Wait, what?

[loopychew]

ExCUSE me? Do mine eyes decieve me? People want BOOKS rated?!

While I can kind of understand it in visual/motion maybe even in audio media, the concept of suggesting age limits for BOOKS is blatantly ridiculous. Considering books are the most basic form of media around and literacy is fundamental to pretty much any educational foundation, the idea of trying to impose artificial limits on who can and can't read books is patently INSANE.

The only way this could have possibly been amusing would have been to watch people foaming at the mouth as the Bible got the equivalent of an R-rating, except you KNOW people would exempt the Bible from any sort of rating.

Comments

*Sigh*

[lirazel.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a house where (as far as I could tell) there were NO forbidden books. Which sometimes made for interesting dinner-table conversation, but hey, if you're 14 and you can't ask your parents what a dildo is (a word I picked up reading Lysistrata), who CAN you ask?

Now, in retrospect there was some passive censorship exercised. For example, certain books were too high for me to reach until I was of adult height (12 years old), and some books didn't show up until after we kids were out of the house (The Story of O, for example), but I was never told not to stand on chairs to reach something that looked interesting.

I am a highly innocent-minded person who has largely avoided most vices by reading about them and deciding, "Ewww." Nothing like being grossed out when you're eight to keep you out of trouble when you're 18. It's a parenting method these loons appear not to have thought of.

Re: *Sigh*

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was basically how I worked. My parents had no trouble letting me wander through the library or the bookstore. If I read something and wasn't entirely comfortable with the subject matter, I'd put it down and either go talk to my mom (who, being a former biology teacher, knew about things) or decide that it wasn't something I was ready for yet.

I have to wonder if all these people either had really overprotective parents or if they've forgotten what their childhoods were like. I'm going to guess it was the latter.

Re: *Sigh*

[ninjadebugger.livejournal.com]

I, uh, I was reading through my mother's copious library of romance novels at the tender age of 6. There is nothing that will ever match the look on my mother's face when she found me reading a romance novel entitled "Animal Sex". It (and the book) are seared indelibly into my memory.

Re: *Sigh*

[lirazel.livejournal.com]

HAH, my experience along those lines came a bit later--eight, I think. There was a copy of Balzac's Droll Stories in the children's section of the library, mis-shelved there because someone thought the medieval-looking characters in the wood-cut end papers meant "fairy tales".

The very first story is about a courtesan named Imperia, who gets her paid protector (a cardinal) to leave all the fixings for a sumptuous feast behind him and leave unsatisfied. She then shares the feast, along with... other things... with a very handsome novice monk. The wood-cuts later in the book were also very interesting, and the extensions to my vocabulary quite useful in later life. Not a single "dirty" word in the whole 200+ pages, mind you, but the power of allusion was greatly evident.

No, I didn't tell the librarians. I mean, it was in the children's room and I was a child, right?

Re: *Sigh*

[ninjadebugger.livejournal.com]

No need to bother the adults with that silliness, they have better things to worry about.

[ladybrick.livejournal.com]

Eh, my parents SHOULD have censored my reading more than they did (not at all) when I was a kid. They were VERY strict about movies... I had to ask permission to watch an R rated movie until the day I turned 17. But bookwise, I was reading Steven King and the like when I was 12 ^^;;

[loopychew.livejournal.com]

Again, parents censoring things is acceptable. The industry coming up with regulation standards, I believe, is not. I remember reading (and seeing other kids reading) Amy Tan, Tom Clancy, and John Grisham novels in early middle school. We didn't necessarily understand all the concepts inside the novels, but it still influenced us.

Could you imagine all the books intended for teens and tweens with controversial content suddenly being "rated" more mature simply because they deal with sexuality and religion (first example to come to mind: Are You There God? It's Me Margaret)? Regulation standards lend perceivably objective weight to a completely subjective standard.

[ladybrick.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think industry regulation for books would only ever really be done if, like the movie industry, it was the only alternative to government interference. Not worth the expense otherwise. So guess I'm not even taking that element seriously.

[demota.livejournal.com]

This is one of the reasons I'm so irritated about people trying to tighten video game ratings. Books aren't rated, and introducing ratings is a de facto ban on a lot of stuff. An AO rating could kill a title because places will refuse to carry them.

[kagami.livejournal.com]

Rated: B for burn?