A Texas mom harshly criticized the local school district about a book in the district’s middle school libraries that described graphic sex, snapping, “I do not want my children to learn about anal sex in middle school.”
Kara Bell spoke before the Lake Travis Independent School District on September 15 and read a passage from a book from middle schools in the area:
“P***y, or the idea of p***y, or the idea of idea of p***y; a Mexican is a Mexican is a Mexican; take her out back, we boys figured, then hands on the titties; put it in her coin box; put it in her cornhole; grab a hold of that braid; rub that Calico.”
You can find that on page 39 of the book called “Out of Darkness,” which you can find at Hudson Bend Middle School and Bee Cave Middle School.
Alright, not gonna lie, had to Google “cornhole” because I have the game in the back of my yard, but according to Wikipedia, “cornhole” is a sexual slang vulgarism for anus. The term came into use in the 1910s in the United States. Its verb form to “cornhole,” which came into usage in the 1930s, means to have anal sex.
At that point, beeping started indicating Bell’s one-minute time allotment had run out, but she continued, “I do not want my children to learn about anal sex in middle school. I have never had anal sex; I do not want to have anal sex; I don’t want my kids having anal sex. I want you to start focusing on education, not public health.”
At that point her mic was cut off, but Bell determinedly persisted, “Do not teach them about anal sex.”
The next day, a spokesperson for the Lake Travis Independent School District confirmed to KXAN that the district had removed the book from Hudson Bend and Bee Cave Middle Schools, adding that its contents would be reviewed with respect to board policy.
The district stated:
A district possesses significant discretion to determine the content of its school libraries. A district must, however exercise its discretion in a manner consistent with the First Amendment. A district shall not remove materials from a library for the purpose of denying students access to ideas which the district disagrees. A district may remove materials because they are pervasively vulgar or based solely upon the educational suitability of the books in question.
When NBC News asked her what appealed to her about the Young Adult genre, “Out of Darkness” author Ashley Hope Pérez, who teaches literature at Ohio State University, stated, “I really think about young readers as increasingly capable and powerful readers because I was a teacher and I know what kind of books I wanted to have to offer my students. I don’t think in terms of what teens can handle. I’m just interested in telling interesting human stories about adolescence.”