• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Are you buying the new sex/consumption books for your kids?

novella

novella

Active Member
Wow, this article about these seemingly innocent series for young girls is a real eye-opener. 13 year olds having sex left and right, as if it's normal. The shopping, the stress, the nastiness. I'm not big on censorship, but I doubt I would buy these for my kid. Even if I didn't, I'd have a little discussion about them, because apparently they are WAY popular and things like this have a way of circulating.



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/books/review/12wolf.html
 
Thanks for this, novella. It reminds me that I was watching my twelve year-old g'daughter watch a TV program the other day. In it a group of young fashion designer hopefuls get judged and voted upon by scowling celebrity icons of some sort. Oh my God -- the stress! The drama, the pain and the agony!

When I commented that some of the models looked awfully thin to me (I forbore to say "and unhappy"), my g'daughter said, "Well, they're not anorexic!" in what sounded to my grandmotherly ears like a rather defensive tone.

Nobody there looked as though they were expecting to derive any enjoyment from their chosen profession, but what do I know? I'm not a teenager, and I don't watch TV.
 
I'm glad you posted that...I didn't know these existed....when I was 11 or 12 I was reading Judy Blume and couldn't wait to get my hands on another....just reading 'are you there god, it's me margaret' made me feel more grown up! I can't believe what they are reading today
 
There is also the Gossip Girls series, which is very popular with girls my age. They're just disgusting, and besides the fact that they're dirty, they're shallow and unintelligent. Why on Earth would anyone want to read them?
 
Anything is worth reading, so I'm not fussed by some Mean Girls in print. But the idea of a 'married writing team' producing pretty graphic teen sex scenes is a little unsettling. I mean, it's not exactly pedophilia, but it's cutting it a little close. The fact that some of it's pretty rough, sexually and emotionally, is a bit creepy - the stuff is supposed to be teen girl fantasy, so presumably the readers are identifying with the characters who are evil bitches - vicious to each other and getting pretty much mauled by their boyfriends. Who knows why kids read this stuff. I read weird junk too when I was a teenager. Sometimes, weird junk just works for you at a certain time.
 
I know! And also the A-List and the It Girl. Those series' are totally gruesome. Hello, nobody actually has sex when they're 15, or 16. And it's absolutely disgusting when they describe it.
 
Sorry to burst your bubble, but in my city it's very common for 15 and 16 year olds to be having sex, and they've already been at it for a couple years... I grew up in the country and it shocks me to hear the kids at work talking about personal experiences I wouldn't share with my best friend.
 
Sorry to burst your bubble, but in my city it's very common for 15 and 16 year olds to be having sex, and they've already been at it for a couple years....
Click to expand...

Yep, I think that's fairly accurate. As for the topic, I'm shocked, but not entirely surprised that the trend is starting with younger teens as well. Yet more proof that cultural decline and decay is pervasive and if anything, only getting worse. I'm not certain what the answer is.
 
Are there any 15-year-olds on this forum? I don't really know what's going on at that age these days, but I am not sure whether that's up to "us grown-ups" to judge - they can talk for themselves.

I don't understand 15-year-olds. They don't understand what's going on in my age-group, either. But it does not seem to bother them all that much what we get up to.

Or is it just the sex we are worried about? If yes, why?
 
I just turned 23 so I'm not far removed from teenage pressures. Granted, I grew up in the country and went to a good old Catholic school where teenage pregnancy happened, but it was very rare. In the city, I swear you're not cool if you're not pushing around a stroller by 17. You go to the mall and see groups of teenage moms proud as punch swapping parenting tips! These girls haven't finished their high school education (I swear half of them can't even read), they're still going through puberty so they don't even know themselves yet - and they think I'm weird because I'm married and have no kids.

I greatly respect young women who make the decision to keep their baby and raise it on their own and juggle their education. I do not respect young girls who've bought into the commercialized view that sex is the be-all and end-all and think their ticket to success is popping out babies and getting showered with oohs and ahhs and getting gifts galore.

I don't blame the girls though... they were raised by the media to think there's something wrong with you if you're alone and if you love your boyfriend, you have sex with him. They were never taught how to avoid getting pregnant or that it's OK to not have sex. And books like those mentioned above are the reason why.
 
On a tangent of the discussion here-you could also buy the new Lolita bed to acompany the new sex/consumption books for your kids.:eek:

I don't buy this one bit.....

Woolworths says staff members had been unaware of the name's connection with Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel that was also made into two film adaptations, and inspired a song by the rock band The Police.
Click to expand...

Yep, it isn't like a cultural buzzword or anything. Sounds like someone in marketing needs to get some more sun.
 
SFG75 said:
I don't buy this one bit.....
Click to expand...

Ah, you have too much respect for the people at Woollies. My mother used to say that if you were too thick to work in a shop you worked at Woollies. Plus, the quote came from the IT department manager (who maintained the web site) and I can believe this of IT staff.

Actually, I quite liked this story as journalists got all smug about that quote, but then described the novel as being about a “12 year old temptress” which suggests they haven’t read it either!
 
SFG75 said:
Yep, I think that's fairly accurate. As for the topic, I'm shocked, but not entirely surprised that the trend is starting with younger teens as well. Yet more proof that cultural decline and decay is pervasive and if anything, only getting worse. I'm not certain what the answer is.
Click to expand...
More proof eh? More proof than the uneducated masses of women and men whose largest aspiration in life was to get knocked up/married? Often times I think we judge the past with nastolgic eyes. Let's not forget that people were just as stupid, if not stupider back then. We like to blow things out of perspective because we think we were better. People often view the greek and roman culture as one of the heights of civilization...talk about irresponsible sex!

Not that I support rampant amounts of sex, but I don't think our society is declining at all in that regard. I think we've been as we've always been. Also, I have heard that these gossip girl and such have been getting more and more popular with adults also. I'm thinking about writing a few. I think it'd be a fun medium to really mess with.
 
blurricus said:
More proof eh? More proof than the uneducated masses of women and men whose largest aspiration in life was to get knocked up/married? Often times I think we judge the past with nastolgic eyes. Let's not forget that people were just as stupid, if not stupider back then.
Click to expand...

Back in the "good 'ol days", women weren't able to study and get jobs. A woman's reason to be was to have babies and be a good wife, at least that's what they were taught all their life. In Western society today, women can do whatever they want and be anything they choose. So the question is why are we encouraging women to act like we haven't made these advances? Remember when women aspired to have the right to vote, to hold jobs, to be the first woman president?
 
And inspired to have sex whenever they wanted to? I believe that was also part of the liberation. The fact that women weren't able to study and get jobs or become educated beyond the 3rd grade is why I think that society was just as bad or worse before. Women can do whatever they want and be anything they choose, so why can't they have sex and enjoy it?
Women still aspire to do those things, but people are still as stupid as we've always been. We've made advances, and it's important to remember that. I think you agree with the "good 'ol days" philosophy not really being the good ole days. Besides, men have aspired to do great things, and they still have sex as they've always done.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top