A Day Late and a Dollar Short: The Birds & The Bees & The Books

Don't worry; this is work-safe. It's short and it's a rant, but it's work-safe.

There is a kerfuffle abroad in a small Pennsylvania town, about a local high-school teacher who's been outed as *GASP* a writer of racy romance novels!

This lady has been a teacher in this school district for 25 years. She has never talked about her alter-ego, never mentioned/used her books in class, and in fact seems to have kept her second job on the down-low as much as possible. So how did this come to the attention of local news media?

"Outraged" parents. Who ferreted out Mrs. Buranich's little secret on the Internet and then howled in virtuous outcry. Of course, they know nothing about racy romance novels; they don't read that sort of thing. But they can't have a woman who writes about SEX teaching their children how to write! OMG she must be a child molester! And/or obviously she'll teach them how to write about SEX! And the last thing they want is for their children to know about SEX!

People? Writing erotica =/= instant pedophile. That's not how it works.

Besides, if you have a teenager in an American public school, your kid probably knows more about doin' it at 17 than you do at 47.


And why on earth should an English teacher not have a sex life, or write erotic fantasies? She's not bringing any of that to the classroom. The only thing she's teaching is Shakespeare (which, let's face it, is perverted enough without the addition of drug-store romance passages).


If you're a parent, the first thing you should realize about your kids and sex is that THEY ARE GOING TO FIND OUT. Way, way sooner than you want them to. Wouldn't it be better for you to, y'know, TALK to them about it in a safe and responsible way? That way you can trust them to make responsible decisions, or at least have the satisfaction of knowing that if they do screw up, you did your best?


Pretending sex is an unnatural thing is one reason why so many young people have such messed up body images. And messed up ideas of how relationships are supposed to work.


So in conclusion: grow the hell up, people. Because you know what? The Song of Songs is hotter than any racy romance novel. And that's in the Bible.