "opt out" kids are still subjected to it or the school needs to find an alternate room with supervision to send these kids to, who are missing out on what could be valuable learning time.
And to blame the parents because they "missed" the permission slip is not fair. Who is to say the teacher gave the permission slip? Perhaps she forgot to give it to this student. So, while I don't think this reading material is suitable for school reading at all, in cases where there are legitimately questionable school assignments, the schools should adopt an "Opt In" policy, so that the parents must sign a permission slip of approval rather than merely opting out, which opens the door for erroneously implied approval.
I'm guessing the same people who don't see the issue here don't think it's a big deal that Abercrombe & Fitch sells thongs for 7-year-old girls.
It's absolutely true that 14-year-old kids are most likely already familiar with graphic depictions of sex. The Internet has made accessible to everyone (including children) what was only available to adults in seedy sex shops 20 years ago. That doesn't make it right.
Our children are being sexualized at a younger and younger age and school approved reading material with heavily sexual content justifies and normalizes teenage sex. Not long ago, people treated their sexuality with far more reverence and respect. Today it's treated with the same level of dignity as any other bodily function and it's being taught and exposed to younger kids. At what point do we draw the line?
I don't dispute the proliferation of pornography and more graphic sexual content and the easing of its availability, but more than 30 years ago, my pre-teen childhood friends and I had access to teens' Playboys and similar magazines that they had acquired somehow. 30 years ago cable TV and broadcast (but scrambled without a box) TV showed soft-core porn at night. Drive-ins showed "Misty Beethoven", "Deep Throat" etc with their marquees clearly showing "XXX!" and we kids all knew it involved naked bodies and something called "f-word-ing", an activity that, before there was sex education and before our parents told us, we had an idea about because we'd seen dogs doing it. Kids find out about sex and they talk to each other about it.
Do you know if in fact this book has "graphic depictions of sex" or "heavily sexual content" or are you just echoing other people's objections? Can you quote passages? Depicting oral sex could be as vague as "she lowered her head down his body". But it seems the objectors are classifying it as Penthouse Forum Letters for kids - is that the reality?
"Not long ago, people treated their sexuality with far more reverence and respect"
Guys sure didn't! Maybe girls and women did due to societal pressure, the threat of pregnancy, and the value put on female (but not male) virginity.
I haven't read this book, but I did read all the one-star and two-star reviews on Amazon, figuring those reviewers would have something to say about the sexual content. Some did, some mentioned "rough language", some mentioned sexual content, and others didn't mention that at all but gave bad reviews because they didn't think the writing quality was good literature. One said it's a Catcher In the Rye wannabe.
As for "rough language", a classic that's often in high school English classes is "Of Mice and Men". Plenty of cussing, and several pages of talk of the ranch hands visiting a brothel.
The problem with "opt out" is that the book is still read by the rest of the class, who discusses it and gives oral presentations and book reports on it. This can go on for weeks. So the "opt out" kids are still subjected to it
So do you imagine that the class discussion revolves around "what are some of the themes the book explores in its depiction of the blowjob? How do you think the character felt while she masturbated?"
The problem with "opt out" is that the book is still read by the rest of the class, who discusses it and gives oral presentations and book reports on it. This can go on for weeks. So the "opt out" kids are still subjected to it or the school needs to find an alternate room with supervision to send these kids to, who are missing out on what could be valuable learning time.
And to blame the parents because they "missed" the permission slip is not fair. Who is to say the teacher gave the permission slip? Perhaps she forgot to give it to this student. So, while I don't think this reading material is suitable for school reading at all, in cases where there are legitimately questionable school assignments, the schools should adopt an "Opt In" policy, so that the parents must sign a permission slip of approval rather than merely opting out, which opens the door for erroneously implied approval.
It's attitudes like this that make public schools in the south so crappy. I'm glad my kids don't go to school there. Book bans, teach creationism and history classes that gloss over dark deeds of the U.S. for an overly optimistic historical perspective. Good Lord.
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