Brickbat: 50 Shades of Banned

The Brevard County, Florida, public library system has pulled all of its 19 copies of 50 Shades of Grey from the shelves. Library services director Cathy Schweinsberg says the best-selling novel is pornographic.

Brickbat Archive

Comments

[deified]

Schweinsberg? Too easy.

[plu1959]

All you want is a dingle.
What you envy's a schwang.
A thing through which you can tinkle,
Or play with, or simply let hang.

Everybody, sing!

[CockGobbla]

I haven't been in a non-university-affiliated public library since high school.

Someone tell me, do they still suck?

[CockGobbla]

A friend of mine recently told me that she saw a middle-aged man who was watching porn on a library computer.

That's something new that public libraries didn't have when I younger.

[General Butt Naked]

The new and renovated libraries are trying to be more media center than library, which means they're not quiet anymore.

Like an internet cafe for paranoid homeless people.

[Whiterun Guard]

Light armor means light on your feet. Smart.

[General Butt Naked]

When massacring villages mobility is your friend.

[Bee Tagger]

I get the impression, from others, that they're a decent way to get caught up on movies and tv shows 10 years after they last aired. So they're like a brick and mortar hulu.com.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"It tells me that goosestepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them!"

[LemonMender]

From the linked article:

But in Collier County, staff decided against the book because of its "lack of literary merits including writing quality and lack of compelling plot."

Since when are libraries supposed to be literary critics? I suppose they also got rid of 99% of their children's and juvenile literature sections for the same reason, just to be consistent.

I find this just bizarre. Of course, standard libertarian proviso, why is the government providing the libraries. (To which my practical response is that this is one thing where I actually don't mind government provision in the absence of any real alternatives at present.)

[CockGobbla]

Shit, I'd go with a government-funded blowjob in the absence of any real alternatives at present, so don't feel ashamed.

[Eduard van Haalen]

"Sorry, Ethel here has seniority."

[Archduke PantsFan]

It's not as if E.L. James was getting any royalties from them anyway.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Yeah, not like she'll protest - "how dare you give me free publicity and encourage patrons to pay me for the privilege of reading my book!"

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

With the advent of ebooks, Nooks, and Kindles, libraries are becoming superfluous. Very few libraries have the breadth of selection that you can get online.

[Zeb]

The only advantages of libraries I see at this point are that you can get new books for free (my biggest complaint with ebooks is the lack of transferability)and that you can find stuff you weren't looking for. One of my favorite things to do at college was to wander around the library and find random interesting books to read or look at.

I suppose toilet facilities for the homeless and a place for old people to read periodicals is good too.

[Bee Tagger]

I can't wait for the next local news expose on perverts sitting in the library with a 50 Shades of Grey pdf on the screen, in full view of countless children.

[Mo' $parky]

They only do news exposes on perverted men not perverted women.

[P Ervert]

FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP

(Librarian: "Shhh!")

fap fap fap fap fap

[SugarFree]

On one hand, libraries have always been media critics in some sense or another. Not every library has every book ever published or video ever made, so there must be some sort of criteria for selection. Very few public libraries stock Butt Sluts 19, for example.

On the other hand, it's neither an obscure or particularly obscene book in the grand scheme of things. And they already had the copies. (Although they were probably not actually chosen by any librarian directly, but delivered by a service that manages popular literature by subscription--after a book reaches a certain level of sales, a sliding scale number of copies is automatically purchased and delivered (or in some cases, leased and returned after a set period.))

On the grasping hand, libraries get it from each end. They either keep a controversial book on the shelves and listen to the screeching of local taxpayers and occasionally are punished directly by their board or the city council or they ban it and everyone else screams about censorship and the profession and civil libertarians excoriate them.

Until prudes died off or just learn to STFU, libraries are in a 100% no-win situation in regards to erotic fiction.

[General Butt Naked]

Very few public libraries stock Butt Sluts 19, for example.

18? Yes.

20? Sure why not.

19?! Get the fuck out my library you seeping sore of a pervert.

[SugarFree]

Every barrel has to have a bottom.

[General Butt Naked]

...and that bottom will be pounded relentlessly in Butt Sluts 19...

This summer on an internet near you!

[CockGobbla]

"19" refers to the number of cocks Susie Bush can cram in her ass at a time.

[Warty]

I am very disappointed that Susie Bush isn't a real pornstar.

[Rich]

How about a law requiring every library book to be printed as a mirror image of the regular edition? That way, innocent children are protected, people exhibit serious intent about their literary choices, and ... JOBS!!

[plu1959]

Nice use of commas, Mr. Oliver.

[Another David]

I'm pretty sure banning Twilight fanfiction in the interest of good taste and/or sanity is content-neutral, Constitutionally speaking.

(And on a more serious note it's perfectly reasonable for a library to choose not to maintain an adult collection, although they'd have to enforce that decision consistently and not just against bestsellers.)

[affenkopf]

Define adult.

[Another David]

Something that appeals mainly to horny 14-year-olds, and thus must be kept away from 14-year-old at any cost.

[buntpunt]

Sounds like ap lan to me dude. WOw.

http://www.Privacy-Warez.tk

[Espantapajaros]

A library! How quaint.

[generic Brand]

I'm from Titusville, in Brevard County, and yep... this just about sums up "controversy" in this town. Every day in Florida is a battle between gratefulness that I live in a state more free than California and New York, and utter contempt that so many all-encompassing news stories seem to come out of this state (Casey Anthony, George Zimmerman, drug testing of welfare recipients).