Guardian interview with Juno Dawson

James Dawson sounds like a sensible person in that clip, and hes giving sound, thoughtful advice and encouraging empathy and reflection

At least we get to find out a little bit more about reporting patterns, ie
who is irritated and what it is that irritates them.

This thread is showing us the way.

I never realised Juno Dawson was a primary school teacher.

Lolita was an abused 12 year old child

Wasn't her mother killed in an accident while trying to rescue her? Then Humbert took the child away with him? It's not a love story for sure.

I have to say, I think YA has become sex heavy in general

Yes I find that in movies too. The stuff that qualifies to he labelled as a 12 is way too much.

All part of the chipping away of boundaries...

I have to say, I think YA has become sex heavy in general.

But the idea of a school teacher by day sex hobbyist by night doesn't really sit that well with me. I'd not want to go back to the days of morality clauses and such. But then you get these people with poor boundaries and you wonder, are their boundaries poor in other areas? What kind of judgement does this person have?

LoveReading4Kids website author pages:

Juno Dawson

"Juno Dawson – formerly known as James – is the multi award-winning author of dark teen thrillers HOLLOW PIKE, CRUEL SUMMER, SAY HER NAME and UNDER MY SKIN. In 2015, she released her first contemporary romance, ALL OF THE ABOVE. In 2016, she authored one of the World Book Day titles: SPOT THE DIFFERENCE."

(author's pages link to websites, social media accounts including live Twitter feed currently referring to Mumsnet )
www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/author/4569/Juno-Dawson.html

James Dawson - Author
(extracts)
"For eight years, James Dawson was a teacher specialising in Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education (PSHCE). His main remit was ensuring that these subjects were taught to a high standard across several schools. He collaborated on projects involving bullying, sex education, drugs and alcohol education and family diversity.

He now writes full-time and lives in London.

His debut, best-selling YA novel Hollow Pike was nominated for the prestigious Queen of Teen prize, and was followed by publication of the YA thriller Cruel Summer in 2013.

When he's not writing books to scare teenagers in a variety of different ways, James is busy listening to pop music and watching Doctor Who and horror movies.

Here is James talking about his book, Being a Boy
www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=rO_vi8ZZ7Mw&feature=emb_logo

Q&A with James about Say Her Name...

What inspired this book in particular? People told me that Hollow Pike was scary and I wasn’t even trying so I thought it would be fun to write a book where I was actually trying to terrify the reader.

How do you come up with ideas for all of your books? It’s almost always something that intrigued me when I was young. That period from about ten-twenty years-old, I just soaked up pop culture like a sponge and now it’s finding it’s way out in my writing.

We’d like to update readers on what you’ve been doing since your previous book came was published – would you mind filling us in a little? Clearly doing lots of writing! Since Cruel Summer came out, I’ve also become a Stonewall Schools Role Model, a role I’m very proud of. I’ve also been enjoying my stint as a ‘sexpert’ alongside the release of Being A Boy." (continues)
www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/author/3544/James-Dawson.html

• My experience of being a teenage girl was having to deal with predatory male behaviour well before I was mature enough to understand why it made me feel so disgusting or how to deal with it. It's quite clear from that interview where Dawson's beliefs about teen girls come from. It's just plain gross and very creepy. Pornhub has a lot to answer for*

Totally agree. I was quite fearful of men when I was a teen. Plus I didn't see myself as a sexual being until my late twenties because I wasn't allowed to sexually mature at my own pace for my own pleasure. It's a very male mindset to think young women feel they have sexual powers that they can confidently use.

Eventually my dad took all my Barbies away.

Same thing happened to Paris Lees.

From LoveReading4Kids author page
www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/author/4569/Juno-Dawson.html?page=1

Juno Dawson Twitter comment:

"I'll have to be off Twitter today because as a trans woman doing LITERALLY ANYTHING in the world means you have to suffer name-calling and - on @ MumsnetTowers - accusations of being a paedophile apparently.

Welcome to my online reality, folks! "

It's interesting to see how James Dawson viewed himself less than 5 years ago (I'm not misgendering, this article uses male pronouns and says that's how he wanted to be referred to at that time).

www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/internationally-bestselling-author-comes-out-as-transgender

Also, look how Dawson has the same same back story as many other gay male transitioners. Homophobic father who insists on reinforcing sexist stereotypes.

He collected dolls. “Around that time the adults around me started to worry about why I had those things,” he says. “Eventually my dad took all my Barbies away.”

Exactly. People can read, digest and conclude, all by themself.

Yes, donquixote, we don't need to comment on this, just try and boost it to make sure as many people as possible read it. Let's give the book and author publicity.

None of those deletions stood out as breaking guidelines to me

Nor me.

None of those deletions stood out as breaking guidelines to me, when I read them earlier. Presumably pointing out the unpleasent nature of the quotes from a book aimed at kids is 'not kind'.

I would just encourage everyone to read the linked article- it speaks for itself.

It's obscene. Dawson pornifies the teenage experience and the Guardian fawns. If Dawson was doing so as James, there'd be a very diferent reaction.

Perky little boobs my arse.

I believe the novel's protag is supposed to be 17.

The article also says "For seven years she lived a double life, teaching by day and pursuing a wild, app-based sex life by night" which is misleading as it refers to the person who was James, a male primary school teacher, at the time.
Also, it is surely significant that Dawson was very keen on fame for its own sake, having "auditioned for Pop Idol, The X Factor and Big Brother (twice)". Interesting how fame never really came along until the transition...

You can roll around in the garden pretending to be Lolita

I'm always a bit chilled, frankly, when people think of Lolita as some kind of erotic epic. It's a horror book, and part of Nabakov's brilliance was encouraging the reader to feel sympathy, if not empathy, for the deranged pedophile antihero.

Lolita was an abused 12 year old child. Humbert abducted her, drugged her and sexually abused her. Not someone to aspire to.

Woah! My first deletion.

I wrote something about red flags. Teenage girl fantasy. Creepy. playboy bunnyesque book cover. 38 year old female author would not ever write about these things for the YA genre. And I posted the summer holiday plans article from the Guardian with the Lolita quote. I see who you are.

Super creepy.

I don't agree that male writers never write women, even young women, well (or vice versa, many women can write good male characters as well.)

And I'm not sure I'd agree that teenage women aren't ever interested in middle aged men who are relatively normal (ie not rich or famous.)

But this it just like the sort of thing that used to be in Penthouse letters.

The post of mine which was deleted was one which I made made in error having misread someone else's post, but I corrected myself in the next post to confirm that it was Dawson who wanted to be "fucked like a woman".

That is a direct quote from the Independent article from 2017 if anyone's tempted to report this post.

Grrr, my quote now doesn't make sense. It's from here, Dawson's chosen words:

www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/aug/05/summer-holiday-plans-writers-djs-broadcasters-celebrities-lorraine-kelly