Parents Warned Against Tawdry Teen-Targeted Fiction
by Mary Rettig
August 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - The director of research for the American Family Association (AFA) says parents have a new battle to wage in their efforts to protect their children. This time the problem is racy teen fiction books like the "Gossip Girl" series -- big sellers that are filled with their characters' sexual exploits and drug use. According to some sources, this style of "young adult" fiction is publishing's fastest growing segment. But AFA's Ed Vitagliano says the pro-family organization and many American parents are just now becoming aware of this lust-filled teen literature, and he feels action must be taken immediately, for the kids' sake.
Vitagliano notes, "Part of the problem with teens having their lives immersed in sexual themes and sexual thoughts is that they, especially at that age, are just usually incapable of understanding the consequences that can come from acting out what they're reading, or what they're seeing on television, or what they're listening to in their music."
The pro-family organization's research director says many parents would be shocked to learn that books being marketed to their teenagers are becoming increasingly rife with immoral content. The "Gossip Girl" series, for instance, deals with a group of teenage heiresses who live on New York's Fifth Avenue and, largely out of boredom, indulge in alcohol, drugs, and sex.
One typical example of the smut being marketed to teens in this guise, Vitagliano points out, is a book about a teen oral sex party, while another such book describes a sexual relationship between a teacher and a student. He sees these racy, teen-targeted novels as equivalent to pornography and insists that they are by no means harmless.
"Teenagers and young people can be corrupted morally, just like anybody else," the AFA research director asserts. "That's why we have laws in this country prohibiting the exploitation of minors or selling tobacco or selling pornography [to them]. We have laws to protect our kids, and when you pass off pornography as just a good, fun read, then you really have hit bottom as a culture."
Concerned parents need to tell their local bookstores and school librarians as well as book publishers that this type of literature is not acceptable for teens, Vitagliano says. And, he adds, pro-family adults interested in protecting youth need to insist, wherever such smut is already on the shelves, that such material be removed immediately from places where young people can access it.
Mary Rettig, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
