Anonymous Patron writes “Gilbert school libraries yank ‘Gurl’ guide A controversial guide for teenage girls was yanked off high school library bookshelves in Gilbert, Arizona, on Wednesday after a mother labeled it as “a how-to book on sex.”
Mesa resident Deborah Myers said she was shocked when she started flipping through Deal with It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain and Life as a Gurl, a book her 16-year-old daughter Pamella checked out at the Desert Ridge High School library.”
Whew!
Now area teen girls won’t even think of having sex. Crisis averted!
Joking, but
Maybe girls (and others) wishing to take out the book should “register for it” (like I registered to read the Arizona Republic article as a 1)male (not) 2)from zipcode 99999 (not),3) born in 1900…that oughta throw off their statistics).
Re:Whew!
“The content is oftentimes very graphic, Deborah Myers said, especially chapters on sexual activity. She said there are several other books that can teach girls about menstruation and how to put on makeup, without discussing issues for which many young students might not be ready. “There’s a part on how to give oral sex. Is it factual and truthful? Probably. Is it something that kids need to know? No,” Myers said.”
Thinking about something that might not be appropriate and reading something that actually might encourage it are two different things.
Puritanical America in the dark
Of all the places to have books on sex, I can’t think of a better place than a high school. After all, that’s when a huge percentage of the American population has their first sexual experience. From what I gather, the reason this book was yanked was it portrayed sex in a “good” way.
If you wonder what I mean by good, think back to your high school health classes. Did they ever tell you how pleasurable sex is? Did they ever talk about how to have sex and give and receive? Did they ever actually bring up the idea that people, oh my god, have sex for fun? No. I think most high school health classes were like mine. They showed us pictures of mons and penises in the advanced stages of various STDs and told us all about how you can catch something that will make your willy turn green and fall off. For the ladies, there were things that gave you warts on your pubes. Contraception, if it was discussed at all, was only spoke about in negative terms about how no contraceptive or sexual barrier is 100% effective against preventing pregnancy. They never talked about using multiple forms of contraception to up the odds.
To American high school administrators, sex is seen as a dirty, filthy activity engaged in only by sluts and losers. Things like foreplay and masturbation are to be danced around and never, ever spoken of. Never mind that over 95 percent of all males and 89 percent of females say they’ve masturbated. (Source). So obviously they’re learning about it from somewhere, aren’t they?
Isn’t it about time that we, as thinking Americans, woke up and realized that teenagers are wired to have sex? It’s nature. It’s been like that since homo sapiens decided to walk upright. Actually, truth be told, it’s been as such long before that. We do our damndest to hide sex from our kids and like anything else, the less we talk about it, the more they want to know about it. The more you deny it, the more attractive it becomes. Look at Scandinavia. They’ve got one of the most open and honest sex ed programmes in the world and some of the world’s lowest stats for teen pregnancies and STD transmission. Sounds like something we could learn from.
So to be honest, I’d prefer to have kids learning about sex from someone with a degree who wrote a book than from a friend of a friend of a cousin of a friend. And for those who say that such a book encourages kids to have sex, I’ve got one logical reply. Why does one book encourage something and another doesn’t? Why does a book about sex supposedly encourage teens to have sex when a book about science doesn’t seem to force them into becoming astronomers? Does one book have more power than another? No, of course not. Like everything else, it’s always the person who makes the choice. I read a lot of science fiction in high school and I never had the desire to become an astronaut or a rocket scientist.
Re:Puritanical America in the dark
“So to be honest, I’d prefer to have kids learning about sex from someone with a degree who wrote a book than from a friend of a friend of a cousin of a friend.”
I’d prefer the parents did it. If they don’t that is unfortunate but it is not for anyone here to override that.
“Why does a book about sex supposedly encourage teens to have sex when a book about science doesn’t seem to force them into becoming astronomers?”
Because a science book just gives the facts and they don’t generally teach all the fun things like how to blow things up, something a teenager would enjoy. A book can teach about sex, in fact I’d encourage a book that just teaches about sex, one that shows graphic images of the damage of STD’s and the pain and suffering not only of childbirth but late night feedings all the way to college bills. *A book that teaches how to do oral sex is not appropriate in a school library or the YA collection of a public library.*
Re:Puritanical America in the dark
Why can’t these young adults do it for themselves? You really expect a seventeen year old to go running to his or her mommy or daddy to ask about performing oral sex?
That is so totally a straw man argument. It does nothing to demonstrate how the transmission of ideas is actual encouragement to action. An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. And your science books don’t show any mangled fingers or horribly scarred eye-sockets from Guy Fawkes wannabes, do they?
Knowledge is power; ignorance is counter-productive and in many cases self-destructive.
And in the end it all boils down to being matter of personal choice.
Re:Puritanical America in the dark
17? There’s a straw man for you. A high school library can serve kids as young as 14 and in my hometown it included junior high so we’re talking 12 year olds.
“That is so totally a straw man argument. It does nothing to demonstrate how the transmission of ideas is actual encouragement to action. An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. And your science books don’t show any mangled fingers or horribly scarred eye-sockets from Guy Fawkes wannabes, do they?”
The science book arguement was started by the post before mine. The point is not ideas but how those ideas are sold. You’re right those science books don’t show mangled fingers *because they also don’t show how to make explosives*.
Re:Puritanical America in the dark
In many jurisdictions the age of consent is fourteen. So basically, you’re saying that fourteen year olds are allowed to screw, but they aren’t allowed to read anything factual about it.
And what you want in this case is to restrict the material 17 yo’s can have access to, because younger adults will also have access to it and might pick it up.
As always: It all boils down to a matter of personal choice; which people like you would not permit to anybody who, a: is not 18, and b: makes choices you don’t like even if they are.
Re:Puritanical America in the dark
“As always: It all boils down to a matter of personal choice; which people like you would not permit to anybody who, a: is not 18, and b: makes choices you don’t like even if they are. “
a: yup
b: depends