by SB Frank [Note: Due to some confusion when I originally posted this at fantasyliterature.com/news, let me say that this article is intended as sarcasm and attempts to make, through humor, the point that we should be more worried about promoting literacy than censoring books. People continue to follow me at this site; so for the time being, I will attempt to post some of the materials from fantasyliterature.com on the blog here].
On her website and at the League of Reluctant Adults, author Richelle Mead reports that a nameless Texas school district has pulled her YA Vampire Academy Series from its library shelves. PC Cast's House of Night series suffered the same fate. This decision to remove vampire s*x from schools reminded me of an actual conversation that took place between me and my son about three years ago, (then age 11).
Son: How many spouses can a vampire have at the same time?
Me: Eh?
Son: You know, when a vampire bites someone, they live with each other forever after that, and they have s*x all the time, right? Just like marriage.”
Me: (perplexed) Oh, I suppose when Dracula bites a woman, they do sort of become like husband and, um, wife…
Son: Or if he bites a guy, dad, we can’t discriminate against gay vampires.
As this conversation clearly indicates, the steady diet of vampire s*x among today’s youth has created a huge moral problem. Namely, very distorted perceptions about the amount of s*x that takes place in marriage. I can practically visualize the cloud of eventual s*xual disappointment scudding over our collective heads threatening to break into a veritable storm of disillusionment when today’s YA eventually discover, as is virtually assured, that their partner is not an insatiable vampire with the ability to induce ecstasy with a mere glance or touch.
How can we prevent this tragedy? I’ve often thought that we should demand that all YA targeted vampire series which discuss, think about, or otherwise refer to the act of s*x with vampires be required to have a warning label on the front: Warning – Reading this novel may cause teenagers to engage in s*xual fantasies about vampires that may not be entirely realistic.” But then, inevitably, I always decide that a better warning might actually be: “Warning - This novel may contain graphic depictions of teen s*x.”
I base this last recommendation on my own personal high school experience where, as a decidedly pre-pubescent ninth grader who had yet to discover how to go blind, I was forced to read Catcher in the Rye and was so very traumatized and confused by the experience that I swore off reading anything else my ninth grade teacher assigned (sadly enough, this had less effect on my book report grades than one might imagine). My resolution lasted until, sometime during the next semester, we were given an option to choose between two books because one of the books, a novel by Judy Blume, if I recall, confronted the topic of s*x. Prurient rumors spread that the novel might actually contain a graphic description of the act itself. To read this novel, students were required to get their parents’ signature.
I, of course, did what most everyone else in the class did: I forged my parents’ signature. Why the forgery? While I was a bit worried I might not receive permission to read the racy novel, mostly, the thought of discussing s*x with my parents was too horrible to contemplate. But very nearly as bad was the unimaginable horror of my parents discovering the shameful secret that I myself was beginning to think about s*x. I was thinking about it quite a lot, actually, though I had yet to make any connection to The Catcher in the Rye.
After my forgery, I read the Blume novel in one sitting. And let me just say that while there was a great deal of agonizing over s*x and a great deal of passionate hand holding and physical touching that made the characters (and me) think about s*x, in the entire novel, I could find no actual description of s*x. And this was a great disappointment to me. If there had been any actual s*x in the novel, I might not only have gone on to discover blindness, I might also have become addicted to literacy and proceeded to win a Pulitzer before the age of eighteen. Alas, though, for me, no Pulitzer.
Which is why, in the interest of promoting literacy, I recommend that we in the fantasy community demand the aforementioned warning label be placed on all YA vampire (and possibly werewolf or were-anything) novels, or really any novels containing descriptions of or thoughts about s*x dealing with teenagers.
And as for Richelle Mead and PC Cast, it’s an interesting question. For every one Texas district that has pulled their books from its library shelves to scorn and ACLU censure, there are probably scores of others in Texas and around the country that have never purchased her books at all because the librarian (at his or her sole discretion) has determined the books to not be appropriate for the school’s students. For better or worse, the elected and hired officials in our democracy have a determining influence on what constitutes appropriate reading material. And while it’s easy to cry tyranny of the majority, the reality is that there are probably things none of us wish our scarce public monies to purchase for our impressionable children to read in school. That means that someone, be it a librarian, a principal, or a school board, must decide on whether a book is appropriate. They must act upon their interpretation of the values of a community knowing that any decision they reach is going to violate the desires of some of the constituency.
On the other hand, once a book has been put on the shelves, to take it off because it seems vulgar or racy, feels a lot like censorship, especially when, having read both the House of Night and the first book of the VA series, I find that they do not promote promiscuity. For instance, in PC Cast's novels, when the protagonist finally has sex for the first time (in the second or third novel) it is a huge mistake for her. The message that teenagers are often too immature to handle sexual relationships is a message I want my children to be exposed to, frequently. When I heard what happened, my first instinct was to suggest the following letter to the editor to Richelle Mead or PC Cast:
Dear Editor:
I am writing to applaud the decision of certain members of the C*nsorville community to ban my bestselling YA vampire series. It takes a rare type of courage to stand against the forces of civil liberty as you have done. And I’m sure your mature decision to keep the topic of s*x out of C*nsorville school libraries will go a long way toward keeping C*nsorville adol*scents from thinking about or otherwise experimenting with s*x, cementing in their impressionable minds as it does, the idea that s*x is dirty. Oh, and also that vampires are the evil spawn of H-E-double hockey stick.
Yet while I may think such sarcasm is clever, I suspect that some of you out there may disagree. So, let’s hear from you. Is this censorship or responsible school policy? Tell us what you think. Sincerely, SB Frank
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