Monday, October 20, 2008
Since When?
I was reading someone's review of the new Twilight series of vampire books. She was concerned because it seemed there was a pro-teen abstinence agenda in the books.
??!!
No matter what one might think about the merits of abstinence only education, how or whether morals should be taught, etc, it seems to me that encouraging abstinence in children (even teenagers) is not actually bad. We encourage them not to drink, even while knowing that many will do so anyway and nobody talks about how dangerous it is to teach them it is better not to do so. Likewise with smoking, illegal drugs, etc. There is no other issue on which our position is "Well, they're going to do so anyway, so why tell them anything different?"
Anyway, I cannot fathom a line of thinking that is so disturbed by the possible hint that maybe teen abstinence is a positive. That maybe it should be encouraged. I do not see the same kind of concern about the young adult fiction that celebrates promiscuity openly, but an undercurrent of pro-teen abstinence is somehow dangerous.
Day is night indeed.
??!!
No matter what one might think about the merits of abstinence only education, how or whether morals should be taught, etc, it seems to me that encouraging abstinence in children (even teenagers) is not actually bad. We encourage them not to drink, even while knowing that many will do so anyway and nobody talks about how dangerous it is to teach them it is better not to do so. Likewise with smoking, illegal drugs, etc. There is no other issue on which our position is "Well, they're going to do so anyway, so why tell them anything different?"
Anyway, I cannot fathom a line of thinking that is so disturbed by the possible hint that maybe teen abstinence is a positive. That maybe it should be encouraged. I do not see the same kind of concern about the young adult fiction that celebrates promiscuity openly, but an undercurrent of pro-teen abstinence is somehow dangerous.
Day is night indeed.
Labels: Books, Faith and Morality
Comments:
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I do agree with you that encouraging abstinence in children is a good idea. I don't agree with anyone who proposes it as a blinders-on "this is the only solution" idea, but it's just as silly to do nothing but preach "of course they're going to have sex, let's teach all the intricacies of birth control."
I do disagree, though, about the level of concern about promiscuity in YA books; when I was working in the bookstore, I was constantly defending the good books, and constantly talking to parents about which books were actually smutty, and which books weren't, but the publishers packaged them that way so they'd sell (which is a whole other issue that I will rant about another time).
I also wouldn't put these words in your friend's mouth, but the WAY the abstinence is presented in the Twilight books bothered me; there is a serious undercurrent of young women being objectified and manipulated by young men in those books, and the abstinence theme just kind of becomes part of that manipulation. It's very frustrating to me. Also, the book has this terror of marriage that plays as the way the author thinks that young women thinks about things, and that annoyed the heck out of me.
I didn't even bother reading the last book, I was so irritated.
I do disagree, though, about the level of concern about promiscuity in YA books; when I was working in the bookstore, I was constantly defending the good books, and constantly talking to parents about which books were actually smutty, and which books weren't, but the publishers packaged them that way so they'd sell (which is a whole other issue that I will rant about another time).
I also wouldn't put these words in your friend's mouth, but the WAY the abstinence is presented in the Twilight books bothered me; there is a serious undercurrent of young women being objectified and manipulated by young men in those books, and the abstinence theme just kind of becomes part of that manipulation. It's very frustrating to me. Also, the book has this terror of marriage that plays as the way the author thinks that young women thinks about things, and that annoyed the heck out of me.
I didn't even bother reading the last book, I was so irritated.
I haven't read any of the series, but I thought your defense of encouraging abstinence was right on target, and written eloquently. Nice post.
Okay, Kristine, your criticism is waaaaay more useful than the review I read. The reviewer seemed so blindsided by this dangerous "abstinence" thing, that she couldn't talk about anything in depth about the books. The way she said it, it made it sound like there is something inherently bad about promoting abstinence.
I'm not sure I want to read them, anyway, because I'm not so keen on this whole fascination with death thing our culture has going on. I was just trying to find some information on the internets about what the basic plot was, some opinions of the writing, etc.
I have to say that I find young adult fiction to be mostly trash. I only say mostly because I think I have read two YA books that weren't trash, so I didn't want to say all of them. If a person is old enough to read YA, then they are pretty much old enough to read good adult fiction as far as I'm concerned. But, then, I'd like to go back to the world where there were children and there were adults, instead of our adolescence, which used to be while you were a teenager and is now, evidently, extended to something like 62.
I won't go on, because you really don't want me to get started, and this is already a little too long to be considered a comment.
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I'm not sure I want to read them, anyway, because I'm not so keen on this whole fascination with death thing our culture has going on. I was just trying to find some information on the internets about what the basic plot was, some opinions of the writing, etc.
I have to say that I find young adult fiction to be mostly trash. I only say mostly because I think I have read two YA books that weren't trash, so I didn't want to say all of them. If a person is old enough to read YA, then they are pretty much old enough to read good adult fiction as far as I'm concerned. But, then, I'd like to go back to the world where there were children and there were adults, instead of our adolescence, which used to be while you were a teenager and is now, evidently, extended to something like 62.
I won't go on, because you really don't want me to get started, and this is already a little too long to be considered a comment.
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