I’ve said this before but I truly think that reading shit you’re not ready for is how you learn to sit with discomfort. By forbidding the next generation from pushing their boundaries, you’re doing them an immense disservice

April 05, 2026 - 14:42 UTC

47
34
1357
Fiction is a virtual space where you can experience discomfort and other emotions in complete safety. Unfortunately for the pearl-clutching crowd there is no greater crime than them being made uncomfortable.
0
0
11
To refine on this point, letting kids read stuff that they are seeking out and curious about, but then aren't quite ready to know how to process yet, is good.

This doesn't mean going out of our way to cause kids discomfort with sexual content that they feel actively unready for.
0
0
1
Beautifully put. I can isolate early reading experiences that seriously messed me up, but some of those experiences are also absolutely moments I wouldn’t undo, because alongside the mess there was some crucial learning: about stories, people, the adult world, other times & places.
0
0
2
I read "It" when I was eight years old and I genuinely think I'm a better person for it
0
0
1
I read Twilight when I was like 12. It's fine, actually, if you're literate.
0
0
0
Kids are resilient. It's adults who are fragile.
0
0
9
My 8th grade teacher told me I shouldn't read "100 Years of Solitude" because there were 'things I wouldn't understand'. I read it anyway, and didn't understand what it was I wasn't supposed to understand.
Years later, it suddenly hit me: she meant sex.
0
0
0
Sounds like us stealing our moms’ Jackie Collins books back in the day🤭
0
0
2
I vividly recall reading Catch-22 when I was 10. My much older brother said I might be a bit young for it, but no one stopped me. Good times.
0
0
0
I also find it incredibly repellent that some parents want booksellers and librarians (and large Internet corporations) to not only parent their own children for them but also to parent everyone else's children for them
0
0
9
Starts with learning to read. Many kids books now are so dumbed down they omit any word that the kid isn’t expected to already know.
0
0
5
Stopping kids from doing that is how you end up with grown ass people only reading young adult books and complaining that love scenes in movies are icky.
0
0
2
Interesting how they didn’t name the book that was the “raunchiest”
1
0
2
I'd honestly laugh so damn hard if she followed it up with a post saying it was a joke about the Bible.
0
0
2
Ideally you forbid them from reading it, but you do it real half-assed, so in addition to reading the stuff they learn to be sneaky and resourceful. Follow me for more parenting tips.
1
0
21
My friend's little brother didn't like to read. They realized he would read King and Koontz so that's what his mom gave him, at 10. And my teacher lent me some historical fiction books in 6th grade that were def 'adult' but I'd already gotten through Jean M Auel, so...🤷 But, I'm in Europe
0
0
1
It's also how you learn your own limits. I was in high school when I read Justine and tried to read Juliette by the Marquis de Sade (because I was so edgy, lol). Justine is fairly tame, but Juliette was grotesque in it's descriptions, and I never finished it. My parents were fully aware too.
1
0
4
I learned what I like to read and more importantly what I don't. I also learned I can just not finish something because I don't like it. I was not harmed by reading it, and have no trauma from the experience either. Honestly just knowing about Human Centipede traumatized me more.
0
0
7
Well said!
0
0
1
Man, it's tricky. As a kid, I was a voracious reader, and when I read adults let me be...and I think I 99% agree with this take, but I read some absolute filth, just deplorable stuff when I was 9 or 10 years old that I should probably have been kept away from.
0
0
0
Books are generally self censoring.
0
0
2
Besides if you stop teen girls from reading romance novels they’re just going to go read sasunaru fic online
2
0
129
Also they hear and deal with worse every day. My daughters tell me some of the stuff they hear from others at school and jeez
0
0
10
THIS.

They've read worse.

Plus, if they don't put the book down because it's not interesting yet, they're ready. *The adults* aren't ready for those conversations and making it their kids' problem.
1
0
59
The important part is that they are reading! Read what you want!
0
0
2
1000000%
0
0
0
I also think this is the kind of thing that's not a binary, in a way that complicates rule-making.

Some people reach a readiness to experience more mature content (sexual or otherwise) fairly young, and others don't. You can't just pick an age and decide no one is ready until that day.
1
0
3
In an ideal scenario, parents have thoughtful conversations with their children about this kind of thing all throughout childhood and beyond. Parents can help equip their kids to engage with it well, and kids can rely on their parents to help them gauge what they're ready for.
1
0
0
Yet these same people claim people today are too sensitive. So, what is it? Are we sheltering kids too much, or not enough? The reason I'm able to write in a way that hooks readers is because of all the books I devoured as a kid! Why gatekeep literacy?
0
0
3
Genuine question, as someone who didn't read inappropriate books but ended up watching grown up movies and television (the sexy stuff was without my parents realizing it), do you feel the same way about onscreen stuff?

Because, I won't lie, some of it did a number on me psychologically.
1
0
0
The reason I ask is because I'm not sure that it always does teach kids how to sit with discomfort. I don't know, and I don't know if any research has been done on the impacts of such things, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are some folks who should not have read what was available to them.
1
0
1
This other conversation from this morning seems relevant.

bsky.app/profile/elnath1984.bsky.social/post/3mir72hv2qs22
1
0
12
You can buy a lunchbox with Darth Vader on it any day of the week. You know Darth Vader the fascist child murderer?
1
0
6
Also like reading about dark unsettling topics is literally the safest way to explore said topics.
0
0
8
Books are a super safe way for kids to explore curiosities about adult topics. I feel like they should read what they want. Maybe a conversation with an adult about the fact that the relationships in these books are unrealistic fantasies is in order. But you're supposed to talk to your kids anyway
1
0
38
I mean, _Forever_ by Judy Blame was actually a fairly realistic relationship story. And yeah, we all wanted to read it because of the sex stuff, but there's a whole conversation where she tells her boyfriend she came and he is surprised to learn that hadn't been happening all along... Like people.
0
0
3
I used to ALWAYS read way above my age level, that's how you learn things and level up. I'd have thought that was obvious to people by now.
0
0
7
We passed around a copy of The Exorcist in junior high.
1
0
1
Although I must add my mom never controlled my reading at all.
0
0
1
The Godfather and Gone With the Wind under the covers with a flashlight.
0
0
1
As a kid, anything on our bookshelves was fair game. I think I was about 10 when I read Helter Skelter about the Manson murders. There were plenty others. I think it made me smarter about human nature as i developed.
0
0
1
When I was in Jr. High back in the late '60s, a teacher questioned a book I brought from home for "free reading". My Mom told him it was fine. If I didn't understand something, it would just stay over my head or I'd ask my parents to explain it. THAT'S how kids learn to love reading.
1
0
5
The book was Five Smooth Stones. An important read even now.
0
0
1
and if you don't like it, you can just... stop reading! It used to be viewed as a good thing if a kid was reading adult books, not something they needed "protecting" from
1
0
24
OMG! I remember the excitement when I was finally allowed to borrow books from the "adult" shelves in the library.
0
0
4
My mom let me read books of hers that I would bring to school and read after I finished my work in class and one of my teachers literally called her and asked if she knew I was reading Patricia Cornwell in middle school lmao

Mom wasn’t happy I brought them to school but that was all
0
0
2
If you forbid a kid something utterly, they’re not going to stop looking for it, they’re just gonna do whatever it is you forbade but now behind your back (and won’t feel comfortable letting you know they had if they end up in an uncomfortable or unsafe position from it)
0
0
0
It’s better to let kids know that they can ask you about anything they read if have questions. Or they can go to you if they feel uncomfortable by something they read.
0
0
4
The extent to which all conservative viewpoints can be boiled down to people not being willing to sit in discomfort cannot be overstated. Every single fucking one of them.
0
0
5
A couple folks picked at the thread, but stuff like this always hits with me as way more geared toward the parents not wanting to explain shit to their kids, because they themselves don't understand it.
1
0
4
The entire reason for the LGBTQ+ book bans is that these people cannot physically form the words to just say that sometimes two people of the same gender like each other. There are obviously other things than just homosexuality, but even something THAT simple is anathema to them.
0
0
3
I was reading James Bond, The Executioner, and The Destroyer (Remo Williams) novels when I was 12…
0
0
0
At 12 I had extremely firm opinions on porn and graphic content.

I was absolutely sure it was lazy writing that poor authors threw in to try to entice and excite their readers when they couldn't build up the proper narrative tension.

Yes, I used those words at that age!

Kids aren't dumb, people.
2
0
22
I had similar feelings, and I wish I had an adult who was adult enough to have conversations with me about it so I didn't have such a fucked up perception of sexuality when I got older.
1
0
21
Same. “What is this crap? Did you copy and paste this from your last book? LAMF!”
0
0
1
I very much remember my shock and disgust reading The Stand in freshman year. Its a disgusting horrific book. But I knew what I was reading was also fantastic and important to expose myself to.
0
0
1
This as well, but the best thing is just talking to your kids and respecting them enough to care about what they are reading and what they care about. That's the key. I haven't run into anything we couldn't handle together yet. And my kids tell me they don't want to read certain things quite yet.
0
0
9
sometimes i wonder how anyone thinks kids turn into adults, if they are exclusively restricted to a dwindling set of "kid-safe" experiences
0
0
6
Also, when my parents decided I was “ready” for a book, I’m stubborn enough that I never read it on purpose, lol.

I was like, do you have *any* idea what I’ve been reading all this time? 😂
0
0
3
At 12 I was going between Anne of Green Gables, Stephan King, Sweet Valley High, Steinbeck, and Anne Rice. It was fine.
0
0
20
I've read adult history novels at 10. The medicus eg. At 16 I've read it a dozen times. I read adult scifi startrek novels at 10, I was bored out of my mind with literature that was for my age group or the horse girl, boarding school books my father tried to pressure me into reading.
0
0
5