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.

[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 ^^;;

[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?