New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading List

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

I think any book with those kinds of scenes- homosexual or otherwise- should be REQUIRED reading for anyone, especially not middle schoolers! Geeze. I don't think the issue is it being lesbian sex, but it being sex between a 13 year old and a 31 year old and including drug use and an orgy. You'd think they'd read the books before assigning them.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

it is high school: they read slutlight (twilight), watch R rated movies, have internet access, watch 16 and pregnant, and have sex if they want to...

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

yeah but that's if they WANT to, it shouldn't be required.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

This isn't an LGBT issue, as far as I can tell.
It seems to have more to do with age-appropriate literature.
Both of the books, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, and Tweak by Nic Sheff have some value behind them. They're literature, and like art, they can have representations of sex and sexuality.
About Norwegian Wood, sure, there's lesbian sex in it, but it was probably pulled more for the sex and the age difference thereof than the lesbians.
And Tweak is a recovery story that I would assume to be along the lines of Frey's A Million Little Pieces. Except with gay orgies.
I definitely don't think these should be on a middle school required reading list, but might be alright for a reading list with other options for, say, a high school junior or senior.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

We were required to read the color purple and there was lesbian sex in that. People are odd.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

Um...So let's shelter people from shit that actually happens in life, sad.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

A lot of required books that my friends read in highschool (they were in more advanced classes than me) involved all sorts of explicit (straight) sex, between all ages of people, and varying degrees of drug use as well.
Now I realize that my school board is probably different than that one, but it is a little hypocritical to have people required to read explicit sex scenes between male-female couples, but then remove ones that feature homosexual couples.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

This isn't just high schoolers, it's middle-schoolers, according to the article. I don't think 7th and 8th graders should be forced to read explicit sex scenes. If they feel they are mature enough to handle and understand those scenes, then sure, but the average middle schooler I know would just be like 'lol they said breast'.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

These books were for an AP English class, in high school. Chances are - had they been allowed to read them - these students would understand these books a lot better than their parents and teachers ever could.

One book is about the dangers of addiction and how it can lead to promiscuity. The other book is by one of the most famous authors on the planet right now, and the lesbian scene is so coincidental that it didn't even warrant mention on the novel's Wiki page.

I was in AP English, and I would have loved to read books like these for class.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

Any book that contains anything explicit is not at all appropriate for middle/high schools. That's just it.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

I really don't understand what the big deal is. I can't even tell you how many books I had to read for my AP English class that had violence and racism and murder and everything else in it--but a little sex is bad?

It's a little ridiculous.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

We read Night by Eli Wiesel. Here's a scene from it:

If high schoolers can read about this, I think they can handle reading about drug addiction and sex.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

In other news, local teenage boys extremely disappointed.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

LOL

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

It's not that teens can't handle it, it's the outbreak of parents if they ever found out about it that would make it pointless in the first place.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

Sheltering is a bad thing, parents complaining? They shouldn't be. Sheltering just leads to dumbass children who know nothing about the actual world.

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

okay... well, guess we need to ban harry potter. that has explicit violence when wormtail cuts off his hand, and steals the blood of harry potter for a potion... also, it explcitately shows the desecration of a persons graves and remains... then we see people getting murdered all over the place, and harry has hormones... oh god... HORMONES!!!! OH THE HUMANITY!!! HE IS THINKING SEXY THOUGHTS!!!! HOW UNNATURAL, SEX IS NOT NATURAL, THATS WHY IT DOESNT OCCUR IN NATURE...

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

Just have to say, read this for class; one of the most powerful scenes ever... shocking? yes; inappropriate? hardly; and same with sex scenes for the right classes. Last year in AP lang and comp we read The Virgin Suicides and The Bluest Eye. The Virgin Suicides had well, suicide, and a lot of sex and The Bluest Eye contains a rape scene between a father and daughter from which the daughter becomes pregnant. I got so much from these books despite (and partially because of) their shocking nature. Will people just get the heck out and let teachers teach? There are reasons these are the books we're given; educational reasons!!! People just irritate me. By "protecting" their kids they're also denying them education in regards to the material but also, and more importantly, the world around them

 

Re: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading Li

Okay kids you know what I'm talking about. Sexually explicit. It's not that teens can't handle it, like I said, it's the parents that make it pointless. Okay, maybe I sounded a bit hypocritical but, I doubt reading something like that at our maturity level is gonna be seen as indifferent.