Sex and literature in high school

BarcelonaThe other day I went to a high school where the second-year students had read Biography of FireThis book is certainly not the most suitable for high school students, because some of the stories deal with themes that may be too distant for them, and, in general, it has a level of complexity that, given the current state of reading comprehension, suggests it might not be easy for them. However, these talks in secondary schools are always interesting, especially because you realize they're surprised that writers are normal people. And part of the job is this: to get teenagers to stop seeing us as a kind of repressed, old-fashioned bookworm who doesn't write about life but about empty intellectual abstractions. This talk was also interesting, especially when the topic of sex came up.

A student told me that his parents were outraged to find that the book they were being made to read contained sex scenes. Unfortunately, it wasn't that the parents were interested in knowing what their son was reading and sharing the reading experience with him, but rather that the student, himself somewhat dismayed and offended, had shown them only the passages with sexual content.

Before continuing, it's probably best to give a brief summary of what these offensive sex scenes are, so that we can then study them with full knowledge of the facts. Biography of FireIt is a collection of fourteen stories, none of which have sex as their central theme.In eight stories there is some mention of sex. All references to sex are within the context of relationships between loving couples, and no perversions or strange practices are portrayed. Specifically, three stories contain passing mentions of masturbation (less than a line); one story includes a comment on the fact that sporadic, loveless sex is usually less satisfying; cunnilingus is mentioned in three stories (less than a line); the verb appears fuck Four short stories (all less than a line long, except for one story that has a complete twelve-line penetration scene). In short, I think all the sex in the book could fit on a single page.

Realistic sex and porn sex

Having said that, I continue. When the student tells me that he and his parents are offended and uncomfortable with the book's content, I reply that the way the book portrays sex is realistic, healthy, and natural (except perhaps, and only perhaps, for the twelve-line scene). We know from data and chilling statistics, I tell him, that on average children come into contact with pornography around the age of nine or ten. We also know that many boys his age, seventeen (most, I would venture to say), consume pornography; pornography that doesn't present a healthy or realistic portrayal of sex and has nothing to do with relationships and love, pornography in which women are often denigrated and bodies are objectified. We know that by the second year of high school, many are no longer virgins and have sex regularly. So I don't quite understand what the problem is with making them read a book that portrays sex in a realistic, even loving way, a book where sex only appears in passing and not as a central theme.

More problematic in the book, in my opinion, would be, for example, the recreational drug use in one story or the suicidal tendencies in another. Young people, I tell him, don't have any kind of sex education outside of aberrant and perverse pornography (and I don't mention it here, but I inevitably think of that teenager who was well under seventeen and explained in a TV3 report that the most aberrant thing he'd ever seen was a guy having sex with a baby's womb). So I insist that thank God he can read somewhere about what real sex is. But the student insists, too: my book still poses the biggest problem, because it somehow puts sex back at the center and overvalues ​​it. I assure you that the book doesn't put sex at the center in any way, nor does it overvalue it. A friend of the student supports him; some girls look at the ground and smile, I'd say agreeing with me. Perhaps the debate has been useful and will make them rethink something. Or perhaps not.

When I go to high schools with We'll ride all nightSex also comes up, Because there's a story about the bastards in the pack and another about the repugnant trivialization of sex that porn proposes.I also know that some parents complained at a school where they were made to read. SoleA novel that includes a sexual fantasy about a man in love and two scenes of masturbation. That's what a hypocritical society is: exposing children to pornographic aberrations and then being outraged when a loving couple makes love in a book.