A Missouri library is being pressured by community members to ban two graphic novels that have "pornogrpahic images" in them.
I'm not really up to date on what's popular in libraries at the moment, but apparently comic book-like, illustrated, graphic novels are all the rage right now. Some community members in central Missouri are upset because two of the graphic novels in a library depict naked people in their drawings. However, these books don't throw in drawings of naked people and sex just for the hell of it. The drawings are in the contexts of semiautobiograpgical accounts of the authors' difficult childhoods, including strict religious upbringings and homosexuality.
If you ask me this is literature, not porn. (Actually, if you ask me, it wouldn't matter if it was porn. But that's for another entry.)
The opponents of having the books available at the library say that the cartoon-like drawings will attract young readers who shouldn't be exposed to nudity and sex. (Would they rather their children see a dictator being hanged on youtube?)
I don't understand why American culture still clings to hang-ups about the human body and sexuality. The Puritans have been dead for a while, so get over it already! Sheltering children from a drawing of a naked couple will not protect them from evil, it will just reaffirm the ridiculous idea that sex is a bad thing. Living in a culture that airs The Terminator on television at three in the afternoon, but limits edited versions of Sex and the City to later at night after a disclaimer makes me wonder if we have our values in order. It bothers me that we allow our children to witness violence, but we can't let them see something as natural as nudity or sex. So many people are fine with allowing children to see images of guns, but how about seeing guns that shoots life instead of death? Penises are not evil. We don't need to hide them.
Children enter their teen years harboring enough feelings of self-counsciousness about their bodies. Adding extra hang-ups about the human body does not help matters. The pictures in the books aren't even photographs of real people; they're just drawings. If kids can see diagrams in textbooks of naked people it doesn't make sense to ban images that are a part of valid literature.
These people need something else to get fired up about. Censoring books is such a waste of time. Sheltering people from "bad" things won't keep them away. Hopefully those kids will grow up and be naked sometimes, and maybe even have sex if they're feeling extra sinful. Exposing it to them through drawings in books won't corrupt them. They're most likely all doomed to
become sexual beings at some point anyway. Oh well, I guess people will keep reproducing, and the human race will have to continue.
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3 comments:
Absolutely! doesn't the world have better things to be concerned with? i completly agree, nudity and sex are not evil, even at a young age, perhaps these drawings will help open the eyes of the future, revolutionizing the morals on homosexuality, becuase they are obviously in need of change if its coming down to this.
hahahaha, you are so right! I love your view points on censorship issues, you always make so much sense. Some of the best pieces of literature were on censorship lists and some probably still are. I also really agree with your view on the mixing up of priorities. I don't understand why violence is everywhere on TV but sex and nudity are not(depending on what channels your service provides). Anywho, I completely agree with you. rock on!
Des, I love your blog, and although I don't get to read it all that often, I really should make it a point to stop by more. This has to be one of the greatest lines ever written: "So many people are fine with allowing children to see images of guns, but how about seeing guns that shoots life instead of death?" Keep up the good work!
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