From: Luc Reid <luc>
Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 11:46:00 -0400

After I shut down the computer last night, another point occurred to me, arising from the Gossip Girls discussion: One of the most effective ways to convince someone of something is to refer to it as a fait accompli. As an example, in Medieval Europe, virtually the entire population was Catholic because on every hand parents, nobility, and everyone you knew spoke as if there were no other possibilities--compared to contemporary America, where a kid raised in a Catholic family is not at all unlikely to become an agnostic, atheist, Quaker, Unitarian, Buddhist, or what have you.

So while to one extent or another it's certainly true that sex among teenager is a fact of life, portraying it that way in a book seems to encourage it more, to say, "Everyone's doing it. Aren't you?"

Which doesn't leave me with any suggestions, because I'm not an enthusiast of promoting sex among teens and I'm also not crazy about pretending phenomena don't exist just because I'm not interested in contributing to them.

Luc Reid, luc at meadowdance.org Managing Editor, Just Weird Enough: Science fiction, fantasy & fable www.justweirdenough.com Staff, Mirkwood School, Marshfield, Vermont www.mirkwoodschool.org
Received on Thu 22 May 2003 10:46:00 AM CDT