I don't know about the rest of y’all but when I was in junior high there were (not library) books with "naughty" parts that we passed around. You can't control young people's curiosity, but you can help them make good choices and many librarians are experts at recommending books for all ages. - ThreadSky

retired-librarian.bsky.social • 34 days ago

I don't know about the rest of y’all but when I was in junior high there were (not library) books with "naughty" parts that we passed around. You can't control young people's curiosity, but you can help them make good choices and many librarians are experts at recommending books for all ages.

Comments

vandenhoorn.bsky.social•33 days ago

These days you have youporn for the naughty stuff.

Don’t get me wrong; I love books and will be a librarian in some cosy library in my next life. 😁

Just saying.

semaleena.bsky.social•33 days ago

Judy Blume anyone

vem-osca.bsky.social•33 days ago

Judy Blume's "Forever" was that book when I was in primary school.

A school librarian told me not to read Animal Farm when I was in year seven. (So naturally I did.)

semaleena.bsky.social•33 days ago

I was looking for the Judy Blume 🤣🤣 it’s so tame too, I remember giggling with friends at guide camp 🤣

laelsa.bsky.social•33 days ago

Yeah Judy Blume filled in the gaps for sure.

searsda5bskysoc.bsky.social•34 days ago

True

akchaos.bsky.social•34 days ago

Only until the books are burned and the libraries are turned into detention camps.

ogmiriote.bsky.social•34 days ago

In my high school, most of us were reading Sweet Savage Love and also The Shining in study hall 💓

jdrumsr.bsky.social•34 days ago

And what the populists want to do is not talk about it at all. Darkness is their answer.

ildfluer.bsky.social•34 days ago

I was at a Methodist school. We looked for naughty bits in the Bible.

sleopold.bsky.social•34 days ago

Fart: a minor explosion between the legs. Graduated to p22 in The Godfather where Sonny was banging a bridesmaid against the door. Books have always been my friends 😍😍

gottaluvamerica.bsky.social•34 days ago

Page 38 of the godfather

adlangx.bsky.social•34 days ago

Finding a Penthouse stashed in the garage was the shit.

adlangx.bsky.social•34 days ago

But yeah. I got my kids into the library early. Now they check out their own books. And video games! The Library has video games! They found it out, I had no idea.

kathgrate.bsky.social•34 days ago

Oh those Penthouse letters.

adlangx.bsky.social•34 days ago

Never heard of em...👀👀

kathgrate.bsky.social•33 days ago

They were on the pages that didn't have pictures, lol

adlangx.bsky.social•33 days ago

Pictures in my 13yo mind were better than any pictures on the page.

sadiemay37.bsky.social•33 days ago

National Geographics we’re passed around

stoshm.bsky.social•34 days ago

when i was in middle school, the book w/ the steamiest scenes in it that we passed around was M.Puzo's 'The Godfather', believe it or not
...ahhh, nostalgia

jtony.com•34 days ago

Of course there were naughty library books then. Hell, The Joy of Sex was available in public libraries if you knew where. There was just always the worry of getting caught by the librarians, and no way as a kid to check them out.

gazelletheory.bsky.social•34 days ago

You never saw a National Geographic magazine when you were younger?

kimsand49.bsky.social•34 days ago

Hmmm. I found the ones with the naughty parts. Sex education at its best.

jasdoutho.bsky.social•34 days ago

I was fourteen (a shamefully old age) when I learned about the Holocaust from Stephen King’s “Apt Pupil” before I heard any history teacher speak about it.

retired-librarian.bsky.social•34 days ago

Wow

sandy-x.bsky.social•34 days ago

I learned about it watching Playing for Time on TV when I was 9. It was devastating but I’m glad I saw it. This is one of the reasons I defend TV when people say it’s all garbage. There are so many things I would have never learned about in my small town without it.

jasdoutho.bsky.social•34 days ago

Admittedly I have not seen Playing for Time but I understand enough about it to know it serves a noble purpose. There was a BBC production called Threads that should be mandatory viewing for anyone seeking a job in which they have a semblance of control of nuclear weapons.

stardustmomm.bsky.social•34 days ago

Flowers in the Attic was my jr high fave 😆

mylittlepwny.bsky.social•34 days ago

Which books? Do you recall?

retired-librarian.bsky.social•34 days ago

I don't recall, sorry. So long ago ...

slowlandscapes.bsky.social•34 days ago

I read "Flowers in the Attic" when I was 13 and turned out fine 😂

madmoontide.bsky.social•34 days ago

‘80’s kid here. “Go Ask Alice” was in my Catholic school’s library, and I’m pretty sure that every kid in every seventh grade class checked it out.

vem-osca.bsky.social•33 days ago

Core memory unlocked: Catholic high school attendee here, lol

somewherenthemidll.bsky.social•34 days ago

U forget penthouse forums lol or lady chatterly’s lover lol

retired-librarian.bsky.social•34 days ago

I'm sure we were reading Penthouse for the articles and not the Forums ...

somewherenthemidll.bsky.social•34 days ago

Yes we were and the pics were just in the way dammit

rhodesra.bsky.social•34 days ago

Our school library’s copy of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ notoriously fell open at certain pages.

Not sure if anyone ever read the non-naughty parts…

jenkuntz.bsky.social•33 days ago

I was allowed to read just about anything and would always wonder what the big deal was. Restricting access makes them more alluring.

oliviamlondon.bsky.social•34 days ago

We used to look up “naughty” words in dictionaries: French, German, Latin. Found it hugely fascinating and funny. Did no harm to be fair. Nowadays there is hard core porn available for free on the internet which is quite a different thing.

dayken.bsky.social•33 days ago

My mom once bought me a book with HIGHLY EXPLICIT sex scenes, both straight and gay, when I was about 6. On accident I presume.

She found this book when I was about 14 and got all pissed off demanding to know where I got it. The receipt with date was still in it.

ginnyftb.bsky.social•34 days ago

When my oldest was getting ready to become sexual we had a choice. She could do it secretly or safely. We chose safely. We got her on birth control, provided education, and put a lock on her bedroom door. The condoms we supplied she used and shared with friends. You can’t help if they must hide.

rendadams.bsky.social•33 days ago

My paremts did something similar and gave me a tupperware full of condoms for my bathroom and said anyone could have them. They went unused until my aunt moved in with us 😂

stardustmomm.bsky.social•34 days ago

I wish there was birth control for boys. I would 100% do the same with my two sons! be honest & open, harm reduction. it works!

startingover28.bsky.social•33 days ago

There is. But since there are slightly unpleasant side effects they don't sell or promote it. To my knowledge it only got tested to see if it worked and what, if anything, it did to them. They'd rather destroy women than let men deal with any sort of symptom. I believe one side effect was-

startingover28.bsky.social•33 days ago

- no juice came out upon completion. Apparently that's a big deal 😒🙄

stardustmomm.bsky.social•33 days ago

of course it is 🤦🏼‍♀️🤢

mmafootballdad.bsky.social•34 days ago

And hide they will

ginnyftb.bsky.social•34 days ago

Being honest my first instinct was to kick the boy out of the house. After some thought I realized it wasn’t my decision. I didn’t like it but I wanted her to start this part of her life in the safety of her own room. Not in a parked car.

ginnyftb.bsky.social•34 days ago

There’s a lot I did wrong as a parent but choosing to be sex positive is something I’m proud of.

mmafootballdad.bsky.social•34 days ago

I remember the times we used to look up “fart” in the dictionary. I think one said a minor explosion between the legs. Really, that’s what my adhd memory tells me.

imflossy.bsky.social•34 days ago

Peyton Place when I was in 8th grade. All the “good” parts were marked with dog-eared pages. Twenty years later: Clan of the Cave Bear was better and worth reading the entire book, not just the “dirty” parts.

haecnicola.bsky.social•33 days ago

Valley of Horses, amirite?

orionhasmoxie.bsky.social•33 days ago

Yeah I found that one on a take a book leave a book shelf in my 9th grade English classroom. I was a horse girl so I grabbed it. It is not a horse girl book.

haecnicola.bsky.social•33 days ago

evelikesbooks.bsky.social•33 days ago

She literally tames a horse and rides it though. That’s why I read it…over and over. No other reason.

haecnicola.bsky.social•33 days ago

I read it over and over again too. I mean, some pages. Not all of them.

evelikesbooks.bsky.social•33 days ago

I may have also brought that book to summer camp and passed it around for girls to read certain sections

orionhasmoxie.bsky.social•33 days ago

It’s weird but for some reason I don’t remember that part. Some other parts of the book have lingered in my mind though. 😅

evelikesbooks.bsky.social•33 days ago

Huh, weird.

dyrewolf.bsky.social•34 days ago

All the young boys with the Playboy stashes

orionhasmoxie.bsky.social•33 days ago

A girlfriend in middle school basically ran a harlequin romance novel black market out of her locker.

retired-librarian.bsky.social•33 days ago

That's fantastic!

annamillette.bsky.social•33 days ago

The number of VC Andrews books my poor innocent Mom bought all the neighborhood girls to pass around.

memes4life4ev.bsky.social•34 days ago

Mmmmm... someone keeps slippin' some good playboy issues in here!

lisa70.bsky.social•34 days ago

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/562516/property-of-the-rebel-librarian-by-allison-varnes/

tension352.bsky.social•33 days ago

Those books were in the library too. The science fiction section was full of books with "those parts".

vem-osca.bsky.social•33 days ago

A friend of mine worked in the State Library. Apparently some books could only be accessed in a special room with staff supervision. One of these was the Joy of Sex. 🤣

retired-librarian.bsky.social•33 days ago

That was for the book's protection, not people's. One academic library I worked at kept the Playboys on reserve, and you had to check out with an ID, to keep students from ripping pages out of them 😀

vem-osca.bsky.social•33 days ago

100%. Apparently it got stolen and, er, damaged a LOT.

retired-librarian.bsky.social•33 days ago

Yeah, aside from page tearouts, no one was drawing pictures on top of pictures I'm sure ...

retired-librarian.bsky.social•33 days ago

Yeah, but we had to return those.

paxdriver.bsky.social•33 days ago

We also needed to know how to use index cards to find those books so we still learned the alphabet and basics of archives in the process...

... it's amazing to me that was just 20 years ago and kids can't even read cursive now, never mind find a book, never mind one with naughty pictures in it lol

memphisbelle1114.bsky.social•34 days ago

All this. There's also the fact that "the state" should not be controling what kids read. PARENTS should. Know what your own damn kids are reading and let other parents raise their kids the way they see fit.

augustawolfe.bsky.social•34 days ago

My parents thought they were hiding their "risque" books by turning the spine to the back of the shelf. They were surprised when as an adult, I told them that I knew their secret and read those books!

retired-librarian.bsky.social•34 days ago

They were crying out, "Read me!"

veritysalter.bsky.social•34 days ago

I’m in my 40s and it was ‘Forever’ by Judy Bloom - we all read it.

gaylaworrell.com•34 days ago

I’ll m almost 60 and it was that for us, too!

tedonker.bsky.social•34 days ago

Ha! My girlfriend bout the a happy Hooker in 8th grade (1975) from a garage sale and passed it on to our whole class.

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