This book is too racy, I'll drop the class

[shesinsane]

Did you know there are several authors that write books continuing the stories of Jane Austen characters? One such author is Sharon Lathan, and she was set to teach "a group of homeschool late-teen/young adult girls a literature and history class with Miss Darcy Falls in Love as the basis." Little did she know the book was too vulgar, for example the word breasts was used, and by the third week all but one student had dropped the class.

Lathan blogged about it, and she's just discovered "a growing movement within certain Christian circles called by various names including: courtship, betrothal, anti-dating, authoritarianism, isolationism, emotional purity, quiverfull movement, and divine manipulation."

She's amazed at how these girls and their parents are outraged. Here's some snippets of emails she received:

…anything from romantic kisses to an actual sex scene can fuel sexual fantasies, which can stumble a person striving to be pure… on the Oprah Winfrey show, I heard a man say his crippling addiction to porn started with the ads that come in the weekend newspaper…. she might play the (romantic) scene over and over in her head, changing and adding to it. If she has a store in her memory of sex scenes, especially romantic sex scenes, a simple kissing scene might lead her down a path of imagining a whole scenario leading up to sex. The problem here is that at this point the woman is lusting…

I did not know much about the class getting into it (I was clear on the class) and I expected it to be a history class, but I see that reading novels is an intricate part of the class. What I have here is a moral conflict with the sensuality presented in all novels. Chastity promoters warn about novels for girls and porn for boys as equal in effect against chastity. I hope you understand the effects that I am referring to… in general I avoid all novels, women’s magazines and popular culture media altogether.

I'm debating whether or not to comment on her blog that she should check out freejinger.org and learn more than she ever wanted to know about teh fundies. To read for yourself, put an http in front of sharonlathanauthor.com/warning-a-very-serious-blog-on-a-frightening-shocking-revelation

[Arete]

First we can't read books, then we start demanding that museums cover the naughty bits in sculptures. Oh wait! That already happen when John Ascroft covered Lady Justice at the Justice Department. :roll: I bet she was relieved when a democrat was elected.

[bbtlover]

I can't believe that fundies think that the thought of sex isn't already in the mind of their teen-aged children. It is a natural process that happens whether or not they like to think about it.

I'm very glad that this teacher is learning that fundies exist. I just learned about them this past fall. I found this forum from being annoyed with the Jubilee Duggar Funeral being on TV. Thank you freejinger.org!

[MarsGirl]

I'm just so utterly saddened that these children are made to feel shame about their sexual feelings. There's nothing wrong with fantasizing!!! If you're trying to retain chastity, you do not ACT on these feelings. Just like adults temper themselves when they have a lusting thought for someone with whom they are not in a relationship. It's totally normal and okay to have sexual fantasies. Ugh. I cant imagine what conflict these people feel when they finally DO have sex... even though they are married and with their "God-chosen" mate. You just cant erase all that programming. Do they ever have sex and enjoy it?? EVER?? It's just sad.

Are they allowed to lust for their spouses? Or is that wrong too?

So glad I wasnt raised fundie...

[Lady_M]

What frightens me is that the author of the blog post specifies that these are 16-20 year old women. In other words, some of these women are actual, legal adults! I have only despair at the education these women must be getting. Some of my favorite novels that I read around that age (I have a BA in English) are infinitely racier than anything this author has (A Hundred Years of Solitude or The Bell Jar come to mind). This idea that reading might sully the female mind...it's like Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is coming to sickening life.

And that's what makes me sad...my books are some of my favorite things in the world. I can't imagine living without them. But it's true that reading does open the mind, and I think that's probably what the fundies fear most.

[MandyLaLa]

…anything from romantic kisses to an actual sex scene can fuel sexual fantasies, which can stumble a person striving to be pure… on the Oprah Winfrey show, I heard a man say his crippling addiction to porn started with the ads that come in the weekend newspaper…. she might play the (romantic) scene over and over in her head, changing and adding to it. If she has a store in her memory of sex scenes, especially romantic sex scenes, a simple kissing scene might lead her down a path of imagining a whole scenario leading up to sex. The problem here is that at this point the woman is lusting…

Thank god for having a lustful imagination, I couldn't imagine being in a long distance relationship without one :dance:

[Boltingmadonna]

a simple kissing scene might lead her down a path of imagining a whole scenario leading up to sex.

Oh! Quelle horreur! Bring me my smelling salts posthaste! I have been happily married for quite a long time, and my imagination is one of the things my husband appreciates most about me. Did it never occur to them that a woman (or man) with a lively imagination can make a marriage much happier? Oh I forgot--they don't want you to be happy, just pregnant.

If only they knew how Mr. Darcy would look down his nose at them.

[sarahbrownie]

This kind of happened to me in my Modern Art II class in college. We were going into our feminist art section and discussing the use of the phallus, mainly in the use of Lynda Benglis' ad in artform, which is NSFW, as stands naked with a dildo. As soon as the picture came onto screen, two women left stood up and walked out. Later, I found out from the TA that they requested that no nudity be shown during the lecture. Obviously, my teacher declined and the two dropped out of class. I just couldn't understand wanting to open yourself up to art, take a class, pay for it, and then become outraged by the use of a dildo in art.

[MandyLaLa]

This kind of happened to me in my Modern Art II class in college. We were going into our feminist art section and discussing the use of the phallus, mainly in the use of Lynda Benglis' ad in artform, which is NSFW, as stands naked with a dildo. As soon as the picture came onto screen, two women left stood up and walked out. Later, I found out from the TA that they requested that no nudity be shown during the lecture. Obviously, my teacher declined and the two dropped out of class. I just couldn't understand wanting to open yourself up to art, take a class, pay for it, and then become outraged by the use of a dildo in art.

I want to know how a pure and chaste woman knows what a dildo is :whistle:

[Scone]

(snip)I just couldn't understand wanting to open yourself up to art, take a class, pay for it, and then become outraged by the use of a dildo in art.

Something similar happened in my Reading Culture class last year. The course was all about reading various social theories and applying them to the everyday culture around us- politics, tv, whatever. There was one person in my tutor's class though that refused to read Foucault, Said or Barthes, or anything on Marxism or Humanism. And he refused to watch tv. I don't think he dropped the course, but I remember it was quite upsetting to my tutor because it put her in a really awkward situation where she couldn't pass him because he simply hadn't done the work, but she was also worried she might get in trouble for religious discrimination if she put pressure on him to actually engage with the class. Not to mention, of course, the super exciting final tutorial where he announced to the whole class and his (female) tutor that he didn't think women should teach men and the whole separate-but-equal bs.

I didn't understand why someone would pay for a class that was explicitly about critiquing culture and then refuse to actually read the theory or engage with the culture in any way.

EFR

[desertvixen]

Did you know there are several authors that write books continuing the stories of Jane Austen characters? One such author is Sharon Lathan, and she was set to teach "a group of homeschool late-teen/young adult girls a literature and history class with Miss Darcy Falls in Love as the basis." Little did she know the book was too vulgar, for example the word breasts was used, and by the third week all but one student had dropped the class.

Lathan blogged about it, and she's just discovered "a growing movement within certain Christian circles called by various names including: courtship, betrothal, anti-dating, authoritarianism, isolationism, emotional purity, quiverfull movement, and divine manipulation."

To be fair, I've read one of Sharon Lathan's Austen-continuation books and it was pretty bad.

My review: http://desertvixen.dreamwidth.org/853.html

She may have figured it would be popular with the Christian crowd, since she wrote Darcy as a virgin, saying explicitly that he saved himself for marriage. But yes, for women who haven't been exposed to a lot, I think it would have been shocking.

It wasn't quite as bad as the Linda Berdoll trainwrecks, but close.

I'm glad she's found out about some of the bad stuff in that group though....

[Lady_M]

If only they knew how Mr. Darcy would look down his nose at them.

:clap:

[SisiL78]

Its like she did everything under the sun to notify the students who are legal adults, for the most part, that there would be books with "racy" things in them.

I, for one, love Jane Austen but haven't enjoyed any of the books that "continue" the story... they are usually so inauthentic and poorly written. But, since the teacher is the author of one of these novels perhaps she can use it to give insight. And frankly, for a lot of fundies, a Jane Austen rip-off is much closer to literature than they've ever gotten.

Look at the books they buy for their kids? The Maxwells sell far too many of the Moody books for me to be confident that fundies are looking for quality reading for their kids. And I've perused the christian fiction section of a bookstore. I opened up a few books and just read one or two pages. THey were horrendously and awkwardly written. This is what passes for "literature". I understand the idea of age appropriate writing. But, once you get to be in your 20s you should be able to read whatever and not be scarred by it. I think that the fundy moms are just terrified that their daughters will get all turned on and go looking for love outside of courtship. Heck, even most period novels, including those written by Jane Austen, feature marriages not founded on courtship but on flirting, stolen moments, and dancing.

How sad these girls lives are. My mom stopped monitoring what I read when I was about 8-10 years old. She'd bitch about my love of fashion magazines from the library because they would rot my brain, but she never stopped me from checking them out. Her only concern was when I would read lower than my abilities because she thought that would keep me back. So I'd read Babysitter's Club alongside with THomas Hardy. But, I doubt any of those books would be allowed in a fundy household. Even a classic writer like Hardy, or Gaskell would have too much hanky panky and darkness for these people to tolerate.

[roddma]

No "Sweet Valley High" books would ever be allowed in their households, either. Don't some Fundies forbid "Anne of Green Gables"?

I'm just so utterly saddened that these children are made to feel shame about their sexual feelings. There's nothing wrong with fantasizing!!! If you're trying to retain chastity, you do not ACT on these feelings.

Quiverfull/Fundies seem to get a thrill out of what I call 'thought shaming' their kids. Isn't it better to think something than to act on it? Wouldn't David have been better off fantasizing about Bathsheba? I fell really bad for these kids They can't go to beaches for fear the boys will see a woman in a bathing suit or even read anything that stirs up lust.