Just... Wow...

[Akago]

A school district in California banned all copies of the "Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary" from schools.

"IT HAS BAD WORDS!" Yells parents.

"Morons." Yells I.

Who else thinks this is just one more sign of the human race as a whole devolving?

The definition in question was about "Oral Sex" and was, and I quote, "oral stimulation of the genitals.". How long until the humans no longer know how to breed because of this and goes extinct I wonder. Because if we're banning DICTIONARIES because it happens to define words we see as 'foul', it can't be to much longer.

[Quacker Duk]

Good God! That is just ass-backwards, to be frank.

While parents have the right to not want their kids learning about oral sex in schools, it's a dictionary. It's basic purpose is to define words. As soon as you decide what can and can't be in the dictionary, you are defeating the purpose of it. Anyways, parents should be proud if their kids are reading a dictionaries. It's a lot better than finding out about oral sex through google.

I mean, it's not like they are putting a slang term for the act in there, or a purposely shocking definition. It's about as dry (no pun intended) and clinical as the come. Now if the dictionary was including slang for felatio, now that would be a little hard to swallow (pun intended).

[Lunarflight]

The kids at my old school only cared about dictionaries because of those words. Every day, they would be huddled in a corner with a dictionary. Laughing. Giggling. Being the annoying primates they are. While little ol' me would just be drawing in my journal. I could tell that's what they were looking at, because some boy walked up to me and said... "Look, Adria! It said 'Sex'!" And stuffed the dictionary in my face. -3-

But I agree with Quacker. If it was just a description using big words, I don't see why they would ban dictionaries.mI mean, it's not like they can comprehend those words anyhow! I would die if our school banned dictionaries. I love learning new words that obviously doesn't involve anything 'strange' for my age.
The kids at my school call me things like 'nerd', 'moron', and 'immature' just because I don't want to take part in their moronic activites... xDD

[Quacker Duk]

I was once an adolescent boy. I thought I'd struck gold when I discovered the encyclopedia (remember those?) has a picture of a breast in it. Kids will laugh at anything.

But sex is not necessarily porn. Nor are nude statues. Boys have enis-pays and girls have agina-vays.* It's just part of life. They shouldn't be objectified, but obscuring children from their existence seems a little backwards. Constructive context is far more useful that forbidding knowledge. kids will find out about sex at some point. Isn't it better they do from a dictionary, rather than movies, the internet, or the hundreds of other things we can't protect them from?

It's like with drinking. My mom never forbade me to drink alcohol. She just warned me that getting drunk was dangerous. I was allowed to have wine with dinner when I was fourteen and have a little hard liquor (brandy) when I was Sixteen. When all the other kids were binge drinking because the suddenly could, I totally didn't see the point. Why gorge on something that's meant to be savored?

*I'm not trying to sound immature. I'm just dodging the site's dirty word filter.

[Kingpin]

Heh heh, well, we all knew how to do it before they taught us and we'll know after they try to shadow it, we are still animals y'know, though not positioned as so.

On a more serious note, Banning DICTONARIES for some profane words is garbage, what do they think? That by blocking us to it that we will never no what words like "Oral Sex" mean? For christs sake I know for a fact that kiddies begin thinking about it around 11 (give or take a year,) as I was there 4 years ago, I knew what Oral Sex was then. I know what it is now, and its changed nothing. I dunno whose thinking this complete bulls**t up but blocking the word is doing nothing but getting people curious.

Also, they ban a book for saying it...



THEN TEACH YOU WHAT IT IS.

Irony.

[Akago]

Creative way to avoid the word filter Quacker. Pig latin, I'm surprised no one else here thought of that yet.

I agree that education instead of 'protection' is the best solution to this problem. Because as it's been said in the topic, keeping kids from finding out is going to be near impossible. I decided to look up the teen pregnancy rates for the world, and the US has the highest birth rate out of all countries. When parents don't teach their kids about it early, the teens find it on their own and don't appreciate the idea of bring a baby in the world as the result of their actions.

By trying to 'protect' their children, parents are actually doing more harm then good. Which is, too, ironic.

[madchaosdragon]

Jeez, banning dictionaries? I am afraid to ask what might be banned next. That makes no sense. From what you guys have said, the dictionaries were banned because it had the correct terms, such as "oral sex", in it?

What the mess? It's a dictionary for crying out loud. If it's not going to list the correct terms, would parents prefer the slang terms in it? Those are the kinds of words kids are liable to find out first before they find out the correct term. With knowledge of the correct terms, at least they won't be in the mindset of some people who don't even know what the actual word is or the meaning of it; just shooting it from the mouth with reckless abandon.

P.S Excuse my long absence and my random pop-in on this thread, but I just had to get my say in.

[Songblade]

Using my zombie powers, I will resurrect this thread for a moment!

So what about just using a really good black marker? Just take out that particular "offensive" thing and leave the rest? It's that whole throwing the baby out with the bathwater thing.

I agree with all your points, it's only going to make "oral sex" all the more intriguing. "I don't know what the dictionary says it is, but let's do it and find out!" yeah that's what the kids'll be doing.

Teaching teenagers as I do, they already know WTF this stuff is. Hell, I had a 12 year old girl squeal about yaoi on the first day of class. *sigh* What's up with the short sighted parents of this case, anyway!?