"I watched 'book bans' happen in real time. I thought they were all hysteria. Then I opened one of the most-challenged titles."This article has a really weird vibe to it. It's all over the place.
It's like...
"Well, I used to think that book bans were very dumb, but then I found this one book that changed my mind to think that maybe book bans are okay after all in some cases, except not really, because I still think the book is probably good actually, except not really, because the book still really squicks me out personally, but maybe it's still okay, because it's not as bad as all the rage-boner-havers say it is, but even so I still get why people want to ban books now, even though I still think those people are politically up their own asses for the most part, but maybe they have a point, and maybe this book should be banned, but I don't actually think it should be banned, but I'm pretty sure I'm certainly not going to be showing it to my own kids, despite this one expert I talked to telling me I should get over being so namby-pamby and totally show it to my kids, because it's okay to show it to my kids and would even do them good, but I'm probably not going to show it to my kids because it's got 'graphic images' in it and that makes my pee-pee feel all weird, like I should be trying to hide while reading it, but books like this are necessary because kids are bound to see way worse out in the 'real world' and this book could help prepare them for that, but it really does look kinda-sorta-but-not-really-porn-y though so I see why prudish moms would want to ban it, but I'm not really sure that's the best thing, but..."
...and so on and so forth, forever circling around and around,
ad absurdum,
ad nauseam.
Even the final two paragraphs of the article are:
"Carnagey told me she keeps a copy of It’s Perfectly Normal
in her home library, and assured me that her young boys aren't sneaking around to peek at it. As I got further into the book, I began to see it the way Carnagey does, as a meaningful book intent on destigmatizing everything from puberty to sex, birth, and STDs. And by the end, when I got to the new section about the internet that was added when the book was rereleased for its fourth edition, I found a lot of things that I wished I had known when I was young and exploring the internet myself. So much of the information in this book would have made a huge difference.
"'It's not fair for young people to be put in the position that so many of us were in,' Carnagey told me. I don't know if my kids are ever going to find a copy of It’s Perfectly Normal on their bookshelves, but that much I believe is true." (Emphasis mine.)
It's like "Yeah, in the end, I think the book is fine... ... ...just not for
my kids." It kind of reminds me of the
"Michael Jackson Jury Selection" skit from Chappelle's Show. "So you'd let your children <read
It's Perfectly Normal>?" "Fuck no! Ew!"
Ultimately, I think the author of the article comes down on the side of not having the book banned, but they were hemming and hawing and being incredibly wishy-washy and grossly ambivalent all throughout their nebulous, ambiguous article. I say "ambiguous," because just look at some of the comments attached to the article that chastise the author for what they incorrectly(?) see as support for the book being banned. The vast majority of the comments are supportive of the article (at least as far down as I bothered to read of them, anyway), though, just to note. But then,
Slate is kind of a supposed "LIEbrul hive of scum and villainy," viewed by GQPers in the same way that most sane people view the likes of Faux Noise, though, so take that with a grain of salt. (EDIT) Disclaimer: This is the first Slate article that I've deigned to read in literally years (mainly because I got suckered in by the gratuitously clickbait headline [which in the Google News app I originally saw it in was actually "Book bans: I thought the challenges were hysterical. Then I opened one of the books" and not just "Closed Book" the way it is on the actual website]), ever since they
put out a hit piece against
Seth Abramson. And this article here also kind of reminded me of why I don't typically read Slate articles anymore, I just have to say. (/EDIT)
This is
the book in question, by the way. That's what conservatives/Republicans/GQPers are in an uproar about (among, of course, the myriad other asinine things about which conservatives/Republicans/GQPers are incessantly in an uproar).
As one of the comments says,
"Can't kids just watch porn behind their parents' backs and develop a whole catalogue of bizarre, unhealthy and unrealistic ideas and aspirations regarding sex like we did in the good old days?"(Tangentially speaking, I've already talked about
what I personally think should be banned forever, and the sooner the better. This article here, in an indirect way, is another bullet point reinforcing my opinion on that matter.)
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