I started borrowing books from my regional talking book library when
I was nine years old, and would ocasionally find sexual descriptions
that I didn't entirely understand. I didn't care, at all. I listened
to the description and forgot about it when the author got back to
the story. I appear to have survived the experience. Further, I
don't believe I have ever heard of any negative consequence arising
from a child running into a sexual description in a book, other than
a few questions that make parents uncomfortable. And really, why is
that a bad thing? Who would you rather your child learn from: you, a
responsible adult who can give them good, accurate information, or
other children who don't understand sex, probably because of their
parents never talking about it with them, and will give them a
warped, certainly inaccurate view of what it is? Is a parent's need
to not be embarrassed by a child's questions so strong that they
will refuse to let them near anything that might contain a
description of it that they may not even care about? I'm kind of
letting myself stray off-topic, so I'll cut this short, but what I
will say is that is it only coincidence that the least educated
states in America, and also I assume the ones with parents who are
more likely to keep their kids in the dark about all things sexual,
are also the ones with the highest rates of teen pregnancy? perhaps
if we sat down with children and helped them to learn right when
they start asking us questions, whether it's because they read a
description in a book, or saw something in a movie, or whatever the
case might be, and this goes beyond sex, rather than dismissing
their questions and not talking about it either forever and hoping
they don't find out about it from anyone else, or choosing some
arbitrary time when we think they're "ready", during which they will
most likely have been hearing inaccurate information from their
peers that they don't want to come to us about because we keep
telling them we'll talk to them about all of this when the right
time comes, we'd be better off. On 10-Nov-12 20:50, Roger Loran Bailey wrote: I simplify it like this. I don't mark anything as having adult content. We already have a children's category and notwithstanding occasional mistakes it is a pretty good bet that anything not in the children's category is for adults. If children find themselves reading a book that was meant for adults they are likely to not understand it or to find it boring. If you find yourself reading something that you find boring the most likely thing you will do is to just stop reading it and look for something that you find more interesting. On the other hand, there are some precocious children out there who will understand and enjoy books that are intended for adults. They should have the freedom to choose those books if they want to. As for sexual content, I think it is incredibly silly for people to try to "protect" children from knowing about sex. For one thing, it is an impossible task. If they don't read it in a book they will hear it just by walking down the street. For another thing, they are protecting them from nothing. There are real dangers out there that children need to be protected from and it seems like such a tremendous waste of protective energy and resources to protect people from something that is not a danger. After all, we don't see a whole lot of reading related injuries clogging up the hospitals, do we? What really offends me, though, is that when a book is designated as having adult content in Bookshare people under the age of eighteen do not even see it when browsing. They are simply not allowed to read the book at all. That is censorship, pure and simple. It is the arrogant attitude that some self appointed guardians of other people's morality should have the right to decide for other people what they can and cannot read. They decide this on the simple basis of a person's status. If you are of a certain age you are just simply denied. That is completely unfair. People under the age of eighteen can decide for themselves if they want to read something about sex and if they do decide to do it then no harm has been done. The self-righteous censors usually try to justify themselves by saying that children will not understand it. Okay, children do not understand a lot of things. I, for one, do not understand organic chemistry, but I took classes in it. I even managed to pass somehow, but I did not come out feeling like I understood it. So what harm did my exposure to something I did not understand do? It did no harm at all. I suspect that these self-righteous censors are actually more worried that the children will understand it. |