Quote:
Originally Posted by speakingtohe
I don't think erotica should be sold on mainstream sites where it can be accessed by children. I would not knowingly give a gift card to anyone for a site with (IMO) iffy content. They might pass it on to someone else.
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I think children should be taught ethics as an active process involving thought and interpretation, as I was taught in the Canadian school system before we moved to the States. That tends to be more helpful in later life than shielding the kiddies from everything and then expecting them to make intelligent moral decisions as adults.
A young reader shouldn't have to see violence punished in a book to understand that violence is wrong, or to able to tell when violence for its own sake is described lovingly, with the comeuppance of the plot being a mere excuse for reveling in fists, blades and buckshot meeting flesh.
In those cases, the idea might be to advocate not censorship but understanding, just as "A Modest Proposal" needs to be understood rather than hidden away.
My mother used to teach
Catcher in the Rye in high school despite questionable language because she felt it was more important for students to recognize and avoid shallowness than not read the same words they'd already heard repeated throughout their lives.
Then again, I have no intention of inflicting my values on bookstores or textbook authors. Identifying too much with one's own children is narcissistic. Identifying too much with other people's children is schizophrenic.