10-Year-Old Borrows Steamy Gay Sex Manga From Local Library
- Thread starter The Wooster
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I like the repsonse that the library gave, as they stated it is the responsibility of the parents to make sure their children don't get material that they don't approve of.
So you guys have full on pornographic, visual novels in your libraries? I wonder if we do as well in Australia, though I certainly haven't seen any.
Also where is the limit? Do libraries also stock Husler or even pornographic DvD's? That they let any pre-adult rent them is troubling as well but I suppose I can't talk as I sure as shit looked at internet porn before I was 18.
Also where is the limit? Do libraries also stock Husler or even pornographic DvD's? That they let any pre-adult rent them is troubling as well but I suppose I can't talk as I sure as shit looked at internet porn before I was 18.
I am a librarian. This is the kind of ethics thing we discuss all the time.
Should we have literature with unsavoury sexual content? If not, do we bann Nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek? If we allow her books because she is so obviously "art", where do we draw the line? Are books like "50 shades" OK? Is it OK as long as there are no pictures? And what about racism? There are so many books that are horribly racist, but get a free pass because they are classics, or just historically accurate.
It comes down to why we have libraries, and what guidelines are set up for that particular library. A school library has a goal different from a local library branch, or a national library. The limits are set by what kind of library it is, and what the library budget will permit.
There is also the matter of sooooo many people, both adults and children, thinking that anything with drawn pictures in it is for children. And funny.
A good librarian helps you find what you want, even if you did not know it existed. At one library where I worked, we were explicitly forbidden to even frown if someone wanted to check out something we thought might be unsuitable, out of respect for the client and her right to choose her own information. (We also had to smile and explain this when the angry parents or teachers complained.)
Should we have literature with unsavoury sexual content? If not, do we bann Nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek? If we allow her books because she is so obviously "art", where do we draw the line? Are books like "50 shades" OK? Is it OK as long as there are no pictures? And what about racism? There are so many books that are horribly racist, but get a free pass because they are classics, or just historically accurate.
It comes down to why we have libraries, and what guidelines are set up for that particular library. A school library has a goal different from a local library branch, or a national library. The limits are set by what kind of library it is, and what the library budget will permit.
There is also the matter of sooooo many people, both adults and children, thinking that anything with drawn pictures in it is for children. And funny.
A good librarian helps you find what you want, even if you did not know it existed. At one library where I worked, we were explicitly forbidden to even frown if someone wanted to check out something we thought might be unsuitable, out of respect for the client and her right to choose her own information. (We also had to smile and explain this when the angry parents or teachers complained.)
Zeriah said:
It's not porn from what I can tell, it's just sexual. It's an adult-oriented romance novel, it has it's sex scenes and whatnot but it's about the story more so than the sex. A porn one would be...just sex.
It's like a gay 50 shades of grey thing, in manga form.
Don't know about yaoi manga (don't read manga much), but it's not unusual for me to come across raunchy gay novels while looking through books in general, so I imagine it'd be the same for the manga.Zeriah said:
Anyway, I kind of have to side with the guy, since the novel isn't non-fiction it really shouldn't have been labelled as such. If it had been in the adult fiction section, then there would have been a lot less chance of her picking it up, unless she was intentionally looking for that sort of stuff, in which case it wouldn't have mattered where they put it.
I guess it teaches people about the birds and the... birds.Nile McMorrow said:
Wait, that just sounds silly.
The bees and the bees.
But seriously... they put adult material with children's material?
And none of them noticed the sticker, except for the uncle?
That's just... really fucking stupid.
"The title checked out, "Hero Heel 2" was catalogued as Adult Non-Fiction."
Maybe this is because I've just woken up and I'm missing something, but why was it classed as non-fiction?
Maybe this is because I've just woken up and I'm missing something, but why was it classed as non-fiction?
It's not the law if the EULA itself doesn't adhere to the actual law. I assume you wouldn't want your courts to take them seriously if the library declared they'd take your first child as a penalty for failing to return books on time.Reveras said:
Surely you could just have an adult section attached to any books within a certain genre that also contain particularly adult stuff? Bookshops do it.AnnaIME said:
Shit guys, can't blame it all on the adults you know. A library is supposed to be a nice place, a learning place, the library should not have allowed a child to check out an ADULTS ONLY comic book without consent of an adult. Now, I have no idea how this goes in the USA because I never used the library system there, but here in Brazil we would have a criminal investigation under both the Penal Code and the Statute of Children and Adolescents (crime without intent, obviously). I still remember when I was young a comic book was a comic book, I wanted them for the figures and not much else, didn't care if I knew the characters of not, that's how I almost bought a Druna comic book, the shopkeeper however did NOT ALLOW ME, since it was an 18+ comic book (and whoever read it knows it's not even erotic, it's downright porn), he said I'd need my mother's authorization, THEN she asked him why it was 18+ (since a lot of harmless crap is 18+) and took a look at it, look at me with a smile and told me to pick something else hahaha Years later I would read Druna, and it sucked, specially compared to the other Heavy Metal material...
I've to side with the library on this one. Even if the book was kinda raunchy, I don't think it's the library's business to get involved if someone wants to read such a book. Even if the reader is a minor. I mean, it's still better than real porn, right? But, as to the fact that she did borrow it accidentally, they might want to move them on to a higher shelf or something, so the little kiddies don't get their minds blown. Or their parents' minds, for that matter.
Fair enough, so we are talking about the kind of sex scenes you would see in movies, not full on hentai? Still it seems to me there should be some kind of enforceable classification as long as it has visuals, though I know how prickly that topic is among Americans.Dreiko said:Zeriah said:
It's not porn from what I can tell, it's just sexual. It's an adult-oriented romance novel, it has it's sex scenes and whatnot but it's about the story more so than the sex. A porn one would be...just sex.
It's like a gay 50 shades of grey thing, in manga form.
In my eyes a 10 year old shouldn't be able to go in and buy/rent something that is the equivalent of a far more raunchy Sex and the City but if it must happen you would think the parent would have to give permission (as in rent it for them or be there when the child rents it). It seems pretty crazy to me that this wasn't illegal.
I think 50 shades of grey shouldn't be rentable by children as well but a 50 Shades of Grey comic is significantly worse.
Glad I'm not the only person who had that as their first thought!Woodsey said:
It would make at least a modicum of sense if their excuse was "we put all comics in the same section" (although it still seems silly not to divide your stock into adult and non-adult, at least by shelf).
From what I understand from posts here by people who are familiar with Hero Heel, it sounds like it wasn't terribly graphic. I have to wonder if the yaoi (gay) element factors in to the uncle's outrage
As I see it, this isn't about library borrowing policy but stocking the book full stop. After all, a kid doesn't have to borrow the book to read it - plenty of people go to the library to read without borrowing. So either they stock the controversial books or they don't. I don't know about everyone else, but I would rather they do. Libraries shouldn't tell people what they should be reading.