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From: Kathy Isaacs <kisaacs>
Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 09:37:36 -0400
Monica's question (in short, where's the oral sex?) is one that has struck me, too. I've read a number of quite graphic YA novels in the last two years, but they pale in comparison to some notes I've picked off the floor of middle school classrooms. My suspicion is that the people who are writing these novels are just old enough not to be able to imagine how commonplace oral sex is in the middle and high school world these days. Children who heard about it on the TV news at a very young age, take it for granted as a part of dating behavior, whether we like it or not. The edginess that is beyond the usual experience of the relatively privileged young people I know is not in the sex, per se, but in the violence (as in SKUD or LUCAS this year), rape (SPEAK) child abuse (as in AMERICA or THE GAME), incest (TRUTH OR SOMETHING) or detention centers or prisons (BUFFALO TREE or HOLE IN MY LIFE). Watching middle-schoolers seek this out in their reading makes me wonder if they've simply been desensitized or if something more is going on.
Fortunately, I still know young people who would rather read something else.
Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 09:37:36 -0400
Monica's question (in short, where's the oral sex?) is one that has struck me, too. I've read a number of quite graphic YA novels in the last two years, but they pale in comparison to some notes I've picked off the floor of middle school classrooms. My suspicion is that the people who are writing these novels are just old enough not to be able to imagine how commonplace oral sex is in the middle and high school world these days. Children who heard about it on the TV news at a very young age, take it for granted as a part of dating behavior, whether we like it or not. The edginess that is beyond the usual experience of the relatively privileged young people I know is not in the sex, per se, but in the violence (as in SKUD or LUCAS this year), rape (SPEAK) child abuse (as in AMERICA or THE GAME), incest (TRUTH OR SOMETHING) or detention centers or prisons (BUFFALO TREE or HOLE IN MY LIFE). Watching middle-schoolers seek this out in their reading makes me wonder if they've simply been desensitized or if something more is going on.
Fortunately, I still know young people who would rather read something else.
-- Kathy Isaacs kisaacs at mindspring.comReceived on Sun 18 May 2003 08:37:36 AM CDT
