to be shoched that dd 15 is reading 50 shades!

[HoraceCope]

and i think dd 17 has also read it the comments she was making. i know i have been on threads here where people have tried to ban their dd d=reading this and i agreed with the majority that banning is not sensible. i wouldnt read it myself

I tried reading it but found it to be really badly written so couldn't finish the first book but I remember reading riders, lace books by Erin pizzey at the same age they were full of sex!

Anyone remember Lace and the goldfish scene? I was at most 14/15 when I was reading that.

DD17 absolutely refuses point blank to read it but she is currently rereading Lord of the Rings trilogy. She did read (and enjoy) Twilight.
Personally I think a badly written bit of shite is a good escape from time to time. You don't have to think too deeply about it.

My 7yo reads Goosebumps avidly. I never read them as a child but flicked through one the other day and it was about a girl dying in a house fire and her ghost trying to protect the neighbour from being murdered by a really evil spirit. It was fecking intense. The one she's devouring atm seems to involve quite graphic vampire activity. She loves them.

i read a really filthy book at 15 when I was having my tonsils out about I spose it was beastiality! they werent animals but they werent humans either.
grim

I would be most concerned that she did not notice its total lack of literary merit tbh

Definitely not - I was reading all sorts of unsuitable crap at her age & younger. It's just one of those rights of passage that all teenage girls go through - I devoured Judy Blume, Jilly Cooper, Virginia Andrews etc - anything that might have some sexy stuff in in. I'd like to think I turned out relatively normal!!
As long as this is not the only thing she reads & understands that the stories depicted in these books are not representative of "normal" life I wouldn't worry too much.

I liked Anais Nin at that age :)

maybe get her some of that.

Its not a "lesson", its fiction.

I read Lace at around that age too and also some horrible Harold Robbins book. I also sneaked my mums copy of the Thorn Birds to read at a younger age and tbh I think the narrative of that story is more damaging than 50 Shades of Grey.

Anais Nin? Did she not write 'the Story of O'? lol

On gosh yes Virginia Andrews all her books had incest in them somewhere on think I read the flowers in the attic series and my sweet audrina way before fifteen!

why is the narrative of the Thorn Birds more damaging?
do you mean a subtext of women and sex? eg Meggie with her husband, Meggie's mother, etc

I don't think it's great reading material for her age but I was reading Jackie Collins, Harold Robbins etc which my parents decided to keep on the bookshelf outside my bedroom!
Have you spoken to her about how it portrays an abusive relationship?

No harm about it but please point out that he's an abusive twat and that there's far better erotic writing out there. Seriously, even half decent fanfiction would have more interesting characters and dialogue I should know that's what I was reading at 15

This thread made me smile, thinking of what I was reading at 15 and yet the sex education lesson that our biology teacher did when we were that age was from the dark ages and had pictures of rabbits to illustrate it as they explained how rabbits made babies

Thorn Birds more damaging?

I have today finished the book and can't find anything about it which could be seen as more damaging than 50sog.

thinking about the Thorn Birds now, lets see, there is the unpleasant sex with meggie's husband that is basically rape, there is meggies mother cast out from her family for having sex, meggie's mother churning out kid after kid by her semi abusive husband, and there is the 'big love' that can never be....
yeh I see where you are coming from.

I think Fr Ralph for all intents grooms Maggie.

I am surprised you are shocked. Of course they will be interested - its normal.

I remember reading Lace when I was about 13 - where the prince put a goldfish up the characters fanjo!!!! And Stephen King is more shocking.
Fifty is vanilla compared to that.

yes that is kind of abusive as well isnt it?

Gawd, I read the tommyknockers at 11 (from my school library!!) THAT scarred me. Yet my mum hated me reading Point books which were your typical teen angst because they were "too grown up". I think the child rape flashback in aforementioned King book is far, far, worse.

It's fine tbh, standard reading material at 14/15 when I was at school was Virginia Andrews, Jackie Collins and such (all of which imo are more empowering than 50 shades, if just as graphic). Tbh even the tommyknockers was more empowering even if it was shite from Kings cocaine and booze days... That part where the mayor gets a shit stained dollar bill as hate mail, washes it in the machine, then logs it as a donation to her campaign fund from the guy who sent it. Awesome.

I would let it go but gently bring up some of the more questionable power dynamics

Shaun Hudson and Guy N Smith. King,Wheatley,Herbert, Tanith Lee. Angela Carter.
EL James is vanilla.

My eldest two (18, 15) can read whatever they want, maybe I am being unreasonable in not censoring what the 15 year old reads? (too late for the 18 year old)

DD 16 has just been on a school trip to Berlin and they all took themselves off to the cinema to see it there. The desk clerk warned them there was no English subtitles, but DD said it didn't matter anyway it didn't need them then added it was pretty rubbish.

I used to read James Herbert, plenty of sex in there and I was only 12