Exactly what I mean, your reading descriptions of sex did absolutely
no harm at all. Try to tell that to a prudish censor, though, and
watch them have apoplexy. I get the impression that it may not be so
much an effort to keep children from reading about sex as it might
be a matter of control. I think that is known as a characteristic of
the type
A personality. They just want to control other people and who is the
easiest to control? Children. Something else that makes this
ludicrous. These books that are designated as having adult content
are not only withheld from children, but they are withheld from
teenagers too. Think about that. They are trying to prevent people
from reading about sex who are likely regularly having sex with each
other anyway. It really is laughable except for the fact that these
arrogant control freaks actually have power. They have enough power
to cause Bookshare to keep certain books from people because of
their status. They are in a lot of other power positions too. That
means that they are not only ludicrous clowns, but that they are a
real threat to be defeated too. Insofar as Bookshare goes, though, I
do my part only by not marking any book as having adult content and
by using this list to point to the utter arrogance of them when the
subject comes up.
On 11/10/2012 9:17 PM, Ali Al-hajamy
wrote:
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.
On 11/10/2012 7:37 PM, Lisa
Gorden-Cushman wrote:
So if a book has a graphic sex
scene, but it brings the characters towards
relationship, I should not mark it with Adult Content?
I think I have been guilty of mismarking a few
times. I used to mark something with
Adult Content if it had a sex scene in it. I
don’t mind sex scenes at all. I just
wanted to give people the option to avoid them if they
did not want to read a sex scene.
Thanks for the clarification,
Lisa
Hi everyone,
I thought it was about time for a
refresher course in what we mean by Adult Content (also
known as “AC”). There has been some confusion (off-list)
and I’ve noticed it incorrectly marked in the Approval
Queue.
Here is a note from our Collection
Development Manager on our definition:
“Our policy, developed in conjunction
with our OSEP funders, is that there are certain kinds of
content -- explicit depictions of sexual acts with no
redeeming social value, as well as extreme and gratuitous
violence -- will require a minor to get an adult
guardian's permission to access. As a "content-neutral"
collection, we will never exclude a title for any
potentially controversial or distasteful content, but we
will tag some content for adult (or minors with a
guardian's permission) use only. The idea is that parents
can control the access their kids have to content deemed
potentially inappropriate -- but they don't have the right
to control or limit access to anybody else's kids.
The "walking into a bookstore or
library" test continues to be a good one. Could a
non-print-disabled kid walk into a good bookstore or
public library and get a copy of this book without an
adult being involved? If the answer is yes, a
print-disabled kid should be able to do the same on
Bookshare. We are not interested in placing additional
barriers to access for our members that their peers do not
experience. This means we do have stuff available to
members under 18 that has sex, and swearing, and violence,
and substance abuse in it, and that is okay and in keeping
with the generally recognized standards of "freedom to
read" policy in this country.
We don't have a perfect
implementation of this policy yet -- I see evidence that
we were a little more strait-laced in the early days (and
fix it when I come across it), and our automated filtering
from publisher feeds still needs some fine-tuning. When
I'm trying to navigate something particular "gray area-y"
like the steamier of the romances coming in, I ask myself
about the intent -- is the action (even if hot and heavy)
designed to move the characters towards relationship, or
is the plot driven only by the need to get body parts
intermingling again? It's the latter that's clearly AC,
while the former continues to be ambiguous. Author intent
is, alas, pretty gray-area-y and subjective itself, but I
think it can help separate the sheep from the goats.”
Adult content is confusing and clearly
not black and white. Many romances (such as a lot of the
Harlequin ones), though certainly racy, should not be
labeled as AC. A 16-year-old could walk into a book store
and buy ones of those books just as easily as a 38-year
old, although his or her parents might not approve and
might consider the content inappropriate. Anyway, just
thought it couldn’t hurt to remind everyone!
Feel free to contact me with questions,
as always.
Best,
Madeleine Linares
Volunteer Coordinator
Bookshare, a Benetech Initiative
650-644-3459
madeleinel@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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