My 25 øre (because I do not have 2 cents and at current exchange rates I don't want to either)

[oneiriad]

Speaking of LJ's latest silliness.

It makes me want to shake my head and sigh "Americans" (and then can I please get a backup choir like the subway scene in Rent?). No offence intended to all the sensible Americans out there, but why does it always seem as if the US have some sort of mixed-up approach to certain things. Nudity is explicit adult content? Does that mean that little kids should stay away from the beaches all summer - if summer ever decides to return, that is? Or how about Glyptoteket?

Anyway, I could make a silly joke about this journal not even being 4 years old yet, so of course the content isn't adult, but I won't (except I just did - nevermind). 

Offensive. Such a dangerously subjective term. Personally, I'm most of all offended by people not being able to read warnings and hit the back button if they are offended. Seriously. Everybody has stuff they don't like and it's not always reasonable. Me, I'm deeply offended by the voice of Poul Dissing, but you don't see me running off to flag the poor guy - I just change the television or radio channel if he pops up.

I will point out that I personally don't believe in such a thing as adult or mature themes. I don't think there is any particular theme that is somehow unacceptable for people of all and any age. I admit there are differences in how you might discuss or approach something depending on among other things age and maturity level. But the theme itself? No. Just no.

Also, I'd like to point out that I have yet to manage to write anything in this journal that is half as smutty (which seems to be one of LJ's big concerns) as stuff I read when I was 12 and younger (ah, the days when Jean M. Auel was still good, before I realized that she isn't). Actually, I think school occasionally did it too - possibly the short story about the little boy spying on his sister and her boyfriend and then telling his mother a very interesting story about eel catching. Or the teenage camping three-some. Or maybe the (Suzanne Brøgger, I think it was) short story about a woman who picks up a pretty guy and they spend a weekend in bed, only stopping once to share an orange. I honestly don't recall all the details - although we never did read "Katamaranen". And then there was sex education too - what little we had, which was mainly watching a video. Although that video holds a special place in my heart, because of the brief clip shown to explain how gay men have sex. Nice. (What can I say, I had yet to discover the wonderful world of the internet. Imagine my innocence) Not to mention that one week school trip where the whole class (sans teachers, of course, because that would have been weird) spent an evening watching pay-per-view porn. Which looked remarkably similar to the porn you can see if you wait until midnight and turn on Kanal København.

All of which is perhaps a bit long, but my point is: LJ. Stop being silly. Just because you belong in the brave new world of New Puritania, then don't bother people who live in a country where Museum Erotica offers special guided tours to the school classes of Copenhagen to help with the sex education. Just don't. Stop trying to act as if the collective has some right to impose its judgment on the individual, as long as the individual is not actually commiting a crime or somehow hurting somebody. In case you didn't know, that way leads to bad things...

Comments

[drbillbongo.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm most of all offended by people not being able to read warnings and hit the back button if they are offended.
That's my problem, too. I've written quite a couple of NC-17 fics in my life, but I always labelled them as such, and one should think that this is enough. The kids that click the cut nevertheless to read the porn are those who'll definitely cheat the new system by registering with a birthdate that makes them 18+ (because the birthdate you registered with will be the one that counts for LJ's new "function", not the one you're currently using). Makes the whole thing totally superfluous in my eyes.

ah, the days when Jean M. Auel was still good, before I realized that she isn't
GOD, I love you for this. Yes. Just - YES.

Prudish America, always so eager to show it.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

I read a column today or maybe yesterday by a YA author who had been told in reviews that her YA novel was different from an adult novel in that it had a happy ending. This made some sense to her until she read about how teenagers purposefully seek out websites that have such things as videos of executions. She then felt a lot more childish and innocent than the kids in question.

And yet nudity will harm the kidlets irrepairably. Yeah right. I remember participating in a sex ed thingy - I was waaay more prudish than the 14-year-olds we were supposed to teach. (Teen 1: "What's that?" Me: "It's an artificial vagina." Teen 2: "What?" Teen 1: "It's a plastic cunt!")

Of course, like you I'm biased by my culture - in Sweden, the South Park movie is permitted for 7-year-olds, as is the full frontal male nudity in Ronia the Robber's Daughter, while Willow was originally released with a 15 year age limit.

[quaryn-dk.livejournal.com]

It makes me want to shake my head and sigh "Americans" (and then can I please get a backup choir like the subway scene in Rent?).

I'll join in on that backup choir, and I'm a bloody Merkin m'self. *sigh*

[elessil.livejournal.com]

But don't you know? Sex education consists of telling them to be abstinent!

[piratepurple.livejournal.com]

I agree with this post so much, all I'm going to say is, Amen. :)