4 ms·

Where should the line be drawn? As a parent of kids in elementary and middle school, I don't want them reading about anything sexually explicit. Maybe in high s

Where should the line be drawn? As a parent of kids in elementary and middle school, I don't want them reading about anything sexually explicit. Maybe in high school but I feel something should be done to evaluate what reading materials are seen by children. We didn't do it with social media, we didn't do it with pornography, and we bear the results of that nonintervention. What is the best argument for allowing elementary school children to read about sexaul intercourse?

Philorandroid 4y ago
Perhaps the answer lies in teaching kids (young adults?) in an objective, strictly-educational manner as the time dawns for it to become relevant in their lives. Of course that solution would be objected to by both sides. The social leftists think it's literally a death sentence to trans children to not teach 6-year-olds about anal sex, and populist conservatives think sex ed in any capacity is degenerate pedophilia.
- cguess 4y ago
  > The social leftists think it's literally a death sentence to trans children to not teach 6-year-olds about anal sex Where... where has any leftist said that?
  - krapp 4y ago
    Only the straw leftists that live rent free in these fascists' heads.
    - cguess 4y ago
      It's definitely some "enlightened centrist/all sides are the same" stuff there.
      - Philorandroid 4y ago
        How can you honestly dismiss an argument solely on the grounds that it lacks polarization?
    - Philorandroid 4y ago
      Your intellectual cowardice is on display. Stick to your brutish name calling, you wouldn't do your side any favors arguing on its behalf.
  - rhcom2 4y ago
    They'll dig up some random anonymous account on twitter as somehow representative of "the left".
  - Philorandroid 4y ago
    Every public forum, ever. No Twitter discourse would be complete without it. Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill had social leftists crying foul of targeting trans children by banning sexually explicit material in Kindergarten through third grade.
jessaustin 4y ago
The line should be drawn wherever parents, teachers, and librarians choose to draw it. Politicians should not be involved. Top-down meddling has destroyed public education in USA, and this is just more of that. At some point we should stop making public schools worse.
- crackercrews 4y ago
  Aren't politicians involved whenever the will of the voters is being enacted? What if most parents in MO support what the politicians are doing? What if they called their representatives and asked them to take action against libraries? If you oppose top-down meddling in public education then I assume you support vouchers? That's about as bottom-up as things get.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    > If you oppose top-down meddling in public education then I assume you support vouchers? That's about as bottom-up as things get. Bad assumption. That's a fundamental POV difference between "I pay taxes to fund the public education system" and "I pay taxes to pay for kids to go to some school". The notion that those tax dollars belong to the parents and not specifically the public school system depends on which of those you think is, or should be, the case. For my part, if the money's not exclusively funding the public school system, I don't want to pay any taxes toward schools. Talk about bottom up! [EDIT] FWIW I'm actually for allowing districts to experiment with this, because I doubt mine would do it and I think the results would be hilarious, but would prefer not to have to move to another state to avoid it, so would rather the red parts of my state not impose it on my district.
  - jessaustin 4y ago
    I live in one of the most rural counties in Missouri, where libraries could actually close as a result, and I doubt I could find one parent in ten among my neighbors who wants the legislature to waste time on this cynical grandstanding. The problem with our libraries is not that there is pornography there. One notes that both of the execrable politicians quoted in TFA represent suburban districts on the Kansas border. I'm sure there are people in the Ozarks who agree with them, but overall we've got different priorities. The unwarranted assumption you make in this comment is that legislation in USA reflects the will of the population. That is very rarely the case, and this is a perfect example. No one in this state woke up this morning worried about porn in an elementary school library. I support vouchers, because even imperfect improvements are improvements. If a child isn't being served by a school, even poor parents should be able to do something about that. We can imagine a world in which the public schools offer enough options to help every child, but we don't live there yet.
cguess 4y ago
And that's your prerogative to actually parent your children and keep an eye on what they check out and what they're doing online. However, pushing your values onto the community at large because you're worried about your middle school child knowing what sex is. The books these conservatives want to ban aren't porn, they're complex stories about complex topics that your kids may have to deal with themselves. If you don't want them reading that stuff do your job as a parent.
- ensignavenger 4y ago
  This law in question (in MO) is very explicitly about porn. It does not apply to the text, but to images, and specifically exempts scientific and sex education material.
  - cguess 4y ago
    From the article: "The law, which was approved last year as part of a larger package addressing sexual assault survivors’ rights, prohibits images in school materials that could be considered sexually explicit, such as depictions of genitals or sex acts." They're not talking about porn, they're talking about any coming of age story that deals with sex at all.
    - ensignavenger 4y ago
      You can read the actual law. Your description is incorrect.
  - rhcom2 4y ago
    You think school libraries are currently stocking actual porn and this law was needed to prevent that?
    - ensignavenger 4y ago
      I have no evidence that school libraries were stocking porn or that this law was necessary. However, this law applies to more than just libraries. I know of at least one case when I was in High School where a teacher was accused of giving a student a Play Boy magazine and I believe this case played a part in that teachers dismissal. I never said that I felt the law was necessary, only that I read it and that it is not what is being portrayed here.
29083011397778 4y ago
Given at least one of yours has made it through elementary school, and we'll assume you're in-touch with what your children are reading in-class and for fun: do you recall any book your child brought home or read in school, or even was just in the elementary school library, that you didn't feel was age-appropriate? I wouldn't assume any elementary-school librarian is stocking the kind of books you're concerned about, and I think it's possible you're being fed a line by politicians and the media, to drum up outrage and support for a narrative.
thwayunion 4y ago
Then you're okay with the status quo and can ignore the ongoing moral panic about school libraries. The books that people are flipping shit about are not currently and never have been available in elementary school libraries. Also, almost all non-high-school libraries are curated for age appropriateness already. I'm sure someone will be able to dig up the one exception that proves the rule, but 99.9999% of the frothing-at-the-mouth articles about school libraries that you will find online or on cable news are about high schools. Or, in the case of this article, about public, non-school libraries. (I guess an elementary school kid or middle school kid could order a book via the inter-library loan system, but that's sort of a stupid caveat since typing pornhub.com into a smartphone or desktop browser is several orders of magnitude easier than knowing about and learning how to use the ILL system.)
yamtaddle 4y ago
The best argument that none of this fucking matters a bit is that local decision makers—many of them elected—are and have been doing an overall totally fine job of sorting this out, and that it wasn't a problem on anyone's radar until certain politically-aligned media outlets decided to start a moral panic to GOTV.
actsasbuffoon 4y ago
There are a lot of reasons. First, we’re not talking to kids about intercourse. We’re saying kids need to have some amount of knowledge about this stuff that is appropriate for their age. For example, small kids who are put into the care of strangers need to be aware that adults are not allowed to touch them without permission. They need to know the proper names for their private parts because it’s more difficult to understand if a kid is being abused when they’re using strange euphemisms. They need to understand that they shouldn’t be ashamed to tell an adult if someone touches them in a way that makes them uncomfortable. Are these conversations I want to have with my young child? Hell no! But they’re necessary for a kid his age. I wouldn’t be doing my job as a parent if I didn’t teach him these things. The reality is that it’s going to be a series of age appropriate conversations every few years, because he’s going to need to know a little more as he gets older. And if parents are sending their kids into the world without this kind of age appropriate information then they’re putting their kids at serious risk for abuse. Frankly, this is the kind of situation where I’d be glad that schools and libraries are making age appropriate materials like this available for kids; to help the kids whose parents aren’t doing their jobs.

Philorandroid 4y ago

Perhaps the answer lies in teaching kids (young adults?) in an objective, strictly-educational manner as the time dawns for it to become relevant in their lives. Of course that solution would be objected to by both sides. The social leftists think it's literally a death sentence to trans children to not teach 6-year-olds about anal sex, and populist conservatives think sex ed in any capacity is degenerate pedophilia.

cguess 4y ago
> The social leftists think it's literally a death sentence to trans children to not teach 6-year-olds about anal sex Where... where has any leftist said that?
- krapp 4y ago
  Only the straw leftists that live rent free in these fascists' heads.
  - cguess 4y ago
    It's definitely some "enlightened centrist/all sides are the same" stuff there.
    - Philorandroid 4y ago
      How can you honestly dismiss an argument solely on the grounds that it lacks polarization?
  - Philorandroid 4y ago
    Your intellectual cowardice is on display. Stick to your brutish name calling, you wouldn't do your side any favors arguing on its behalf.
- rhcom2 4y ago
  They'll dig up some random anonymous account on twitter as somehow representative of "the left".
- Philorandroid 4y ago
  Every public forum, ever. No Twitter discourse would be complete without it. Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill had social leftists crying foul of targeting trans children by banning sexually explicit material in Kindergarten through third grade.

jessaustin 4y ago

The line should be drawn wherever parents, teachers, and librarians choose to draw it. Politicians should not be involved. Top-down meddling has destroyed public education in USA, and this is just more of that. At some point we should stop making public schools worse.

crackercrews 4y ago
Aren't politicians involved whenever the will of the voters is being enacted? What if most parents in MO support what the politicians are doing? What if they called their representatives and asked them to take action against libraries? If you oppose top-down meddling in public education then I assume you support vouchers? That's about as bottom-up as things get.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > If you oppose top-down meddling in public education then I assume you support vouchers? That's about as bottom-up as things get. Bad assumption. That's a fundamental POV difference between "I pay taxes to fund the public education system" and "I pay taxes to pay for kids to go to some school". The notion that those tax dollars belong to the parents and not specifically the public school system depends on which of those you think is, or should be, the case. For my part, if the money's not exclusively funding the public school system, I don't want to pay any taxes toward schools. Talk about bottom up! [EDIT] FWIW I'm actually for allowing districts to experiment with this, because I doubt mine would do it and I think the results would be hilarious, but would prefer not to have to move to another state to avoid it, so would rather the red parts of my state not impose it on my district.
- jessaustin 4y ago
  I live in one of the most rural counties in Missouri, where libraries could actually close as a result, and I doubt I could find one parent in ten among my neighbors who wants the legislature to waste time on this cynical grandstanding. The problem with our libraries is not that there is pornography there. One notes that both of the execrable politicians quoted in TFA represent suburban districts on the Kansas border. I'm sure there are people in the Ozarks who agree with them, but overall we've got different priorities. The unwarranted assumption you make in this comment is that legislation in USA reflects the will of the population. That is very rarely the case, and this is a perfect example. No one in this state woke up this morning worried about porn in an elementary school library. I support vouchers, because even imperfect improvements are improvements. If a child isn't being served by a school, even poor parents should be able to do something about that. We can imagine a world in which the public schools offer enough options to help every child, but we don't live there yet.

cguess 4y ago

And that's your prerogative to actually parent your children and keep an eye on what they check out and what they're doing online. However, pushing your values onto the community at large because you're worried about your middle school child knowing what sex is. The books these conservatives want to ban aren't porn, they're complex stories about complex topics that your kids may have to deal with themselves. If you don't want them reading that stuff do your job as a parent.

ensignavenger 4y ago
This law in question (in MO) is very explicitly about porn. It does not apply to the text, but to images, and specifically exempts scientific and sex education material.
- cguess 4y ago
  From the article: "The law, which was approved last year as part of a larger package addressing sexual assault survivors’ rights, prohibits images in school materials that could be considered sexually explicit, such as depictions of genitals or sex acts." They're not talking about porn, they're talking about any coming of age story that deals with sex at all.
  - ensignavenger 4y ago
    You can read the actual law. Your description is incorrect.
- rhcom2 4y ago
  You think school libraries are currently stocking actual porn and this law was needed to prevent that?
  - ensignavenger 4y ago
    I have no evidence that school libraries were stocking porn or that this law was necessary. However, this law applies to more than just libraries. I know of at least one case when I was in High School where a teacher was accused of giving a student a Play Boy magazine and I believe this case played a part in that teachers dismissal. I never said that I felt the law was necessary, only that I read it and that it is not what is being portrayed here.

29083011397778 4y ago

Given at least one of yours has made it through elementary school, and we'll assume you're in-touch with what your children are reading in-class and for fun: do you recall any book your child brought home or read in school, or even was just in the elementary school library, that you didn't feel was age-appropriate? I wouldn't assume any elementary-school librarian is stocking the kind of books you're concerned about, and I think it's possible you're being fed a line by politicians and the media, to drum up outrage and support for a narrative.

thwayunion 4y ago

Then you're okay with the status quo and can ignore the ongoing moral panic about school libraries. The books that people are flipping shit about are not currently and never have been available in elementary school libraries. Also, almost all non-high-school libraries are curated for age appropriateness already. I'm sure someone will be able to dig up the one exception that proves the rule, but 99.9999% of the frothing-at-the-mouth articles about school libraries that you will find online or on cable news are about high schools. Or, in the case of this article, about public, non-school libraries. (I guess an elementary school kid or middle school kid could order a book via the inter-library loan system, but that's sort of a stupid caveat since typing pornhub.com into a smartphone or desktop browser is several orders of magnitude easier than knowing about and learning how to use the ILL system.)

yamtaddle 4y ago

The best argument that none of this fucking matters a bit is that local decision makers—many of them elected—are and have been doing an overall totally fine job of sorting this out, and that it wasn't a problem on anyone's radar until certain politically-aligned media outlets decided to start a moral panic to GOTV.

actsasbuffoon 4y ago

There are a lot of reasons. First, we’re not talking to kids about intercourse. We’re saying kids need to have some amount of knowledge about this stuff that is appropriate for their age. For example, small kids who are put into the care of strangers need to be aware that adults are not allowed to touch them without permission. They need to know the proper names for their private parts because it’s more difficult to understand if a kid is being abused when they’re using strange euphemisms. They need to understand that they shouldn’t be ashamed to tell an adult if someone touches them in a way that makes them uncomfortable. Are these conversations I want to have with my young child? Hell no! But they’re necessary for a kid his age. I wouldn’t be doing my job as a parent if I didn’t teach him these things. The reality is that it’s going to be a series of age appropriate conversations every few years, because he’s going to need to know a little more as he gets older. And if parents are sending their kids into the world without this kind of age appropriate information then they’re putting their kids at serious risk for abuse. Frankly, this is the kind of situation where I’d be glad that schools and libraries are making age appropriate materials like this available for kids; to help the kids whose parents aren’t doing their jobs.