What Is The World Coming To – Part 38 of 194

A news article came to my attention via Twitter, entitled “Parents: English Teacher Writes Racy Novels”.  Read it and wonder, as I am right now, what the world is coming to.

Unless you’re someone who agrees with the angle taken in this article, in which case I would ask that you vacate my blog now.  Your kind is not welcome here.

What’s next?  We’ll start requiring all teachers, or anyone in contact with our children on a regular basis, to be practicing celibates?  Because if they have sex  and their students know they have sex, then it makes it all kinds of awkward sitting in their classrooms.  Right?  Is that not the next logical step in this parade of foolishness?

What gets me is this quote:

Parent Deanna Stepp said the evidence is clear. “She is teaching children that are under the age of 18 and definitely the books that she is writing are adult books. I think she needs to make a decision as to what she wants to do. Either be a school teacher or author,” Stepp said.

Now I might just begin to understand the point if perhaps the adult novels in question are paedophillic in nature.  There might be grounds for debate there.  But barring that, what teachers do in their own time is their own business.  This woman shouldn’t have to choose between being a teacher or an author, she should be free to be both.  And parents can just go fuck themselves.

Oh, but they can’t – just think of the children!

This makes me sick.  It reminds me unpleasantly of a commercial I saw yesterday for a police hotline parents and guardians can phone if they have suspicions about someone who interacts with their children.  Let’s all suspect everyone we know of hiding a secret, child-abusing past!  I can see this going well.

It’s not true that there are more paedophiles now than there used to be in the “good old days”.  It’s better reported, surely.  But to think we need to immediately assume the worst in all adults interacting with children is outrageous.  And to ingrain an unfounded fear of adults in positions of responsibility in those children is simply shameful.

There’s being safe, and there’s being ridiculous.