Fifty Shades of Grey's success highlights the lack of age restriction on selling erotic fiction. Why are books freely available to children when other media are highly policed?*sigh*
Because 30 years of comprehensive education has left the little darlings unable or unwilling to read them, maybe?
Unlike television - with its nine o'clock watershed - and the age classification of films and video games, and even the labelling of explicit lyrics on music, there is no age restriction on buying books in the UK.Oh, noes! Quick! Stir some controversy up! For the chiiiiilllldreeeeen!
And yet there is apparently little in the way of moral panic about children getting hold of Fifty Shades, a paean to sadomasochism.
Children's author GP Taylor has been something of a lone voice, arguing that EL James's novel would leave children "with a view of sex which is warped".See? You can always find someone who'll go along if you but look hard enough...
H/T: Thickey via Twitter
12 comments:
I read this on the BBC RSS news feed at work on Friday and promptly had an aneurysm.
Tom de Castella has obviously masturbated so much that he can't get his nut any more. So he comes out with this bilge instead.
"I need 700 words by tonight or I'll be shopping at Netto. What to do? What to do? Eureka!"
Are your children reading about big hairy cocks or shaven landing strips? What about reverse cowgirls or DA2M? "Your children are reading about creampies thanks to books" - A story no parent should miss.
I am surprised the twat didn't dig up Mary Whitehouse to lend some gravitas to this onanistic waste of electrons he has committed. It must have been a challenge to find a meddlesome old ratbag to cheer him on.
That someone could be so stupid as to think that a child (usually resource poor) would stump up (lol) for some soft pr0n when the good stuff is FOC must mean that only the BBC would employ him.
Do not pay the licence fee. Starve the beast.
Book titles can be very misleading. Originally, I thought that Fifty Shades Of Grey was an advice booklet on hairdressing for female old age pensioners.
"...when other media are highly policed?
Uh...since when ?
Perhaps the Guardianista could organise a book burning or two.
Oops, too late :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/24/fifty-shades-grey-domestic-violence-campaigners
A double housepoint for any of your readers who can name another tome which encourages violence to, and the oppression of, women and yet is encouraged to be learned by rote by children up and down the land, but won't be burned by these attention seeking crazies ?
anon...you know..I...can't quite rightly remember what that book could be....Does it begin with K by any chance?
One of the problems of encroaching age is the deterioration of eyesight. Still beleiving I didn't need glasses, I came (sic) across this book whilst browsing in a local bookshop, at first thought it was entitled, "Fifty Grades of May", and wondered what a political treatise on the various levels of incompetence of our current Home Secretary was doing in the best seller section?
Penseivat
@anaonymous on post 1....
What's a reverse cowgirl....DA2M.... and creampies?
Oh it's ok, my ten year old has just come home, i will ask him.
I don't think they have to worry too much about the kiddywinkies actually reading that book, or any other for that matter, because most of them can't read the long words.
Pense,good one. :-)
@Anon 20:23
Reverse Cowgirl is pretty tame.
DA2M is a variation on A2M, differentiating DP against P.
A creampie is what you get if you eat all your dinner up like a good boy.
No doubt your ten year old will be well acquainted with all these expressions, as they form part of the GChavSE curriculum :-)
Long may he prosper, despite the efforts of our overlords to retard him.
"That someone could be so stupid as to think that a child (usually resource poor) would stump up (lol) for some soft pr0n when the good stuff is FOC must mean that only the BBC would employ him."
He does go on to mention Teh Dangers Of Teh Smartphones later in the article, to be fair.
"Originally, I thought that Fifty Shades Of Grey was an advice booklet on hairdressing for female old age pensioners."
Heh!
"A double housepoint for any of your readers who can name another tome which encourages violence to, and the oppression of, women and yet is encouraged to be learned by rote by children up and down the land, but won't be burned by these attention seeking crazies ?"
Oooh, that's a tough one!
"Oh it's ok, my ten year old has just come home, i will ask him."
/applause
I think the question is, when you have read it through, would you approve of your young sons, young daughters - because girls can read as well as boys - reading this book? Is it a book that you would have lying around in your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?
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