Pornography?

John Green is young adult writer who partnered with the NaNoWriMo to write a pep talk for all the participants. He's also a popular vlogger on YouTube. Today, I was looking him up on Wikipedia and I came across a rather interesting(?) article. Apparently a school wanted to use one of his books Looking for Alaska in their 11th grade English class (16-18 year olds). Now the book apparently contains a sex scene so the teachers issued a letter asking parents if they would allow their children to read the book and if not, an alternative book would be provided for them. Apparently some of the parents got up in arms about it and decided that no one should read the book since, 'it would incite immoral thoughts and actions' . John posted a video on his YouTube channel stating that he wrote the sex scene 'awkward, unfun, disastrous and wholly unerotic' with the intention of making a point that physical interaction cannot replace true emotional bonds and that when young adults engage in such activity that it usually ends in disaster. Eventually the book was placed on the curriculum.

Now I get why the parents are mad. Teens are bombarded by sexuality everyday and being at the age where they now begin to explore this aspect of life and are hence, very impressionable. I probably wouldn't want my child reading a book about sex either. But you see, that's just the thing. If the sex scene was written with a specific idea in mind, other that to stimulate sexual desires, then is it really a sex scene? I wrote the greater part of my novel this November, with one of the main characters as a lesbian. As such there are at least three scenes where two girls kiss. Why did I include those scenes? Because I know that that kinda stuff turns guys on? No. I wrote it because it's extremely hard to write a lesbian couple without them kissing. Heck, it's hard to write any couple without them kissing. Am I attempting to write a novel to promote lesbianism among young girls? No! That's why my other main character is a devout Christian who pushes the opposite point of view. My aim was to try to find a balance between the two sides, not promote homosexuality or encourage pornographic thoughts. I sit now and wonder if I were to publish my book, what would people say about it?

Now I'm not encouraging to reading of sexually explicit books. There are some books that are written with the intention of being dirty and erotic. Those obviously shouldn't be read. But when someone includes something that's potentially erotic without actually making it erotic, I really don't think that people should go all crazy about it. Now I know that there's a thin line between the two, and that there will always be a justifiable reason for using sex in books, but can you honestly say that you can't tell the difference? And just so you know, I read Romeo and Juliet in Form 5 (fifth year of high school, where I would have been around 16), and let me tell you, that is one of the most sexually explicit books that I've ever read, with Juliet being 13 years old during the course of the story. Yet no one really thinks about either of these things. Why? Because this story wasn't about sex. It was about a tragic death of two lovers. No one gets off to Romeo and Juliet.

Now, I am just one guy who has a very narrow view of the world and needless to say, I'm not always right.I'm not supporting pornography. It's wrong, perverted, demoralizing to the people who engage in it and give unrealistic and incorrect views about what love and sex is. But when sexuality stops being about arousal and starts being about something serious, I think that we should take a step back and re-evaluate. I've even found websites that claim that the biblical book of the Songs of Solomon pornographic because of some of it's content. Yes, they called the Bible pornographic. Somehow, I highly doubt that God's inspired word was meant to arouse immoral thoughts, nor does it.

They say you can't judge a book by its cover. I'll go a step further and say that you can't judge a book by the words printed on its pages either. You need to judge a book by what it means, and at then end, I'm sure that make the right choice.

See you tomorrow.