This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)
Just when you thought that humanity had sanity left over, stupid shit like this happens. Oh, and by the way, there is no "so what are they going to ban next?" questions. This is the end of the line.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/ja … us-schools
Offline
Oh for fuck's sake.
My little brother knew aaaaallll about sex when he was five. A little girl on the schoolbus told him every little detail she knew. Y'gonna ban schoolbuses now, parents? Contact with other children? Because every peer is a learning opportunity on every subject, and if you're so fucking hard-pressed to repress your children you may as well say they are only to be in single-form cubicles with no contact to the outside world. Just saying.
Offline
Oh god...
Really, I think the only kids that are going to be looking up dirty words in the dictionary are the ones that already know what the word is.
Offline
DEAR LORD. It's things like this that make me want to renounce teaching altogether if I can't even get parents to allow their kids to use a goddamn dictionary. I'm beginning to think that certain Christians see the concept of knowledge itself as being a fall from grace, and sex is only the worst part of it. Besides the fact that YOU ONLY LOOK UP WORDS YOU ALREADY KNOW. I'm pretty sure I'm the only weirdo in every school I've ever been in that read through the dictionary for fun, and those nerdy kids generally aren't doing it to run across something sexy.
You wanna know what the most explicit piece of writing I ran into in middle school? THE BIBLE. And I was not particularly sheltered. I was just the daughter of an athiest in Catholic school(the public schools around here vary wildly in quality; a ridiculous amount of kids in Louisiana go to Catholic school) flipping through the Bible when my teacher was going on about something in Religion class and BAM! SONG OF SOLOMON. It's an extended ancient Jewish version of Barry White. I seriously think I'm going to keep a Bible on hand just in case an overly sensitive nutjob parent gives me flack about something being 'appropriate' for their child. Whatever the heck I'll be teaching doesn't come close to "your breasts are like towers" and such.
Offline
Banning books = BULLSHIT.
In third grade, I had grown up watching Beavis and Butthead and South Park. I knew all the curse words I do now, and definitely knew what oral sex was. I went to a K-8 school, so yeah, I was around tons of cursing. And I agree with Frau Eva, the some of the most explicit books I'd read were either religious based or mythology based, and they taught it in school. Now most people I know have read through dozens of sex scenes, seen them in movies, and have seen porn. I really don't think a dictionary definition is going to harm their psyche.
I'm tired of seeing books pulled out of my school library for adult scenarios. I'm tired of people acting like sex and drugs only happen to 'bad' kids, and sex is 'bad'. All the kids that I know that have had unprotected sex and are into drugs are the kids that were sheltered all their lives. Keeping your kid in a bubble away from the real world isn't a good thing.
Last edited by Setsuna (02-01-2010 02:12:00 PM)
Offline
When I was in elementary school, we had "baby dictionaries" full of the sort of words adults expected third and forth graders would be interested in knowing. And they were UTTERLY USELESS. Kids need access to words. Not just the words they already know, but newer, more specific, more useful words. This is the age when they're building up something resembling an adult vocabulary. Let's put something else in the way of that!
Offline
I would have NEVER thought to look up 'oral sex' in the dictionary.
Actually, this pisses me off cause I remember so many times when I was young trying to dictionary or encyclopedia things that weren't included because they were 'too complex' or whatever for the children's dictionaries. (This also makes me wonder what the fuck I was doing...)
Things I'm currently expecting to be banned:
pencils: so phallic
donuts: have a sexy sexy hole
extension cords: have male and female! electrical sex!
teachers: They have sexy parts. (Even the unsexy ones!)
the letters s,e and x: not lling othr word i okay to protct th childrn
beds: uncreative people always have sex here. Sometimes, even the crazy ones!
...Can we ban starlets who can't dress themselves yet? Cause really now. I can't unsee those things.
Offline
OH MY GOD!!!
I hate humanity. We've gone straight down the shitter. I blame conservatives. (The children should find out sooner rather than later anyway. Kids just accept things better...)
Edit: And I believe it's found under it's technical name in the dictionary. Everyone say it together now: Felatio.
Last edited by Aya (02-01-2010 05:02:11 PM)
Offline
Parents these days... what's the logic behind this kind of complaint? It's like the goal is to shelter children from every possible obscenity... for what end? So that they can enter the world without a clue as to how it works? Without being aware of all parts of life? It's silly, short-sighted parenting.
Offline
Hey, you forgot cunnilingus. Which is awesome because of all the cunning linguist puns it gives us.
I think we have issues on censorship here. Other countries ban violence, others ban pubic hair, while we, ban sex if oral proceeds it, or sex if it involves two men or women.
Excuse me, I need to go virtually decapitate people.
Offline
Good Lord and butter! People get on my nerves with crap like this. They should be shot...in the head...multiple times...with a bazooka... then burn in hell. Forever.
Offline
I remember when I first heard the word cunnilingus, I thought it meant a person who could speak in many tongues. Ironically I was not far off the mark.
We all know that whenever you ban something, the chances are that people would want it more, so I believe that this is a form of reverse psychology in the attempt to get kids interested in using dictionaries more.
SNEAKY BASTARDS!
Offline
Is it possible to diagnose an entire species as functionally retarded?
Offline