The Debate Club discussion
: ̗̀➛ Economics and Laws
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Should Some Books be Banned? If So, Which Ones?
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I AGREE WITH THIS!!!
I am an avid dark romance reader, but would I recommend them to someone they could trigger? No!! They are also illegal where I live! And honestly they should be!
If it is informative nonfiction and spreads harmful misinformation I can see why it would have the need to be banned, as it can cause direct harm (remember that one parenting guidebook that resulted in deaths of children?).I still believe in regulating books, but I can see why nonfiction would be banned at times.
Fiction though? Nope. Nah. Never. If you think any sort of it shouldn't exist or that 'some censorship' is okay, you're Pro-censorship.
This applies to fanworks too. And anything else under 'fiction'. No matter how disgusting you and I find it, no matter how icky, no matter if it 'normalises' or 'romantices' something, no matter how problematic, it should not be banned. Any and all fiction has a right to exist.
Again, I do believe in regulating, obviously. Or something like "Hey thie book was written by a raging misogynist" that you see sometimes in classic books. But the book (or any other media) itself? Never.
Also, important point. People in power to ban books often ban books that either A. Criticize the government/Religion B. Depict minorities. Seriously, half of the banned books today are middle grade. Censorship is a disease.
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message 156:
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Barnette ⋆˙⟡ (my girlfriend's version), Creator, Head Moderator
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I'm sorry, teachers reading books to children with graphic sex scenes? That seems highly, highly unlikely. Do you have any evidence of this? Also, it doesn't really matter but how do you define graphic and sex scenes?
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I’ve read all this and in no way think that’s okay.
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Syd wrote: "@barnett I don’t have links to videos but I’ve seen real videos of parents complaining to the school boards and reading the graphic content to the boards in the meetings and even the board has said..."Yeah, I actually agree with you on that part — there’s a difference between banning ideas and making sure age-inappropriate material isn’t handed to kids who aren’t ready for it. If something’s too graphic to be read aloud at a school board meeting, it’s fair to question whether it belongs in a middle school library. Older teens and adults can choose for themselves, but younger kids shouldn’t be stumbling into explicit sexual content by accident.
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yay! Someone finally agrees with me, you have no idea how many people I've talked to in person and they say that's ok for kids to read
Syd wrote: "✰ g a g e - jisung's version ✰ wrote: "Syd wrote: "@barnett I don’t have links to videos but I’ve seen real videos of parents complaining to the school boards and reading the graphic content to the..."To an extent.. If it's a book, for example, like 1984, I read that in 7th grade, not as a class, but my teacher let me read it because she trusted me to read it, because I was mature enough to handle it. That’s how it should work — adults who know the student making a judgment call based on their maturity, not a blanket rule that treats every kid the same. Some students can process heavier themes earlier, others can’t, and that’s where guidance matters more than outright removal. It’s about matching the right book to the right reader at the right time, not locking it away from everyone.
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yep I agree
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Holy crap, people have said that’s okay for children to read?!!? Sex scenes??
message 164:
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Barnette ⋆˙⟡ (my girlfriend's version), Creator, Head Moderator
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Agreed that younger people should not be allowed to read that stuff, especially in schools. And yes I'd appreciate the link to one of those videos
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ok I'll get right on that once I get home so you might have to wait a while lol
message 166:
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Barnette ⋆˙⟡ (my girlfriend's version), Creator, Head Moderator
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I believe the maturity‑based system my elementary school library used could be highly effective if implemented in middle and high schools as well.In my elementary library, each grade level was assigned a specific sticker color, and that color was placed on a student’s ID to indicate which books they were permitted to check out. For example, if red represented 5th grade, a student with a red sticker could borrow books designated for 5th grade and below. This approach allowed for age‑appropriate access while still giving students the freedom to explore within their maturity level.
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message 169:
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Barnette ⋆˙⟡ (my girlfriend's version), Creator, Head Moderator
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In my elementary library, each grade level was as..."
That's a great system! A bit unrelated when I was in first/second grade I was at a 4th grade - middle school reading level and had trouble finding books that interested me in the section my grade was allowed in 😭 now even in 8th grade the books I'm assigned for school (I'm homeschooled now) are often really boring and below my reading level lmao
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what are they on? Like the platform?
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@syd you should remember that parents have lied or over-exaggerated the truth at meetings like that for their benefit, but I absolutely agree with you about having content warnings in ALL books that might have triggering topics. Just saying that the videos you might have seen could have been slightly dramatized because of parents being irrational. It might have been a book about parts of the body and teaching kids to be mindful about keeping their hands to themselves, and a parent could have misinterpreted that and thought the book was about touching kids.
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https://www.foxnews.com/media/michiga...
https://nypost.com/2023/02/28/knox-za...
https://flvoicenews.com/parents-outra...
https://youtu.be/bFKdRjsRHEI
Some other books read to kids and that are available in middle school libraries: PUSH by Sapphire, Its Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
There’s way more books than this and if you want to see more there’s this website called take back the classroom which is about taking sexually explicit books out of schools
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message 178:
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Barnette ⋆˙⟡ (my girlfriend's version), Creator, Head Moderator
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I think YA books should always be allowed to include sex. Not straight up smut, but sloppy teen sex and topics like porn addiction, STDs etc.
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YA is still 13-18 years old, so me personally a 13 year old shouldn't be reading that but if they choose to I can't stop them.
I think it's one of those things you should have exposure to at that age if you want to, in a safe way. 13 is when you first get sex ed, learning about it via books seems pretty okay.
there’s lower ya and upper ya, i think the upper side (like 15-18 maybe) should be able to have some small smut or dark topics
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I agree. Its just that a lot of book aren't doing it in a safe way
@syd I watched the videos (thanks for providing them) and I understand where you and the parents are coming from. HOWEVER, I still believe that having sex scenes in YA novels is fine TO A CERTAIN LEVEL. If books like Haunting Adaline or other books on that level are available to children, I would be concerned. But the sex scenes in most of these books are very mild and, to me personally, aren't super concerning. Sex is just a thing that some teenagers do, and because of that, authors put it in books. But the last thing in my very long paragraph is that you argued that these books should be BANNED. Banning books is an extreme form of suppressing people's freedom of speech. That is not something I believe in, and it seems mean to take away the ability for someone to read a book they love because of one chapter.
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Syd wrote: "@barnett I don’t have links to videos but I’ve seen real videos of parents complaining to the school boards and reading the graphic content to the boards in the meetings and even the board has said..."a ton of those kinds of videos are passages taken out of context and they usually just don’t want to have some sort of different content in the book that they cover up with some bs about how there’s sexual content in it. for example, some of the most banned books (bluest eye, all boys aren’t blue, genderqueer, maus, perks of being a wallflower) are banned “because of sexual content”, even tho they just don’t want kids to talk about specific subjects, or experience different voices. (i will say that i didn’t watch the videos you mentioned, but i will likely watch them later.)
All books and content with lgbt in them should be banned because they are turning the children gay
oh ok so that’s like… so untrue.
message 193:
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Barnette ⋆˙⟡ (my girlfriend's version), Creator, Head Moderator
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Could you explain how they're turning kids gay?
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siera ᯓ★ (semi-ia) wrote: "oh ok so that’s like… so untrue."Obviously you would say that, youve been indoctrinated by the gays sinful agenda
please completely disregard this comment from the debate it’s really just thinking out loud but yk when people mock those really serious trump supporting conservatives and its supposed to be all fun and jokes 😭 i actually didn’t know people talked like that and believed those things until know
Barnette wrote: "Sarah (RIP Charlie Kirk!!) wrote: "All books and content with lgbt in them should be banned because they are turning the children gay"Could you explain how they're turning kids gay?"
They normalise lgbtq which makes children think its fine to be gay
it is fine to be gay. you literally can’t control it. also a child is not going to ‘turn gay’ because they see it in a book. books have violence and murder. am i going to kill someone because to mc in a book does?
Being gay is a sin, so no its not fine, and yes you can control it but thats off-topic
i used to think this was a no-brainer, but there's actually way too many books like this that are rated way too highly