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this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
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Removing "Roots" is deplorable, it's an important time piece that captures the narrative and conditions of slavery in the United States......
but.... removing "A Court of Thorns and Roses" from children's school libraries seems appropriate. It's an introductory book to a series of adult fantasy novels (yes, that kind of adult fantasy) that get progressively more "spicy" (see: pornographic) as the series continues. And it being the first book doesn't mean it's tame and gets worse in later books. It's a bit more explicit than "and then they held hand and fade to black". It's more like "and then the main character stradles a hairy man in an animal mask to climax"... yea, that book doesn't need to be in a school library.
EDIT: ohshi, actually it's not just that they had to remove the first book, they had all of them removed.
Which implies there was possibly a time when those books were in school libraries. Which is basically just smut at that point. We don't stock Playboys in the school library either.
How about you let publicly funded libraries be libraries and you worry about your own kids?
What a completely devoid of thought thing to say. You're either a child or have the mind of one.
The SCHOOL library is not the same place and context as a traditional public library. Regular public library you (presumably) go with your family who can supervise and make decisions on what material is appropriate for you, because they know you. As opposed to the SCHOOL library, which is largely unsupervised and would be impossible for educators to make individual decisions for each child, nor should they. I don't think teachers should be specifically limiting what kids can/can't learn. But as the school library IS a PUBLIC library, then the PUBLIC should have a say in what goes there for kids. And I think, generally, drawing the line at smut romance books is a pretty reasonable line to draw. There's no educational value in smut books, so they don't need to be in the educational library.....
Lemme guess, your argument boils down to some kind "just let kids learn", boiling down all children into some kind of monolith of behavior. Forgetting that kids brains are not fully developed, that they lack impulse control, they don't have the experience or context to understand the consequences of their actions, and range wildly on levels a maturity even amongst those in the same grade level. What one kid can handle and respond to is going to be a trigger or elicit dangerous thoughts in another.
So maybe, instead of just letting kids go willnilly at the school library unsupervised; consuming a bunch of adult material without understanding how they may react to that, we just don't stock obviously adult materials for them to grab. If it's really important that the child read the fantasy smut, then they can head on down the regular public library and get their parents (who presumably have a better understandig of what their child is capable of) to get it for them. And if your issue is about parents parenting... then you really are a child.
It boils down to this. You want to ban something you don't like. There is clearly disagreement in this thread about whether the content you want to ban is inappropriate, and you dont seem to be anywhere near in the majority on that.
So if we went and banned everything in school libraries, public libraries, or whatever other space we are calling under the control of the public (loosely paraphrasing you) on the basis of extremely vocal minorities, then we will have very little left on those shelves. The least common denominator of things so inoffensive no one thought to ask for them to be removed.
If you think there should be a conversation about whether a particular book or book series is appropriate, and you want to submit your thoughts in the correct forum to help decide that one or another book shouldn't be there, great. Participate in the process.
Here, though, you seem to have tried hijacking a post about a book on a very different topic and turning it into your own soapbox for railing against a book you declared to be smut.
You're not changing minds in this Lemmy thread. You're not making friends. What you are doing is making a lot or noise a out a topic you seem to be widely disagreed with on, and you seem to be badly reacting to it. Among other things, you repeatedly declare everyone who disagrees with some of the specific things youre declaring isn't a parent. That's rank horseshit. It makes me wonder how well you understand parenting yourself, if your solution to being disagreed with is to yell, flail, call people names, question their morality, and so on.
Take a breath, re-examine your reasons for thinking what you do, and remember to occasionally check reasonable scholarly authorities on what has been found to be harmful to children. Something may seem perfectly obviously harmful that actually isn't harmful, its just distasteful to you and some others. That isn't the same thing.
I never read them but looks like those are bestsellers with good reviews. By calling them "smut" and calling for bans you're not different than christian fundamentalists trying to ban Harry Potter and LOTR.
whatever man, whatfucking ever. You think that adult fantasy with explicit sex scenes written for adults is good for kids. Whatfuckingever man. Holy fuck, you lost the plot if you're arguing for that. It's not even on the same level as HarryPotter/LOTR.
Ey, why stop at erotic books. Just put porn on school computers. Do away with any internet controls. Put a shortcut on the school computer that goes to Pornhub, for education... don't wanna censor anything. Afterall, Pornhub and Wikipedia are basically just places to learn things. Same sames.
The thing is, it's just your opinion. You think those books are not for fit for high schoolers are say they should be banned for everyone. You're forcing your morality and opinions on everyone else.
ohmyfuckinggod. REVERSE that line of thought. It's YOUR opinion. YOU think it's fit for kids. So YOU can give them to YOUR kids.
In a PUBLIC library, the PUBLIC (that's the average person) decides on the morality and topics that are approrpiate for children. It's the general average consensus. If you want to show them more YOU CAN, with YOUR KIDS. I'm not forcing you not to. The PUBLIC is saying "I dont' think kids should read erotic fantasy" and I, LIKE MOST PARENTS, agree with that sentiment.. I think the line should be drawn somewhere, and erotic explicit sex fantasy books is over that line, for me, and most people.
I get it, you had a traumatic controlling childhood and now you wanna rebel against the system with "I would never tell my kids no, I'll let them do anything they want". But not everyone wants to raise their kids in the same fuckedup way as you.
I'm saying each parent and kid above certain age should be free to decide. You want to decide for them. Even if it's majorities consensus it's still one group of people limiting the rights of other group.
The point of public library is to offer access to books for free. By banning those books from library and saying "parents can show them to their kids if they want to" you're basically saying that parent can show kids those books if they can afford and find them. Next you will decide that if majority decides those books should not be sold in local bookstores and if parents want to they can look for them elsewhere.
The books were already there. It's not people democratically deciding how to spend public money. It's zealots policing what other people should and should not like.
the age is 18.
That's the certain age we, as a public society, have decided that they are free to decide for themselves about what's appropriate for them. Because they are adults. Fullstop.
You want to argue lowering the age where a child is considered an adult?.... is that where you want to go? I mean, you have been arguing in favor of showing porn to kids... so, maybe it is. Maybe it's in your interest that kids are considered "mature" at a younger age.
It's all just your opinions. It's your opinion it's porn, it's your opinions 16yo should have have access to it. You're calling something porn and then attacking people for showing it to kids. You're exactly like christian zealots. I'm done talking to you.
So you're ok with books that describe killing and gore but sex is off the table?
It implies no such thing. Before that, it would have simply been the school administrators decision as to whether or not to have those in the school library. There's no evidence that any school actually did.
The school board bans come from a blanket list they get from probably some far-right evangelical consulting firm somewhere. It's pre-emptive. And it never used to be needed because we trusted our teachers and long-suffering librarians to do their job. THEY made sure that what was in THEIR library was appropriate.
The school board is just making smoke in order to pretend that there's a fire.
I am surprised at the onslaught of downvotes about not wanting ACOTAR in a school library, seems pretty sane to me.
Are school libraries also public libraries in some places? Where I am at, they are not. They are only accessible to the children attending the school and maybe the staff working there.
Seems pretty sane to me too, man. I don't know. A lot of people seem to really want kids to read porn without any restrictions... at a school library.
It's not sane at all.
The biggest struggle is getting kids actually reading. You don't do that by forcing them to only read books that don't interest them at all.
If the entire purpose is to encourage kids to read (it's not...not in 'murica, anyway), but you take away anything they want to read, you're defeating the purpose.
I can't believe this is actually something people want to debate! It's ludicrous. Reading improves a kids cognition and ability to process complex thoughts. That's the entire purpose of a school library.
How in the fuck did we go from a world where your teacher would tell you to go pick three books from the library to take home and read, to a world where your teacher tells you to not read books you like for some obscure reason?
Getting kids reading IS the entire point. It's the foudational skill to everything else that comes along with it.
Kid starts reading "Mein Kampf", hey at least they're reading!
Oh, they picked up "The Turner Diaries", cool, that's educational! Don't wanna restrict or redirect at all.... that would be bad parenting.
Stopping a child from reading inappropriate content for their age and without context? Practically ruins a child, right?
A child who has the presence of mind to make it 10 pages into either of those books is ready to have the important conversations that come with the territory.
That goes for books in general.
Right, that's what the public library is for! Do kids no longer have access to both?
I think a lot of the commenters here didn't have access to adult materials as kids and they're real salty about it.
Lol our school librarian would recommend them to us if we brought it up and tell us what librarian at the public library has the best smut recommendations.
I wonder if there is some confusion about the difference between school libraries and public libraries.
Obviously school libraries - especially at the K-6 level - should have different guidelines than public libraries.
I mean, that's literally what I've been arguing the whole time... but nope... people are like "you have to let kids read erotica!!! Stopping schools from giving smut to kids is wrong!!! parents who set boundaries are bad parents!!!!"
100%. I think it's quite reasonable to have boundaries in school libraries. I bet nearly everyone would agree with that, except for the online free speech maximalists who probably don't really take that position IRL anyway...
Where that line is will obviously be something that people differ on. To be fair, I'm not all that familiar with the line of books you are talking about, but if they are as you describe, I doubt too many are going to back them, at least at the lower grades.
I really don't give a shit let kids read fucking porn if they want at this point as long as its queer or femme do it just yo piss off the fascists I don't buy that its bad for kidseven if it was I say keep it just to piss off fasch and push window
You're not a parent, obviously.
Maybe some kids can read it. Or maybe, brainrot world of free information shows that, actually, kids aren't good at consuming adult material because they lack the context and understanding of consequences. Kids don't think long term, they don't comprehend abuse and trauma right. Letting kids read smut and bascially normalizing its content is going to leave them with a severely fucked up sense of sex and relationships because they have nothing else to base it on.
Is sex in real life like it is in porn? No. And if you watched a lot of fucked up porn and then just tried to do that shit like you thought "thats how sex is, right?" you're going to have a bad time. And that's neverminding that A LOT of adult fantasy is "Consensual Non-Consent" (or adjacent, stalkery stuff). So that's going to be kids baseline for how to behave in a relationship. What else would they have to compare it to? Is that a good idea? Do you think that it's smart to normalize to a bunch of teen boys that it's normal to just force yourself on women, because actually, just like in the books, that's what they really want and like.....
That's why kids don't need to be reading adult smut, they don't have the understanding to know that it's FANTASY.
Parent here, you sound completely unhinged. I would rather my school's library have an entire section of pokemon bdsm slashporn than the level of censorship that's currently happening.
Go read some Phyllis Schafly op eds and leave the rest of us alone
That seems like an argument for only letting them see good porn and good stories about violence and trauma and stuff not none owning the fasch worth it anyway and I don't think the exclusion mechanism is worth sorry I don't really care about your middle ground bullshit owning the fasch never surrender an inch even if it isn't one you want let them fight it exhaust themselves on it
Wonder if the Xanth series is going to get caught up in this. Fun, punny adventures in a fairly unique fantasy land, lots of coming of age stories. But also varying degrees of pedo shit, never ending mysogyny, and of course the questionable bestiality (the animals are sentient so they can give consent but uh, yeah, it's questionable). My school had tons of them lol
Thought that was an http header.
I'm torn on this one because these books are smut, and not particularly good smut. but Porn is different, it's visual. The distinction between school libraries and public libraries is important, and school libraries cannot be infinite, so choosing to remove books like the ACOTAR series in favor of other, more relevant books for kids is fine. but in High School I had access to some gruelingly violent books in our school library, I struggle to see how violence should be considered acceptable but sex shouldn't be.
In HS, as part of the official curriculum decided on by the lit teachers in my school, I read "Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes" which contains discussions of many controversial topics, landing most of its focus on abortion. The teachers correctly understood that we were old enough to take in and have out own thoughts on the topics discussed in the book. It seems insane to try to gate keep topics that teens are definitely aware of and discussing and seeking out on their own. I'd rather my kids read stuff in text and ask questions about it and make decisions about it on their own than fully block it out so they just seek out actual porn. I think ACOTAR, which I've read the first 4 in the series, is fine for a teenager to read, and shouldn't be banned. And I think if a 5th grader tried to read it, they'd probably reject it for being a bit tough to read anyway.
Never read that book but if you consider Playboy and it's tasteful vanilla nudity section to be pornography then I feel justified in dismissing your judgement on this subject.
Softcore porn is still porn.
You're just desensitized due to the modern internet and years of hard-core video pornography. What used to be hard-core porn 20 years ago is the standard average faire on every site today. And what used to be considered porn is "tasteful vanilla" now.
Playboy has always been a porn magazine. You just dont get off to it because you watch too much hard-core porn on the hub.
So, anyways, I dont feel bad being dismissed by a massive gooner.
:popcorn:
I didn't realize how many Lemmings are really passionate about letting kids read erotica. It's kinda creepy.
Getting downvoted to hell for saying "hey, maybe a school library for kids is not the place for sexually explicit material. Maybe parents should make that decision".