Using proper words

Today's planned topic is going to take longer than I had realized, but sometimes you get lucky and stumble upon something:

http://cbldf.org/2015/06/college-student-wants-four-graphic-novels-eradicated-from-the-system/

I haven't read Sandman 2, but I've read the first one, and it seems highly unlikely that the second one is porn. I have read Persepolis, and I have not read all of Y, but I read the first volume, and again, no porn.

That's not to say that there is no content that someone could find objectionable. If you go through the Louvre, you will see a lot of nudity. Some of it might seem prurient, and in some cases that is clearly not the issue, but there are nudes. Sometimes in novels and biographies that can be edifying, people may use profanity, or have sex outside of marriage. Actually, by some standards the Bible is not proper reading.

Everyone has to use their own judgment about how much they want to accept. Persepolis is a great book. I didn't really care for Y. Other people might reverse that, or you could easily decide that while Persepolis is great, you want your 14 year old to wait a few years before reading it. That is also perfectly fine.

But there are a couple of points to make here. One is that if you think shutting out every mention of something that might be bed will protect you, you should consider the highly constricted home environment of the Duggars and how that neither stopped some of their daughters from being molested or their son from being a molester. What it can do is leave children completely unprepared to deal with temptations or abuse, or even to know how to recognize and articulate it.

The other point that is worth considering is that if you do want to bring others around to your point of view, it helps to not sound like a moron. Let's say one of those books is actually really horrible, and that it should not be treated like literature. Calling books that are clearly not porn, porn, undermines any argument that you are going to make.

There was an Anne Frank movie a few years ago that showed Anne, Margot, and their mother completely naked. That was reality, and you can shy away from showing that because it involves nudity, but there can be a validity to showing it too, and it is not pornography.

That's not saying that you can't have legitimate disagreements about what to show and when to show it, and why you would show it. You can decide that even if those choices are valid you still don't want to watch it for yourself and you are completely valid. You do still need to have enough respect and sense and judgment that you don't do blanket dismissals of something you don't like.

(I suspect in this case that the student chose that course out of the 14 courses available for that credit requirement because she thought comics would be easiest, which shows an ignorance of the topic that goes along well with her inability to research the titles in the syllabus or to recognize their value.)

There was also some controversy a while back about a talk where the speaker was referring to masturbation as self-abuse. Self-abuse and self-harm are words that are accurately used to describe people who deliberately injure themselves, which is an important topic. It gets used for masturbation in the church because we are afraid to say masturbation, but that does not serve a useful purpose. It might confuse some listeners. Using the proper word is not going to be more corrupting.

We have an important and joyful message. There is a plan that is open to everyone. It is a beautiful plan that takes everyone in. Some people will be skeptical of it anyway, but if we cut ourselves off from others because we can't even talk like mature adults about why you should abstain from something, how can we possibly be effective messengers?

Don't be scared of words. In fact, don't be scared. Let love and light and knowledge replace the fear.