10-Year-Old Borrows Steamy Gay Sex Manga From Local Library

[MorganL4]

Well, they are really opening themselves up for a suit for providing pornography to minors arent they.

I figure they should stock most kinds of things, but giving visual pornography to pre-teens is a bit much IMO

Except that there are actually Federal laws that protect pornography's right to be viewed in a public library. ( trust me I have now had to right 2 papers on this for a class I am currently taking, not a happy topic, but it wasn't my call)

Also, as a person who lives in the Seattle area (read King County) I can tell you that the way they set up their checkout (and have done since around 2005) is that there is the desk with the librarians behind it, where you can go ask for help ( this is also where they sort returned books to be put back on the shelf) finding an item.... and one where you can ask for research help. At none of these do you check out.

Here is the KCLS check out system....

1. Pick your items
2. walk to self checkout desk
3. scan your library card
4. enter pin #
5. scan items one by one
6. if need be load up a bag with items
7. take receipt and leave


In today's KCLS library librarians are removed from the checkout process. In other words there was no scenario where a librarian would have seen the sticker and acted as a censor.

 

[Playful Pony]

I don't really think the library is at fault here. The parents responsible should really keep an eye on the books their kids take home with them. After all you wouldn't allow them to watch whatever they wanted on the TV, would you? You'd check to make sure they didn't watch something unsuitable. It's not the TV's job to do that. You wouldn't let your kid search up whatever pictures and videos they felt like online.

It's not the same thing. TV is public access, with only the parent in the way of what kids can and can't watch. In this case the librarian also serves as a barrier. If a bar or store let anyone under drinking age buy alcohol they'd sure as hell be liable, and stores that sell videogames are also supposed to be partly responsible for making sure they don't sell M rated games to anyone under 18, so I think similar standards should apply especially when the book's cover had that explicit content label.

I was under the impression this library has an automatic check-out system? Or did I just read that in a random post... We sure have that around where I live anyway... If this girl went trough a librarian before leaving, and said librarian didn't question her choice of book then I would agree thats quite sloppy. It's still not against the policy of the library though, and the label in question isn't a legal barrier such as with alcohol so I don't agree that it applies in the same way at all. The comparison to video games I agree with.

 

[Pebkio]

I think the bigger story here is that people still go to the library to borrow books.

So, did everyone forget that there is a fully functional internet still out here? If this girl wanted some spicy gay porn, she could go get it without breaking out the library card. Obviously she just wanted to read the second installment of Hero-Heel. The library might be a relic from a bygone age, but at least she wasn't pirating the manga.

 

[CMDDarkblade]

I'm mostly referring to the loudmouthed and universally-unpopular fringe feminists (low-hanging fruit and all that).

But, the notion that a great many women may enjoy a) visual erotica which b) explores themes of rough sex or even rape in a non-negative way, would be unwelcome in a lot of even so-called moderate feminist circles.

Apologies for my misunderstanding.

I can heartily get behind your second... well, I can get behind your third point, but there are definitely women that enjoy visual erotica and in my experience "moderate feminist"/"mild feminists"[footnote]for lack of a better term[/footnote] are accepting of that. The rapey-themes and such might not get a pass, but if they do it would likely be because of some cognitive dissonance relating to the victims being male.

Regardless, I think we can both agree that explorations of dominance/submission[footnote]Be it guy/girl, girl/guy, girl/girl, or guy/guy[/footnote], rough sex, and "rape play [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_fantasy]" are all things that are just fine and dandy with feminism, so long as all parties are safe, sane and consensual [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SafeSaneAndConsensual].

Women who like yaoi can do whatever they want with their male-on-male love-rape fests that they call "romance" as long they don't associate sexual/romantic fantasies with the lives of actual gay/bisexual people. They need to stop trying to put me in one of their "seme", "uke" categories damnnit!

Captcha: "My beating heart" It's like something out of some sappy yaoi story.

 

[rob_simple]

The thing I've never understood is we slap parental advisory stickers on comics and CD's, put age ratings on films and games, but all the most depraved violence and sexual content I've read (I'm not implying Yaoi is depraved, by the by) has come from novels which absolutely any one can check out of the library; no questions asked.

I think this is good because I don't think anyone but a parent has the right to censor what a minor sees (and even then only in terms of protecting them from things like violence; not those nutjobs that don't want their kids knowing about homosexuality,) but it's one of the weirdest double-standards of censorship I've come across in my lifetime.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Spoiler: Zen Toombs post

I'm mostly referring to the loudmouthed and universally-unpopular fringe feminists (low-hanging fruit and all that).

But, the notion that a great many women may enjoy a) visual erotica which b) explores themes of rough sex or even rape in a non-negative way, would be unwelcome in a lot of even so-called moderate feminist circles.

Apologies for my misunderstanding.

I can heartily get behind your second... well, I can get behind your third point, but there are definitely women that enjoy visual erotica and in my experience "moderate feminist"/"mild feminists" are accepting of that. The rapey-themes and such might not get a pass, but if they do it would likely be because of some cognitive dissonance relating to the victims being male.

Regardless, I think we can both agree that explorations of dominance/submission, rough sex, and "rape play [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_fantasy]" are all things that are just fine and dandy with feminism, so long as all parties are safe, sane and consensual [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SafeSaneAndConsensual].

Women who like yaoi can do whatever they want with their male-on-male love-rape fests that they call "romance" as long they don't associate sexual/romantic fantasies with the lives of actual gay/bisexual people. Stop trying to put me in one of your "seme", "uke" categories damnnit!

Captcha: "My beating heart" It's like something out of some sappy yaoi story.

Erm, what? And how was quoting me relevant to that.... I'm gonna go with rant?

Also, if your heart doesn't beat unless it's in a sappy yaoi story, you might want to see your doctor.

 

[Azuaron]

But, more importantly, while a single image can, in the space of a second, scar someone for life (I've got some links for you if you don't believe me)

Try me.

Via PM of course.

It's no fair if you show up preemptively scarred.

 

[CMDDarkblade]

Erm, what? And how was quoting me relevant to that.... I'm gonna go with rant?

Also, if your heart doesn't beat unless it's in a sappy yaoi story, you might want to see your doctor.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make the rant personally directed at you. It was a typo, I meant it to be directed at women who obsess over yaoi fantasies and think that actual gay couples work that way. I edited my post to make that more clear.

Also, the captcha looked like it was sample dialogue from yaoi manga like, "my heart stopped beating when I saw him" or something stupidly romantic like that.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Erm, what? And how was quoting me relevant to that.... I'm gonna go with rant?

Sorry, I didn't mean to make the rant personally directed at you. It was a typo, I meant it to be directed at women who obsess over yaoi fantasies and think that actual gay couples work that way. I edited my post to make that more clear.

No worries, this one was merely confused.

Also, if your heart doesn't beat unless it's in a sappy yaoi story, you might want to see your doctor.

The captcha looked like it was sample dialogue from yaoi manga like, "my heart stopped beating when I saw him" or something stupidly romantic like that.

 

[GeneralFungi]

This article upsets me.

Mostly because I have no idea how to pronounce "yaoi".

I mean, three vowels and a "y"? Come on, what the hell?

I believe it's pronounced Yow-Ee. There, now you can brag to your friends about your japanese porn lingo!

 

[f1r2a3n4k5]

I stand by the library 100%. Libraries have always amazed me in that, the ideal library would contain every written form of literature indiscriminately.

...Some of us will just read anything within reach. I remember when I was 10, I used to bring a flashlight to bed with me, just so I could keep reading. I read over a hundred books before my teacher recommended my parents "limit my reading," which, to this day, I feel is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard from an educator.

I recall reading Robert Cormier which is definitely not kosher for a 10 year-old and rates similarly on the controversy scale, but they let me borrow it anyway. And I'm grateful for that. New ideas.

 

[TKretts3]

IF a library wants to stock up on manga or anime, there's no problem with that. Porn, however, should be kept in porn/sex store, not a public library. Furthermore, the library blaming the parents when their employees let a 10-year old check out porn is simply unacceptable. Parents should make sure that their children aren't reading things like this, but that doesn't mean that no one else has any responsibility in the matter.

 

[Jinjer]

Maybe it's just that I don't live in the US... but our city library didn't have an adult section. There were certain topics which were separated (Philosophy, History, Arts and crafts, Science, etc) but everything else was in the same section, sorted alphabetically by author, labelled as Szepirodalom (literally Beautiful Literature). So you could find books about how-to-survive-your-teens next to novels describing the experiences of Holocaust victims and romance novels with explicit content. I could have gotten pretty much anything I wanted, even as a kid.

 

[Elberik]

you can't judge a group by their wacky cousins.

Oh but we do.

 

[Jinjer]

IF a library wants to stock up on manga or anime, there's no problem with that. Porn, however, should be kept in porn/sex store, not a public library. Furthermore, the library blaming the parents when their employees let a 10-year old check out porn is simply unacceptable. Parents should make sure that their children aren't reading things like this, but that doesn't mean that no one else has any responsibility in the matter.

What is the measure of porn here? Any material that contains heavily implied or explicit sexual content? There is plenty of literature with great value that happens to contain sex. It's one of the driving forces of human behavior after all.

Also, I have looked up the manga in question (thank you all-migthy internet!) and it doesn't seem as explicit as some other stuff I've seen. Yes, there's sex and it's pretty easy to guess what's going on, but I didn't see any genitals or anything. If it was film, it'd probably be fade-to-black with a few angled shots to show gasping faces and hands clenching sheets.

Granted, I haven't had time to read the stuff cover to cover but from what I've seen it's not sex for the sake of sex (which is how I define porn). It's a story that happens to contain sex, for better or worse.

 

[Pharsalus]

Bad stuff but I gotta side with the library on this one. They have non-fiction books regarding sexual abuse and drug addiction,the kid could just as easily wander up to that stuff. Sure it's not quiet as Joe Camel kid friendly as a manga, but the principle remains, the burden of protection from graphic stuff is on the parent. That being said segregating the adult mangas (or just not carrying them, why does a library have hentai?) would seem to be advisable.

 

[Altorin]

This article upsets me.

Mostly because I have no idea how to pronounce "yaoi".

I mean, three vowels and a "y"? Come on, what the hell?

It's pronounced exactly how it looks. Romanji is an almost entirely phonetic based writing system. In this case, it would be Ya-Oh-Ee, but not necessarily seperated into syllables.. so.. yaoi.

Not that I'm particularly interested in yaoi.

On topic, I don't think kids should be able to accidentally get their hands on violent pornography, at least from a library, so if the library is going to stock this sort of thing, it should be well out of the way of the Naruto, but I'm all for library's stocking whatever literature they feel like. They're supposed to be repositories of thought, and some people think "hey, sephiroth boning cloud, hot.", and they're entitled to those thoughts, and if they want to draw that, and the library agrees that it should be there, it should.

Just not in the same section as Yu-gi-o

 

[antipunt]

It was categorised as "Adult non-fiction"?!

Dafuq?

What else do they class as "non-fiction" I wonder...?

:OhGodWhy: ...

in other news

He flicked through the title, only to discover it....

Grabbed a bag of popcorn before reading any further.

I like how the library's response was basically "well fuck you kindly sir" with a pretty cover