[bksvol-discuss] Re: Adult Content

I am only going to add the most brief of replies, but I have a friend who is a survivor of childhood abuse, and "accidentally" running into a book with sexual violence as a teen did harm her emotionally and trigger severe PTSD. ÂShe had tried hard to stay away from books with sex and violence, and had there been labels like on movies, would never have started reading it. ÂIt came out of nowhere, though, and like a nightmare, she said she couldn't put it down, reliving her nightmare.

I seriously don't see how book content labels can hurt anyone, but I do see how access to porn can feed a sexual addiction etc.

FWIW, I happen to be one of those parents who did restrict at certain ages what my daughter read, especially since she is not a physically independent reader. Nichole thanks me as she is "stuck" with what gets turned when listening in audio and she is far more prudish than I am. I realize she is the one in a million reader who reads a lot but cannot stop and start on her own reading (whether audio or scrolled reading), especially now that she is mostly in bed. She should have tools to wean without laying additional search burden on her.

Valerie

www.caringbridge.org/visit/nicholemaples

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From: Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sat, November 10, 2012 8:35:24 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Adult Content

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 donât 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.

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Thanks for the clarification,

Lisa

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From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Madeleine Linares
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2012 2:54 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Adult Content

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Hi everyone,

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I thought it was about time for a refresher course in what we mean by Adult Content (also known as âACâ). There has been some confusion (off-list) and Iâve noticed it incorrectly marked in the Approval Queue.

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Here is a note from our Collection Development Manager on our definition:

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âOur 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.

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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.

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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.â

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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 couldnât hurt to remind everyone!

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Feel free to contact me with questions, as always.

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Best,

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Madeleine Linares

Volunteer Coordinator

Bookshare, a Benetech Initiative

650-644-3459

madeleinel@xxxxxxxxxxxx

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