[CW: Child Sex Abuse] Josh & Anna 33: Ohhh Honey It Is Already a Disaster.....

[Mrs. Kravitz]

37 minutes ago, Antimony said:

3. Most prisons limit nudity images of any kind including but not limited to - medical textbooks, art, famous Renaissance paintings, self-help books on any physical ailment, drawing resources. I may have, perhaps, taken an Exacto to a perfectly beautiful coffee table book of prints of work from the National Gallery to make it acceptable to prison standards. No boobies. 

Wasn't one of his sisters found photoshopping people in the backgrounds of photos into more modest clothing? I'm imagining whoever it was photoshopping a pollo shirt and khakis on the David statue or a swim dress on the Birth of Venus painting. 

[patsymae]

3 minutes ago, Expectopatronus said:

Books on calligraphy?? Fancy writing is a threat to rehabilitation? I gather Anne Rice wrote some erotica so I can understand that ban but gardening makes no sense. Oh, dear! Josh might get tips on how to plant and tend a garden large enough to feed his family! Gasp in horror. 

I suspect a lot of the regulations make no sense, but maybe someone thought calligraphy would be useful to forgers?

[Bluebirdbluebell]

Maybe books on calligraphy have tips on how to make a quill and sharpen it. If there are tips about adjusting pen nibs, they may give inmates ideas on how to sharpen other objects. I saw a movie set in prison and they talked about inmates being able to sharpen spoons into knives. (No idea how accurate that was.)

11 minutes ago, Expectopatronus said:

Books on calligraphy?? Fancy writing is a threat to rehabilitation? I gather Anne Rice wrote some erotica so I can understand that ban but gardening makes no sense. Oh, dear! Josh might get tips on how to plant and tend a garden large enough to feed his family! Gasp in horror. 

If they wanted to ban books with sexual content, they should ban a lot of more than just Anne Rice.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Bluebirdbluebell

[Bad Wolf]

Maybe they should ban the Bible. Lots of violence and sex there. JK

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by Bad Wolf
Stupid autocorrect

[Mrs. Kravitz]

17 minutes ago, Expectopatronus said:

Books on calligraphy?? Fancy writing is a threat to rehabilitation? I gather Anne Rice wrote some erotica so I can understand that ban but gardening makes no sense. Oh, dear! Josh might get tips on how to plant and tend a garden large enough to feed his family! Gasp in horror. 

Wasn't Anne Rice the one who did the dragon sex books (as my friend called them)?

[patsymae]

13 minutes ago, Mrs. Kravitz said:

Wasn't Anne Rice the one who did the dragon sex books (as my friend called them)?

And aside from the actual porn her other books were about vampires--so maybe eroticizing the drinking of blood is frowned upon by prison boards.

[feministxtian]

24 minutes ago, Mrs. Kravitz said:

Wasn't Anne Rice the one who did the dragon sex books (as my friend called them)?

Maybe Anne McCaffery? She did the Dragonriders of Pern series and they talk about the dragons and people getting it on

[EmCatlyn]

1 hour ago, Mrs. Kravitz said:

Wasn't Anne Rice the one who did the dragon sex books (as my friend called them)?

Anne Rice does horror (Interview with a Vampire, The Witching Hour) some erotica, some historical fiction (Feast of All Saints is brilliant — set among the Free People of Color in early 19th century Louisiana) and — wait for it — the first two books of a planned trilogy on the life of Jesus. (She lost her faith again before she wrote the third book.)  

She wrote most if not all of the erotica under a pseudonym, so I can’t imagine that this was why all her other books were banned.  I think it may have been that her horror novels may be seen as romanticizing evil.

1 hour ago, feministxtian said:

Maybe Anne McCaffery? She did the Dragonriders of Pern series and they talk about the dragons and people getting it on

Yeah, that may be what she has in mind, though Anne McCaffery is very low-key about the sex. Not exactly erotica.  Two of the books in the related Harper Hall trilogy are actually “juvenile” fiction and often turn up on high school summer reading lists still. (No sex in these, with or without dragons.)

 

[Antimony]

8 hours ago, patsymae said:

I suspect a lot of the regulations make no sense, but maybe someone thought calligraphy would be useful to forgers?

The official reason the book is turned around is because "it is a workbook, since it includes space to write in it."

Many prisons dont allow anything that is a workbook or could be written in. That does mean they reject Cognitive Behavioral Therapy workbooks, DBT,  recovery workbooks, food journals, some devotionals, guided journals, etc. It's a total mess. 

I also never read any of Anne Rice's work but I did watch Interview With a Vampire so this always confused me. The prison that banned her did allow romance novels. They didnt allow erotica but many do. I am not sure where the line is between erotica and a romance novel precisely because in some of my experiences...well, you don't really know until you've read the whole romance novel, ya know? It could be plenty spicy in there but innocently covered with just a nice photo of a homestead or something. 

Not all prisons have the same bans. IME, Texas has the strictest.  I did once go to an art exhibit that was a small library but every book in said small library was something that had been banned by a US prison. 

[Mrs. Kravitz]

Yes, I'm confusing Anne Rice with Anne McCaffery! I never read the dragon books, so my friend may have been exaggerating. I remember Anne Rice now. I thought she switch to Christian literature after finding Catholicism.

[Antimony]

4 minutes ago, Mrs. Kravitz said:

Yes, I'm confusing Anne Rice with Anne McCaffery! I never read the dragon books, so my friend may have been exaggerating. I remember Anne Rice now. I thought she switch to Christian literature after finding Catholicism.

Apparently! This pulled forth a memory of a stack of books on angels we got from her. One has awards from Christianity Today, making this author based ban even more absurd. The only other thing I really know about her is that she's absurdly litigious about fanfiction, which soured her work for me. If I ever wanted to pick up her bricks of a book on vampires (and I love brick-weight books on vampires), it was soured when I found out how she acted about Fanfiction. It seems she's mellowed out but I do think it's weird that she still thinks its "just transitional" when I think that it can be, but there's plenty of space in the world for fanfiction as a hobby even if one never breaks into original works. 

In any case, prisons do allow plenty of books the Duggars don't, so there's a non-zero chance that this is Josh's first opportunity to read something utterly "sinful" like a Harry Potter or Pet Semetary. (Listen, I tried for find a list of books the Duggars won't allow but I didn't try that hard, and I could have probably listed any two popular secular books and it would have been a Duggar no-no.) 

Also found this fun quiz! https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/09/30/do-you-have-what-it-takes-to-be-a-prison-censor 

I'll spoil the first question. The Illustrated Bible Story by Story was banned for "Graphic violence that includes but is not limited to murder, rape, sexual assault, assault, amputation, decapitation, dismemberment, mutilation, maiming, disfigurement or cruelty to animals.”

[Four is Enough]

11 hours ago, myusername said:

I really doubt that if he's in "gen pop" that they'd monitor what he saw on TV. It seems like a lot of work for the prison. No?

Maybe he wouldn't be in gen pop

When my son was in prison, he got the local tv stations only.. no HBO type stuff. The books he got, which had to come from the publisher, came from an "approved" list of what the publisher had to offer.

 

[Mrs. Kravitz]

9 minutes ago, Antimony said:

Apparently! This pulled forth a memory of a stack of books on angels we got from her. One has awards from Christianity Today, making this author based ban even more absurd. The only other thing I really know about her is that she's absurdly litigious about fanfiction, which soured her work for me. If I ever wanted to pick up her bricks of a book on vampires (and I love brick-weight books on vampires), it was soured when I found out how she acted about Fanfiction. It seems she's mellowed out but I do think it's weird that she still thinks its "just transitional" when I think that it can be, but there's plenty of space in the world for fanfiction as a hobby even if one never breaks into original works. 

In any case, prisons do allow plenty of books the Duggars don't, so there's a non-zero chance that this is Josh's first opportunity to read something utterly "sinful" like a Harry Potter or Pet Semetary. (Listen, I tried for find a list of books the Duggars won't allow but I didn't try that hard, and I could have probably listed any two popular secular books and it would have been a Duggar no-no.) 

Also found this fun quiz! https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/09/30/do-you-have-what-it-takes-to-be-a-prison-censor 

I'll spoil the first question. The Illustrated Bible Story by Story was banned for "Graphic violence that includes but is not limited to murder, rape, sexual assault, assault, amputation, decapitation, dismemberment, mutilation, maiming, disfigurement or cruelty to animals.”

It's all coming back to me! In my teens, I was on a few fanfiction boards, and a lot of people complained about Anne Rice but I couldn't remember why. I remember a lot of complaining when Fanfiction.net took down her section at her request. 

[EmCatlyn]

20 minutes ago, Mrs. Kravitz said:

I remember Anne Rice now. I thought she switch to Christian literature after finding Catholicism.

She un-found Catholicism before she wrote the third book of an intended trilogy of novels on the life of Jesus.  It’s a shame, because the first two were quite good.  She tells a good story. (She could have waited to lose her faith after she wrote the third book.)

[myusername]

When my son was in prison, he got the local tv stations only.. no HBO type stuff. The books he got, which had to come from the publisher, came from an "approved" list of what the publisher had to offer.
 

Yeah. What I was thinking was that he'd have access to what everyone else had. Whatever was being shown on TV. If they limit or restrict anything (TV-wise) , it'd be the whole prison being restricted. Not just one inmate. That'd be too labor intensive.

So if he's allowed TV at all, it might have shows with children in them. Not in an inappropriate way, but sickos can make anything inappropriate.

[Antimony]

Just now, Mrs. Kravitz said:

It's all coming back to me! In my teens, I was on a few fanfiction boards, and a lot of people complained about Anne Rice but I couldn't remember why. I remember a lot of complaining when Fanfiction.net took down her section at her request. 

Fanfiction drama is my favorite drama and my least favorite actors are Anne Rice and Cassandra Clare, like, forever. The recent court case on sexy wolf fanfiction copyright where lawyers had to learn about extremely niche sexy wolf-based porn genres? *chef's kiss* However, as somebody who writes a genre of fanfiction I describe as,  "Things that could have happened in the canon, in the background, but weren't ever shown or explored, and are always Rated E for Everyone and are Mostly About Being Kind", my fellow AO3 authors are wild. 

I also think we've seen a shift for some very popular media where it has become clear that the creators literally can't make enough content to satisfy the fans quickly enough, so fanfiction can be healthy to keep a community alive and I feel like I've seen more officially licensed side stories given to smaller artists, lately. It's not dissimilar, to me, from Christie's estate approving authors to write new mysteries. 

4 minutes ago, EmCatlyn said:

She un-found Catholicism before she wrote the third book of an intended trilogy of novels on the life of Jesus.  It’s a shame, because the first two were quite good.  She tells a good story. (She could have waited to lose her faith after she wrote the third book.)

I don't know why this struck me as so funny, it just did, it was a real kick to the funny bone. 

[Hane]

16 hours ago, Caroline said:

In the public school where I teach we've had so many kids come back to the district after getting expelled from everything from two elite prep schools, a mediocre private (not religious school), a Christian school and a Catholic school.   Their parents are always embarrassed because they were usually the biggest snobs about how their precious offspring were just too good for public schools.  The kids themselves in general don't perform any better in our school and often get into the same kind of trouble that got them expelled in the first place.

 I would agree from interactions with friends of mine whose kids have attended mostly religious schools that kids are not necessarily nicer in those private schools.  

In grad school, I had a classmate who taught at a high school in a wealthy town, and I told her how nice that must be. She answered, “Not necessarily: we get all the little SOBs who have been repeatedly expelled from the ritzy private schools around here.”

When I was a kid in the ‘60s, some parents in my neighborhood sent their kids to Catholic parochial schools “for the discipline.” Many of these kids were hellions outside of school. The very first drinking party I ever heard of was hosted by a Catholic school seventh grader whose parents were out of town for the weekend.

[Mrs. Kravitz]

44 minutes ago, Antimony said:

Fanfiction drama is my favorite drama and my least favorite actors are Anne Rice and Cassandra Clare, like, forever. The recent court case on sexy wolf fanfiction copyright where lawyers had to learn about extremely niche sexy wolf-based porn genres? *chef's kiss* However, as somebody who writes a genre of fanfiction I describe as,  "Things that could have happened in the canon, in the background, but weren't ever shown or explored, and are always Rated E for Everyone and are Mostly About Being Kind", my fellow AO3 authors are wild. 

I also think we've seen a shift for some very popular media where it has become clear that the creators literally can't make enough content to satisfy the fans quickly enough, so fanfiction can be healthy to keep a community alive and I feel like I've seen more officially licensed side stories given to smaller artists, lately. It's not dissimilar, to me, from Christie's estate approving authors to write new mysteries. 

My addiction to internet snark started at a young age. One of my favorite boards was FandomWank. Cassie Clare was always the shining gem of plagiarized dirt there. I could never bring myself to read her published stuff. My super snarky side always wonders what obscure, out-of-print author gave her permission to publish them. 

I went to Catholic school. The president of our school's National Honor Society drank, smoked weed,  and did LSD regularly on the weekends. I sat in front of her in Spanish class and every Monday got to listen to her and her friend try to piece together their weekends because they couldn't remember most of it. 

Catholic school discipline reminds me of a story a friend told me about getting kicked out of catholic preschool. His parents taught him that if someone hit him, he needed to stand up for himself and hit them back. So when he got hit by his nun teacher for being bad, he hit her back. 

[NotQuiteMotY]

58 minutes ago, Antimony said:

Fanfiction drama is my favorite drama and my least favorite actors are Anne Rice and Cassandra Clare, like, forever. The recent court case on sexy wolf fanfiction copyright where lawyers had to learn about extremely niche sexy wolf-based porn genres? *chef's kiss* However, as somebody who writes a genre of fanfiction I describe as,  "Things that could have happened in the canon, in the background, but weren't ever shown or explored, and are always Rated E for Everyone and are Mostly About Being Kind", my fellow AO3 authors are wild. 

Jasper Fforde. The man basically writes crossover fanfiction and still is rabid over people writing in his universe. *eyeroll*

I don't pay much attention to the drama. Link to werewolf porn case info, please? But then I tend to putz around in really tiny, mostly dead fandoms.

[FiveAcres]

12 minutes ago, NotQuiteMotY said:

Jasper Fforde. The man basically writes crossover fanfiction and still is rabid over people writing in his universe. *eyeroll*

I don't pay much attention to the drama. Link to werewolf porn case info, please? But then I tend to putz around in really tiny, mostly dead fandoms.

I am loving the fanfiction discussion. One of my favorite authors (initials LMB) seems perfectly fine with fanfiction, and is even thought  to have written it before she wrote her first novel. (Her first novel was reported to be Star Trek fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off, but she went on to write a number of other novels and shorts which show she was using her authentic voice even in that first novel. IMO, she was just using some tropes beloved among fans of Star Trek fanfiction.) In fact, she has written at least two novels which I consider to be fan service, if not fanfiction written in her own universe. 

[Antimony]

17 minutes ago, NotQuiteMotY said:

Jasper Fforde. The man basically writes crossover fanfiction and still is rabid over people writing in his universe. *eyeroll*

I don't pay much attention to the drama. Link to werewolf porn case info, please? But then I tend to putz around in really tiny, mostly dead fandoms.

Lindsay Ellis on Youtube did a video on the copyright case! I might technically be ABO stuff but it might also be wolf stuff? I don't read those universes/tropes. There's a NYT article here - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/business/omegaverse-erotica-copyright.html but here's one from Book Riot if you're paywalled like me - https://bookriot.com/omegaverse-plagiarism-lawsuit/

[NotQuiteMotY]

3 minutes ago, Antimony said:

Lindsay Ellis on Youtube did a video on the copyright case! I might technically be ABO stuff but it might also be wolf stuff? I don't read those universes/tropes. There's a NYT article here - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/business/omegaverse-erotica-copyright.html but here's one from Book Riot if you're paywalled like me - https://bookriot.com/omegaverse-plagiarism-lawsuit/

Thank you!

[Caroline]

2 hours ago, Hane said:

n grad school, I had a classmate who taught at a high school in a wealthy town, and I told her how nice that must be.

The town where I teach has traditionally been a blue collar town, but over the past 20 years city people with higher levels of education and  income have moved there and the character is very different than what it was when I began working there. There are pros and cons, but the white collar parents are definitely demanding in a certain way.  Our entire region has changed that way just like many other parts of the country.  

[GiggleOfGirls]

And now Bill Cosby’s conviction has apparently been overturned due to “prosecutorial mistakes.” I hope to goodness the prosecutors don’t mess up their case against Josh. It went so quickly from him not being released early because of his refusal to participate in sex offender programs to this…

(to be very clear: yes, everyone deserves due process, this development has just made me more nervous about Josh’s case and has caused a slight bit of mental whiplash)
 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bill-cosby-be-released-after-sexual-assault-conviction-overturned-pennsylvania-n1272748

[AmazonGrace]

5 hours ago, Antimony said:

The official reason the book is turned around is because "it is a workbook, since it includes space to write in it."

Many prisons dont allow anything that is a workbook or could be written in. That does mean they reject Cognitive Behavioral Therapy workbooks, DBT,  recovery workbooks, food journals, some devotionals, guided journals, etc. It's a total mess. 

 

Uh, why? Any book can be used to write in the margins .