California School Bans Dictionary For Oral Sex Definition

Say What? School on Banning Dictionary For Defining Oral Sex

January 25, 2010

"It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature."

— Betti Cadmus, district spokesperson, for Southern California's Menifee Union School District discusses future plans after banning the 10th edition Merriam-Webster's dictionary. The district removed the dictionary from the fourth and fifth grades for defining "oral sex." It's defined as the "oral stimulation of genitals" in case you're wondering!

Source: Flickr User greeblie

27 Comments

Venus1 3 years 16 weeks

Two words - "Bloody daft!"

Venus1 3 years 16 weeks

Two words - "Bloody daft!"

Acid Pops 3 years 16 weeks

I don't even know where to begin. It seems to have become fashionable to ban (or attempt to ban) books for the most ridiculous reasons. J.K. Rowling for "promoting witchcraft", John Steinbeck for bad language, Maya Angelou for sexual explicitness and Stephen King for being "scary". Now it's a dictionary. A dictionary?? It defines things. That's its job. Besides, the definition was pretty straightforward and clinical, not raunchy and depraved, as the school's attitude would suggest. It's not as though there were illustrations accompanying the definition explained exactly how to perform oral sex. Or were there? I think that our country has a very warped relationship with sex. By doing things like this, we are teaching kids that sex and sexual organs are dirty and something to be ashamed of. Something we shouldn't talk about. It's the same thing like how they will never use the words "penis" or "vagina" on regular television. However, stupidly childish words such as "vajayjay", "precious lady" and "hoo ha" are somehow acceptable because they are less threatening. Why are we teaching women to use cutesy phrases to refer to their "lady parts"??? At the same time words like "son of a bitch" (which is pretty heavily misogynistic) are acceptable. Or how Janet Jackson's nipple was "so shocking." A nipple? Really? Like we don't ALL have them? My own mother taught me to negatively associate sex with illegal activities such as drunk driving and drugs by making me recite her rules to her ("no drinking, no driving, no sex, no drugs") whenever I left the house to go out with my friends. It took me a long time to break free from that way of thinking and now I see the same ridiculousness being projected onto other peoples' kids with censoring actions like this and it makes me so angry.

Acid Pops 3 years 16 weeks

I don't even know where to begin. It seems to have become fashionable to ban (or attempt to ban) books for the most ridiculous reasons. J.K. Rowling for "promoting witchcraft", John Steinbeck for bad language, Maya Angelou for sexual explicitness and Stephen King for being "scary". Now it's a dictionary. A dictionary?? It defines things. That's its job. Besides, the definition was pretty straightforward and clinical, not raunchy and depraved, as the school's attitude would suggest. It's not as though there were illustrations accompanying the definition explained exactly how to perform oral sex. Or were there?I think that our country has a very warped relationship with sex. By doing things like this, we are teaching kids that sex and sexual organs are dirty and something to be ashamed of. Something we shouldn't talk about. It's the same thing like how they will never use the words "penis" or "vagina" on regular television. However, stupidly childish words such as "vajayjay", "precious lady" and "hoo ha" are somehow acceptable because they are less threatening. Why are we teaching women to use cutesy phrases to refer to their "lady parts"??? At the same time words like "son of a bitch" (which is pretty heavily misogynistic) are acceptable. Or how Janet Jackson's nipple was "so shocking." A nipple? Really? Like we don't ALL have them?My own mother taught me to negatively associate sex with illegal activities such as drunk driving and drugs by making me recite her rules to her ("no drinking, no driving, no sex, no drugs") whenever I left the house to go out with my friends. It took me a long time to break free from that way of thinking and now I see the same ridiculousness being projected onto other peoples' kids with censoring actions like this and it makes me so angry.

Zivanod 3 years 16 weeks

That's funny. The school is full of a bunch of idiots for banning a dictionary. Most of the kids would not have looked something like that up but now they are probably scouring the dictionaries they have at home to get more terms to share with their classmates.

Zivanod 3 years 16 weeks

That's funny.The school is full of a bunch of idiots for banning a dictionary. Most of the kids would not have looked something like that up but now they are probably scouring the dictionaries they have at home to get more terms to share with their classmates.

chloe bella 3 years 16 weeks

SKG, I totally agree!

chloe bella 3 years 16 weeks

SKG, I totally agree!

spacekatgal 3 years 16 weeks

I will be honest. I think the parental urge to protect their children from sexual concepts is really stupid and childish. I don't get it. I can see not letting a child watch explicit sexual things, but learning about sex is a critical part of human development. I think it's a lot more about their own issues than the children.

spacekatgal 3 years 16 weeks

Yogaforlife 3 years 16 weeks

By 5th grade, my school had already had the birds and the bees talk to us. They split us up - girls in one room and boys in another room, and :gasp:, we learned about puberty and sex. This is just insane! I agree with Hiding55 and Hypno. It's like the more sexualized pop culture becomes, the more parents try to overprotect their children from the slightest mention of sex, thus creating an unhealthy and disturbing mentality about what sex means. It's as if knowledge of sex means the children are impure, when really if parents were the ones to discuss it rather than letting them learn it from pop culture, the children would have a much healthier attitude about sex and self esteem.

Yogaforlife 3 years 16 weeks

Autumns_Elegy 3 years 16 weeks

Heres an idea. Just do what my primary school did, invest in the abridged Macquarie Dictionary. It didn't even have the word "sex" in it, and we never used them anyway. By year 5 we could all spell.

postmodernsleaze 3 years 16 weeks

Ban a dictionary!? If the school is that concerned, it's their fault for stocking up on dictionaries that are not elementary age appropriate.The kids are going to learn about it anyway. When my brother was in 2nd grade he saw a bumper sticker that said "69: Give Me A Slurpee" and went up to my mom and said, "Mom, what does 69 gimmee a slurpee mean?"

postmodernsleaze 3 years 16 weeks

Ban a dictionary!? If the school is that concerned, it's their fault for stocking up on dictionaries that are not elementary age appropriate. The kids are going to learn about it anyway. When my brother was in 2nd grade he saw a bumper sticker that said "69: Give Me A Slurpee" and went up to my mom and said, "Mom, what does 69 gimmee a slurpee mean?"

HoneyBrown1976 3 years 16 weeks

Right on, Hiding55. Knowledge is bad, so very bad. Death to ideas. What good are they anyway? Today Webster's, tomorrow Planned Parenthood.

Hiding55 3 years 16 weeks

Let's just burn all the books and get it over with. They put ideas in peoples heads. Ideas are bad.

Pistil 3 years 16 weeks

I don't understand where they want to draw the line. Damn Websters, leading kids into a life of promiscuity. But at least they'll know how to spell it.

chloe bella 3 years 16 weeks

Clearly, hiding the dictionaries is going to be really effective because there's no other possible way that young people could find out about such things!

staple salad 3 years 16 weeks

I always found it strange that in my high school, DeviantART was banned for porn (this was back when it was relatively clean), however, Encyclopedia Dramatica (which features child goru, or graphically violent drawn child porn, as well as lemon party, goatse, and the pain series) was completely unblocked. We also had Wicked featured on the shelves (pretty much every description in that book is comparing something to an orgasm, boobs, or vulva).And yet, there are other public schools banning the dictionary. What. The. Hell.

staple salad 3 years 16 weeks

I always found it strange that in my high school, DeviantART was banned for porn (this was back when it was relatively clean), however, Encyclopedia Dramatica (which features child goru, or graphically violent drawn child porn, as well as lemon party, goatse, and the pain series) was completely unblocked. We also had Wicked featured on the shelves (pretty much every description in that book is comparing something to an orgasm, boobs, or vulva). And yet, there are other public schools banning the dictionary. What. The. Hell.

GlowingMoon 3 years 16 weeks

A school banning a dictionary?? They cannot be serious.

hypnoticmix 3 years 16 weeks

As for the dictionary there are age appropriate editions they had them when I was a kid and I'm sure they have them now. They need to fire their buyer not slam Websters.

hypnoticmix 3 years 16 weeks

This situation is such a quagmire because you have several components going on that contribute to the problem. Number one is parents who cant get over their embarrassment of discussing sex with their children to actually discuss it with them. That IMO is putting self over child when they need you most. I say get over it. Secondly, we've got this sexualized pop culture that is educating our children where there is no education from the parent on sex. That is a huge problem. Third we have a society that flips out over simple clinical explanations of sex but won't do a damn thing as consumers to try and subdue an over sexualized pop culture. I really don't think we know what the F we want.

CaterpillarGirl 3 years 16 weeks

It shouldnt even be an entry.

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