NH father arrested protesting explicit school reading assignment. · 4:23pm May 7th, 2014
William Baer of Gilford, NH, was troubled when his 14-year-old daughter was assigned to read the controversial book entitled Nineteen Minutes. While the book's main focus in on a fictional school shooting and how it affects people, there's also a passage which contains sexually explicit content.
“‘Relax,’ Matt murmured, and then he sank his teeth into her shoulder. He pinned her hands over her head and ground his hips against hers. She could feel his erection, hot against her stomach.
” … She couldn’t remember ever feeling so heavy, as if her heart were beating between her legs. She clawed at Matt’s back to bring him closer.
“‘Yeah,’ he groaned, and her pushed her thighs apart. And then suddenly Matt was inside her, pumping so hard that she scooted backward on the carpet, burning the backs of her legs. … (H)e clamped his hand over her mouth and drove harder and harder until Josie felt him come.
“Semen, sticky and hot, pooled on the carpet beneath her.”
When Baer attended a recent school board meeting to protest the the inclusion of Nineteen Minutes in the curriculum, he was arrested for disorderly conduct.
What are everyone's thoughts regarding this incident? Was the school out of line? Should 14-year-olds be exposed to such explicit literature in school?
If smut like that can make it into the school curriculum, there's hope for clopfic writers everywhere!
I can really imagine you writing porn intended for a child audience.
I wanted to say something on the matter, but I'm too busy thinking about how brief and unsatisfying that sex scene was... Or did that just have parts omitted
That was pretty saucy. I'm sure most of them have experienced the internet at that age, but giving that kind of thing to 14 year olds in high school might be pushing it.
I guess they all gotta learn sometime though.
2085600
Nothing significant was omitted from the sex scene. Matt just has a hair trigger.
2085615
He orgasms so easily, he'd probably cum in his pants at the sight of a bikini babe on the beach.
I was writing erotic literature at twelve, so I can't really say too much about that. However, being arrested for being impassioned over a school forcing his daughter to deal with objectionable material she's not comfortable with and he doesn't want her seeing yet, especially as barely a teenager/more of a pre-teen? Ridiculous. Escorting the man out so he can cool down or something, sure. But an arrest goes on record and stays with you.
That was barely anything! Cinemax and HBO are things that exist. Almost everyone has digital cable or satellite, and almost no one locks channels, so there's that as well. Oh yeah, and the internet! That's a thing. bet his daughter has said worse on her facebook page. Then there are the kids around her.
We were talking about ramming pussy and eating carpet when I was 11. My 14 year old niece not only gets the dirty jokes I tell, but has just as many and some I haven't even heard. Whoever suggested the booked obviously didn't suggest it because of sexual content... I mean, they are reading a book about the emotional connotation of school murders. The point of the book is worse than the 8 line sex scene.
I find stuff like this hilarious.
2085599
"And now, the Cat said, we can all have some fun!
Sally, you can start by deepthroating Thing One!
Your brother has learned lots of fun ways to screw!
He likes getting dicked in the ass by Thing Two!"
i wonder who got the glorious idea to put that book into the curriculum in the first place...i'm sure there are more appropriate books of similar content that dont force kids of that age through short bits of erotica.
and here i thought americans were prude to some extent. huh.
2085624
The school board seems more concerned with silencing opposition instead of resolving the concerns of parents.
Sounds like my kinda smut.
2085635
When it comes to pornography, Americans are quite prude, in the sense that there are several taboos within the American porn industry. I've talked in-depth regarding the differences between American and Japanese porn.
Well if he didn't want his daughter to read it, the school should find another book for her to read without it affecting the grades. Otherwise whatever.
2085640
Seems to be the way of it these days. The little guy doesn't like what you're doing? Arrest him and/or find ways to make his life living hell until he stops. Otherwise brainwash everyone else into believing that you're right and any opposition (especially the ones helping you) are bad.
Holy shit, that's just insane. The guy was arrested for speaking out of turn? Hahaha I cannot wait for the lawsuit tearing the school apart.
I think an arrest is not something to be taken lightly and that arbitrarily seizing someone is immature and also makes you look stupid
I'm gonna go ahead and bring up freedom of speech here: a lot of people get this wrong, but it means that the government can't arrest you for what you have to say.
Which is exactly what happened here.
2085644
yup, read up on it.
its quite a weird world we live in
2085624
I'm just blown away by the fact that it seems perfectly fine for kids to experience a roller coaster of emotions having to deal with murders... but an 8 line sex scene is the problem.
2085643
You'll note that the author of Nineteen Minutes used the family-friendly spelling of "come"as opposed to the more vulgar C-U-M spelling.
2085676
Generally due to a complete emotional detachment we sort of absorb growing up in the culture, when 'bad things happen to people I don't know', we care less/not at all. So reading about murders? Big deal, got plenty of that on the news.
Reading about something more involved, like a sexual encounter? Well, that's something you're /expected/ to do, and you're expected to not do it before a certain point and level of maturity/competence. Now, obviously we all know what happens to expectations, but that's the way we're more or less taught and pass down in the vain hopes that we don't accidentally wind up turning the next generation into a bunch of willful whores. Which ends up happening anyway.
Endpoint is, the child is disturbed by it, and the father doesn't want her to deal with it.
I think it was a ridiculous bit of overreaction on his part. It was just a book.
2085689
If a student were to hand out sexually explicit material to the class, they'd be sent to the principal's office, but it's okay when a teacher assigns a book which includes smut as homework.
I'm all for sexual liberation, but not at the expense of another person's free speech. This father was looking for a compromise and found handcuffs instead.
I think that passage seems a bit much.
2085700
It's about context. A lot of folks forget context. It's a variation of the old "Fire in a crowded theater" matter.
The student is disrupting a structured environment. But the teacher is presenting material for consideration in a structured and controlled environment. It's not set in stone, but, it's close to it.
Frankly, I've grown to hate whiny parents who get pissed when gays, other religions and sex in general come up in school. Sometimes I think there should be a special police squad to deliver punches in the face.
Matt should have used a condom.
2085686
Pretty much the same thing. You're exposed to sex all the time from such a young. Nothing is "personal" until it happens in your sphere and most kids learn this I believe. More adults freak out over this than kids, likely because of generation gap. Treating kids like they are stupid is in my opinion the worst thing you can do.
When did he mention his child being disturbed? I watched it twice and it just sounded like he saw the notice after the fact and was making a stink about it. It didn't hear anything about a child being hurt.
2085731
Sounds like the real school tragedy is a lacking sex ed program.
g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/818sWGYWE8S._SX320_SY240_CR0,0,0,0_.png
Ah... America, home of the free... Where every concern is misorderly conduct and you are always resisting once the cops beat you up.
For real, I deem this even more concerning. I may not be an American citizen, but if a father shows concerns that his daughter is not mentally fit for such literature or stripped of the choice to do something else instead and is arrested for protesting, then this reminds me of the Matrix, where everyone in any way conspicuous in the system is isolated and 'corrected'.
Schools, once a facility of education more and more become a training facility for a mindset. And this mindset is "Be better than everyone else, be efficient, be brutal to your competition." We see this 'programing' in every facet of the world now: It's everyone for himself, Rarity would get a heartstroke now.
More to the point, like I already said: This father shows concern, yet if you go astray from the system, you are nowadays deemed a threat to the system and the system more and more labels you an extremist or something else to make you keep your mouth shut. What was it again? They want to shut up free speech by labeling it hate speech or something.
Kind of reminds me of 1984, more and more America turns into an Orwellian nightmare. I wonder when being a brony becomes a thought crime.
That's a bit rough for the general population of 14-year-olds, but since it's not the main feature of the story and there ARE mature people of that age who could handle reading it, the book could be shown in school, providing parental consent possibly.
2085682 I'm okay with that.
Well, I just recently turned 16.
So, I'll say a "Yay" I guess.
The thing with that type of a situation is quite simple really.
There were (and still are) many cases in the US about children and teenagers imitating scenes of GTA game series, now many wouldn't think to much of that but in this case they are imitating rape scenes.
Now THAT is an issue, on the particular scene of the story in which one character is raping another character and children/teenagers imitate the SAME scene then THAT would become a huge problem.
I might not be a psychologist but I am not stupid.
Children and teenagers (especially teenagers) imitate things that are "bad" "shunned" and in their POV's "fun", they think that ganging up against someone and beating that someone almost do death is fun because that's what the BOOK/GAME makes THEM believe, and they will act on their belief that what they're doing isn't wrong and shrug it off like if it was a game because to them it is a game.
The father and the other guy made the wrong approach and one of them was punished.
When the school makes any person who's legally NOT an adult read a book where there's a RAPE scene, the parents must go to the director of said school with a list faith names and signatures of many other obviously worried parents and tell the director that the shooting/rape book must be removed COMPLETELY from the school.
If the director neglects or doesn't comply with that and the book is still there then the parents (all of them) must go to the local news station and say that the school that their children are studying in is making their children who AREN'T adults read a book where there's a RAPE SCENE that's VERY DETAILED.
No school wants to be in THAT type of spotlight now do they?
I was masturbating at 9, writing smut at around eleven or so (poorly), and had a massive porn collection by the time I was twelve. People think children can't be sexual, or understand things of a sexual nature, but those people are disillusioned morons.
Hmm... Possible things to note:
- Fault of the curriculum for selecting a book with a very specific topic.
- Fault of the curriculum for having taken the topic.
- Overreacting over a simple passage that occurs once.
- Turning something minor into something big.
- A father doing his job
- A father very much surprise finding his daughter say those words
- His daughter is 14
- The current generation is tech savvy
- Technology gave birth to internet, technically speaking
- The internet
Yeah, I want to say there are too many sources for his daughter to find this stuff, but they could have at least fixed their selected books to avoid an overzealous or 'shocked that my child said that' moments.
That man has every right to be fucking pissed! It's almost porn! They owe him an apology, and he should have that removed from his arrest record.
Shortest. Sex scene. Ever.
2085640 2085651 Agreed, the officer conducting an arrest over what the father said was a clear overreaction. The man is well within his rights to express discontent, and even demand a stop, to the non-optional exposure to such content as both a tax payer and parent. It's the duty of all citizens to ensure that their publicly organized infrastructure adhere to their expectations and standards.
2085686 Yep. At the end of the day, sex is personal, and something a person can legitimately be expected of being involved in and interact with as part of a perfectly functioning society.
2085716 2085738 The 'structured environment' component of when to bring up the issue of sex is just that, a component, another component is the age and comfort of the individuals involved with it. If the student is uncomfortable, and/or the parent objects to their child's exposure to such material, it isn't the time, no matter how structured the environment.
2085768 Yep, the classical, tyrannical tactic, of "Shut-uppery". [Political criticism and satire ahead. Details need not be agreed on to enjoy the humor.]
[youtube=lWHgUE9AD4s]
2086086 No, this is
:
i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/263/914/ede.jpg
2085767 Is that a fic yet?
2086116 This... is true.
"Gilford school officials claim the book, “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult, contains important themes about a school shooting."
Can't wait to hear what the essay assignments were... Every "critical thinking" assignment I had in school went along the lines of "don't you think your parents are wrong, and Howard Zinn is right? If you don't, you're not thinking critically!"
My kids sure aren't going to public school, even if the US follows the German route of making state indoctrination mandatory.
Dude should have been able to say his piece, but I don't really see the problem with the book passage. Some of the books I had to do in school, whilst they didn't have sex scenes, had some pretty graphic content but those bits were secondary to the rest of the book at best.
Save that kind of literature for high school students, I say.
If you read some of the books that are considered 'classical literature', you'll fine much more sexual material in them than one passage. Hell, I doubt any of the parents at that meeting would object to their children being given an assignment to read the bible (though honestly, that's something they SHOULD object to), which not only mentions but condones some pretty extreme stuff.
But the issue isn't if the book should have been part of the assignment or not, but if the police officer over-reacted to this guy. I'm going to give a tentative 'yes' on that. Now, we unfortunately don't see everything in the video. Personally, I would have just escorted the guy off of school grounds if I was the officer, however as I said, we don't see if he got belligerent once the cameras were off of him and had to be taken in because of it. The man was very uncooperative while in the meeting room, and refused to allow someone else to speak till he got his say, right when he wanted it. And that's just not how you conduct a conference like that.
2085647 I'm finding myself agreeing with Wrath here...
What is this?
2086344 I'm pretty sure that any fourteen year old, especially in our times, has seen and read much worse than that. Teenagers will always be fascinated by sex, that's a part of growing up. Sheltering them from any exposure will only lead to uninformed teens making bad decisions.
What I find much more worrying is the fact that any opposition to the school's curriculum is handled in this way.
2086218 Speaking as someone who went through the german school system, I don't feel particularly indoctrinated.
I understand the parent's concern, but marvel at the limited view he had towards it. This seems like the perfect opportunity to sit down with his daughter and discuss sex. It's something parents need to take an active role in with their children. Make sure she understands the reasons and ramifications of sex, and find out how she feels about it herself. If he is thinking that she has no concept or idea what sex is, he is deluding himself greatly.
Now, personally, I find it much more disturbing that she was being forced to read Jodi Picoult. I can't stand her writing...
There are too many people here simply assuming that the girl had already been exposed to sexually explicit material. It is very possible, but by no means a safe assumption. We should not justify the school's promotion of this material with this assumption, since the assumption is largely illegal. It is not one that the school can make, and thus not a reasonable justification in their defense.
My understanding is that the father was not even informed about the book in advance, which is shocking! I have no problem with the material being taught in schools, even at that age, but the parents should be given the option to refuse - this is material that may not be suitable for children of more delicate constitutions or pertinent mental trauma.
The reaction of the school, from what I have seen and heard, was not only far more dismissive than was reasonable, but also grossly over-reactive. As was pointed out, this comes dangerously close to the oppression of free speech, and certainly was not proportionate to the offense.
2087064 Were they giving out “Ist der Klimawandel ein Mann?” as a reading assignment back then?
2087104
The problem these people have is that the lessons their children are getting about sex aren't coming from the parents--they're coming from the cabals of "educators' educators" who make model curricula and reading lists, and who are definitely trying to push an agenda under the guise of "critical thinking".
There's a difference to being exposed to sex and porn naturally, and having a teacher expose you to it, followed by leading questions like "don't you agree that [insert today's progressive moral about gender roles]?" "Thinking critically, what would you say to a narrow-minded person who disagreed with this important lesson?"
As an example, they had us read "As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl." Which was alright--fairly interesting, if useless from a clinical sense, being written by a music journalist. The problem is that afterwards we were expected to regurgitate lessons about "the importance of trans issues" and "the harm done by society's patriarchal gender roles". Protip to teachers: if students have to memorize and chant the one acceptable answer to your question, it's not teaching them to "think critically"...
There's no "angry conservative Applejack" emote on this site, but our reaction to this kind of thing is pretty much
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/3/22/276951.gif
So you can see why my lot can sympathize with this guy.
Edit: and I should add, this asshole is a perfect example of what I'm talking about: 2085716