The Truth About Teen Sexuality
Blume’s book has persistently remained among at or near the top of the most banned books in school districts across the country. The rationale behind many of these complaints revolves around assertions that there are simply too many school-age students in the story who are sexually active to reflect the reality for most readers. Blume really hit hard one of these most flagrantly exposed nerves among parents in America: none of their kids are sexually active because only bad girls and undisciplined boys are having sex as high-schoolers. Even today, efforts are still being made to ban the book based on the thematic revelation that it isn’t just “bad girls” and potential rapists who “doing it” as teenagers.
Sex Ed
The novel was published in 1975. Despite the countercultural revolution of the 1960’s significantly changing the landscape of how open the topic of sexuality had become in movies and television, even by the mid-70’s little had changed in the teaching of sexuality in schools from the way it was taught in the 1950’s. Anyone who has ever watched one of those educational short films produced during that decade to be shown to students can tell you that Leave it to Beaver-era sex ed was going to be laughed out of the classroom by those students for whom the word beaver carried a completely different connotation. Blume pursues the theme of what can happen when sexual education is not treated seriously within the curriculum while also making an argument for why those so fearful that her book will inspire such activity should actually desire more rigorous application of such educational instructional.
The Conflict Between Body and Mind
The story is a graphic, no-holds-barred exploration of the fundamental chasm between immaturity and maturity that exists during puberty. Seemingly almost overnight what was a once an innocent child is capable of doing the very same thing that a middle-aged men and women can do: produce a child. This suddenly onslaught of reproductive ability is compromised by confused emotions about love and romance. It doesn’t take love to produce a baby and the fact that mere lust is so easily confused with love creates the conflict that often results in unwanted and effectively unforeseen consequences. Through the character of Katherine, Blume analyzes the danger lying at the heart of teenage sexuality which is the conflict between the body maturing much more rapidly than mind. The theme is concretely demonstrated by having Katherine’s maturity grow as her story moves along so that “forever” means one thing early in the book while something significantly different by the end.
