[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

The 'norm' for most sensible parents would be to refrain from heavily induced sex and sexual situation in a young adult book. The same for heavy drug use.

"Drug use" varies widely by culture. Do you mean that any book in which a family sits down to dinner with wine every night, should get a warning for drug use?

Now, adult books, no. Books that are geared to a particular 'adult' audience (harlequinn, sex stories, etc..), No. I do not personally feel that these require any ratings or warnings.

I take it you don't read many Harlequins.

I started reading them at the age of 9. The ones I read--Harlequin Romance, Harlequin Presents--were pretty much tame romances: boy meets girl; girl hates boy; boy & girl are forced into prolonged contact with each other; boy & girl fall in love & live happily ever after yay.

The ones I read today--Harlequin Blaze, Spice, Silhouettes--I would not hand off to my 13-year-old daughter, who has no interest in such subjects. Some romance novels are stories of emotion and love; some are tales of eroticism, and those could be labeled as such. (I'd certainly rather know before reading; I'm long past any interest in 300 pages of banter leading up to a single kiss.)

You look at the cover, you KNOW someone is going to get some action. You know dope, drugs, etc are part of the story. You pick up the book expecting, if not anticipating, this event(s).

Judging books by their covers, eh?
Some ebooks don't have covers. (I don't count the "Published by Fictionwise" splash page.)

However, if I purchased a book that was geared to the younger crowd (jr high age) and found out that the book I had purchased had gratuitous sex and drug use, then yes, the publisher would definitely be getting a call from me or my lawyer.

Hm. Before, you mentioned sex & drugs. Now it's gratuitous sex and drugs? Who decides if sex is gratuitous? (I suspect your judgment would not agree with mine, on that.) Or if drug use is necessary for the plot? (And that's before we decide which drugs are acceptable in the story... anything legal in the setting of the story? Anything legal today?)

The problem with content ratings isn't that they're a bad idea, it's that there really isn't any agreement on what "should" get a rating. We can probably all agree that books with seventy-page explicitly-detailed sex scenes should indicate that to the reader. We have more dissension on books that aren't obviously catering to a particular "kink" in the readers... how about pop supermarket books like the Flowers In The Attic series, which had incest, child abuse and murder? How about Stephen King novels that have horrific themes? How about action thrillers with lots of explosions and bodies that fall like rain?

The issue isn't with rating books... it's with who gets to assign the ratings. It comes down to "what total stranger gets to decide what warnings--or prohibitions--to inflict on my children?"

I steer my kids at books I think are good for them; I discourage (but don't forbid) them from books I don't think are useful for them. I might like help with figuring out which books I'd like to suggest for them--but I don't trust most people who want to "protect the children;" I find they generally have values that don't match mine.