I’m not going to disclose what was in our private messages (unless Curtis wants to), but I can assure you it was civil, respectful, completely within the bounds of what would be considered appropriate, and contained almost no actual discussion of this book in question and was instead mostly an abstract discussion about philosophical ideas.
The private-message element to this interaction should not be cause for moral panic or considered “creepy” in any way.
I was an inquisitive and opinionated guy when I was 13 and I remembered what that was like; remembered how I would rather be talked to like a person with valid ideas instead of treated like “a little kid.” I find that treating others how you would want to be treated is generally very good practice.
Even when we discussed goat felching, there were never threads about “rapists-for-hire” selling their 13 year old victims to dockworkers. Ever. And as far as I know, the discussions of goat felching (and “munging” and all other sorts of perversions) were never taken to private correspondence with minors. Also, as far as I know, members weren’t allowed to groom younger members or suggest reading material that would normalize sex between an adult and a child.
I have read all those threads and I sincerely doubt that any of them rise (or lower) to the level of graphic debauchery of the work we are talking about.
Not to mention all the activities discussed were among consenting adults. If someone had started a thread about a child named “Cocksucker” servicing a multitude of men, I hope it would be closed.
Although frankly the way this board is going, who can tell any more.
Expose them to child pornography? You’re acting like I sent him magazine full of kiddie porn in an overnight mailer. I didn’t “expose” him to anything. He is free to seek out that book if he wants to and read it, and also free not to read it at all. And by referring to it as “child pornography” you’re using loaded terminology. The book in question is a literary work by a very well-respected author, and was praised by Norman Mailer.
First of all, that there have never been threads dealing with offensive subjects … I’m not so sure about. Books like *Hogg *(which I know nothing about outside of this thread) are perfectly hunky-dory fodder for discussion around here. No, I wouldn’t expect that a thread dealing with actual kids being sold to actual dock workers would fly.
I agree about the PMing.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call this grooming. I doubt **Argent **is looking for a date. But if this book was recommended in a general thread and **Curtis **decided to read that thread … is that some horrible violation of his tender mind? And if it is … what the hell is he doing posting here?
Sure, and here’s the thing. I don’t care if a 13-year-old comes on the SDMB and hears about these things. I learned all about sex from watching the Adult channels on cable late at night while I was babysitting, when I was just about Curtis’s age. And I turned out (fairly) normal. Whatever…the internet is a cesspool of stuff you wouldn’t choose to show your 13-year-olds, and god knows they’ll find it.
I wouldn’t have even been bothered SO much if Argent Towers had made his recommendation in the thread. But encouraging the kid to PM him so he can tell him all about pornographic literature is just completely inappropriate. It’s a one on one conversation with an adult about a topic that the kid probably shouldn’t be exposed to at all. This is NOT appropriate, any more than it would be if Argent Towers picked the kid up in his car and handed him the book. It’s Not Cool.
Discussing things on a message board with a 13 year old is one thing*, taking it to PMs, regardless of intention and especially with that kind of recommendation isn’t a smart move.
and even then, personally, I’d steer clear of lots of topics I didn’t think appropriate to discuss with a 13 year old.
I guess people here are acting like private correspondence is somehow worse than just talking about it right in the thread. Why that is, I don’t know. I only did it because I knew nobody wanted to see a discussion of that book in the thread. As I said before, now we have a really wonderful discussion of the book, complete with excerpts, just rolling right along - totally initiated by people other than myself.
There are things discussed on this board that would cause me to hesitate allowing a 13 year old access, but I agree it depends on the 13 year old. That said:
Really. Really? I’m not sure it’s possible to explain just how wrong you are here.
I responded (with the mod hat off) a few minutes after the post was first reported, and I’ve passed the reports and my opinions to the rest of the staff for further consideration.
At the moment I’ll say this: this was a really stupid move on Argent Towers’s part. Less so if he forgot how young Curtis LeMay says he is, but still not bright. But I don’t think it breaks any kind of a rule. It’s not sexual harassment, it’s not grooming, for crying out loud. Those things are not even in the same universe as recommending a book. The recommendation was inappropriate, certainly. It’s not a book I’m ever going to read, or one I would ever suggest to a 13-year-old, no matter how mature he or she might be. But let’s give Curtis LeMay a little bit of credit here. He can be very naive but he’s capable of deciding whether or not he wants to read a book. He’s not a moron.
Further I’ll point this out: we’ve discussed similar books here many times before, along with who knows how many other racy subjects, and nobody knows how many 13-year-old (or younger) lurkers or posters read those threads.
His stated preference was for children who are too young to post here, although if we were told he’d contacted anyone we would have dealt with that. The fact that Argent Towers made his suggestion by PM instead of in a thread doesn’t make a difference to me.
I did not tell anyone to ignore anything. I told people to take their objections out of the thread, which they were good enough to do. But while we’re here, what would you have us do?