Mom: Assigned book pornography

It does seem like another "know it all" mom. They read a couple of pages and suddenly it becomes a scandal. Of course, my bet is someone told her what the pages were so she could find them. I don't mind if someone chooses not to read a book; it is perfectly within their right. However, I wish they would stop trying to tell everyone else what to read or not to read. It's not her "job" or the job of these other people with clearly too much time on their hands to be telling me what I can or not read. Don't want to read it? That is perfectly fine, leave it alone. But I don't need the likes of you or anyone like you to try to deprive me of my reading choices.

What difference does it make if they are from Lebanon?

Does "homosexual sex" mean lesbians? Because lesbians are cool. Wait, is this fark.com?

I think IB programs are BS. I never went to public schools but the students I see from the IB programs are not advanced by any means, they are just regular kids like I had in parochial school. You know high school where they prepare kids for college.

It is also complete nonsense. It is not international (sure there are IB programs in other countries and it has a home office in Cardiff) these students are not going overseas for school it is at their highschool. And the Baccalaureate is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. They are not getting a Bachelor's degree, they are getting a high school diploma.

Also annoying is the trend to call a high school diploma a high school degree. It is not a degree, it is a fecking high school diploma.

This crap is just to make students, and parents feel good about themselves and their offspring.

Stop making kids feel better about themselves... make them face the real world where people don't make up nonsense names for things, and where they actually may fail no matter how many high school degrees they may have.

I know many people may object to this but it is my opinion.

Maturity and academic excellence never made me confront descriptions of homosexual sexual relations. I made it this far without reading graphic descriptions of that in fiction and I am sure I can make it through the rest of my life. Stoichiometry made me unconfortable because it was hard, graphic deviant sex simply makes me ill.

Beg pardon here, Ender:

You can't treat them as adults if they're not.

. . . but what kind of adult? A person stops being a child and becomes a biological adult at the onset of menses for girls, and nocturnal emissions for boys. They are psychologically adult at that point commonly refered to as "the young and stupid years"; which derive in no small part from they're struggling to establish a place for themselves in society (15 and up, generally). Emotionally, we become adults anywhere from 16 to 22, inclusive. The way the term "adult" is used by power-tripping control freaks, it means "legal" adult; 18 years and older, except in selected circumstances where 18 and 19 still means teenager and is equated with "child".

These "kids" were high school seniors, weren't they? Psychologically adult, and a good percentage were already, no doubt, sexually active; so, yeah, we got to keep them from learning about the sex they're already having.

Beside, you're trying to hold Mom responsible for her own actions. We aren't allowed to do that, don'tch'ya know?

Oh, I did see it was an IB class, but often in most classes a student is given an alternate text when such a situation arises. Not that I agree with it; I think the better option is the one you suggest of simply withdrawing from the class if they can't handle a little maturity and rationality. However, it is often the way to cope or cover bases (or CYA for the school and teacher) to do the alternate text route. You also make a good point: learning and growing will involve dealing with things which may not be comfortable. Seems mom just wants to stay in her little bubble, as the Grumpy reader below mentions.

If the mom doesn't understand that, then maybe she should choose to take her daughter out of the IB track. Maturity and academic excellence depend on confronting things that make you uncomfortable at times, whether that's sex or death or bigotry or similar.

Why should the future ruling class of America have to ever deal with ANYTHING unpleasant? They can stay in gated paradise free of reality. Ignorance may be more expensive than education in the long run, but the Dominionist nutball security mom/home schoolers don't mind paying for it if they "feel safe.".

As someone who has read Cracking India and reads pornography, I would have to say that if somebody handed me Cracking India and told me it was pornography, I would be extremely disappointed. :)

I finished reading the article, and at the bottom of the screen are some advertising links. The middle one, for me, was for "Quality Lesbian Ebooks". Computer irony is the best kind.

No, they do not. I did notice that the student in question was denied an alternate reading, according to the article. This I think was "walking into a trap." I am all for expanding horizons, and the book choice does sound like one to do just that. But if the student and parent objected, they should have given the student an alternate selection. I still think the parent should not be trying to dictate to the whole class though.

The news reports almost never have excerpts of the good stuff when these censorship stories are reported on.

Isn't that Lesbanon?