Psst, Kids, "Court of Mist and Fury" Is Too Sexy for You!

You absolutely, positively shouldn't be allowed to read it. Definitely forbidden.

(This is apropos the case noted below.)

UPDATE: I thought this was clear, but a comment suggested that it wasn't, so I thought I'd make it clear: I'm not actually trying to create a Streisand effect (or a "Banned in Boston" effect, which is the historical antecedent here); I have no particular interest in having more people (or fewer people) read the book, plus of course I expect we have few teenage readers. Rather, I was suggesting that this is the effect that the attempt to suppress the books will have, given the publicity that it has given the book in sources with much larger circulation.

Comments

[DaivdBehar]

Worthless cops, agents of the lawyer prosecutor, not only did nothing while 21 people were being executed. They prevented desperate parents from trying to save their kids.

They protected, privileged, empowered the shooter despite a long history of violent crime. He should have been dispatched years ago.

Crime is the biggest failure of the most toxic occupation in the country, 1000 times more toxic than organized crime. It is time to end all crime. That has to start with the arrest, 1 hour trial, and immediate execution of the entire hierachy of this criminal cult enterprise. Legislators, judges, endowed chairs, deans, the ALI, around 25000 toxic traitors. Their Inquisition 2.0 takes in $trillion, returns nothing of value. There is no way to take that away while they are alive. To deter.

[Krayt]

But...but...imagine the 30% cut of trillions of dollars for carbon social cost lawsuits!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Stay away from other peoples kids, what's wrong with you people? Even the author notes that book is for 17 and older. Not 4 and 5 year olds.

Why are you people so intent on sexualizing the under age children of others?

Sick people.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1619635194/reasonmagazinea-20/

Reading age ‏ : ‎ 17 years and up

Sick disgusting perverts.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

"“A thrilling game changer that's fiercely romantic, irresistibly sexy and hypnotically magical. . . . A flawless sequel that will once again leave us desperately clamoring for more, more, more.” - USA Today on A COURT OF MIST AND FURY"

"A good read for 4 and 5 year olds!" - EV on the Volokh Conspiracy

[Estragon]

This was a good comment but you forgot to work in “Michelle Obama has a penis” here. I know it’s rewarding and fulfilling for you because you told me so yesterday. Don’t hold back!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Increasingly, the Volokh Conspirators (those that still contribute regularly, at least) and their followers deserve each other.

Downscale, fringe, obsolete clingers, huddling together for warmth and muttering bitterly (and impotently) about "all of this damned progress."

Carry on, clingers. Your betters will, as always in modern America, let you know just how far and how long.

[ReaderY]

“And they sit at the bar
And put bread in my jar
And say ‘Man, what are you doing here?”

And you? It’s not like anybody’s paying you to play the piano here.

[DaivdBehar]

The School Library Journal rates them at the 10th Grade.

[DaivdBehar]

Delusional degenerates are grooming our children for child sex. We should defend our children vigorously, just kick their asses. The lawyer is on the side of the degenerates, protecticing, privileging, and empowering them. All PC is case. All woke is case. Start by driving out degenerate, delusional, federal appellate judges from the state. To deter.

[Sarcastr0]

4 and 5 year olds.

Man, that strawman sure has you mad!

[DaivdBehar]

You want to normalize butt banging for children.

[Snorkle]

Considering your apparent deep dedication to this cause, I'm really curious about where all your bile for the Southern Baptist Convention is.

After all, we now know they have as many pedo pastors as the Catholics have pedo priests.

Where is your righteous outrage?

[wolfefan]

I can't speak for others, but I'll share my outrage about it here when one of the Conspirators post about it here. Until then, I'll confine myself to whatever topics they choose to talk about. I also won't lie about 4 year olds like the other guy.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I know you're being a stupid troll, but can you at least make it half-way plausible and say like 10 or 11? 4-5 year olds are just learning to read dude.

[CindyF]

Ok, Reason groomers. If you want to buy this book for your child, feel free. Heck, read it to them as a bed-time story. Personally, if you do, I think you are a bit sick and mentally deranged.

However, most normal parents do not want their child reading such material. Nor do they want strangers reading it out loud to their child. So, stop pushing porn onto other people's children.

[David Bremer]

Honest question - do you even know what is contained in the book? Or are you just assuming that the busybodies working out ban it must have your best interests in mind?

Because I looked up some of the details, and I can promise you no teenager is wading through 600 pages to find a couple naughty words and passages. Especially not when there's a whole big internet with pictures, videos, and much more graphic stuff. Seriously, you could probably spend five minutes and find a dozen Reddit posts with more scintillating stories.

[Life of Brian]

I can promise you no teenager is wading through 600 pages to find a couple naughty words and passages.

You know, I was about to just unreservedly agree with you (fantasy books with erotic undertones having been around for much of our lifetimes), and then I had to go and actually look at this one myself. The first multi-page, gratuitously explicit sex scene is in the second chapter. That's not much of a wade.

It's also not clear to me why Gender Queer was silently elided from yesterday's discussion when in my view it's the far more significant problem. Gender Queer is a comic book with far less verbiage and several explicit depictions of sex acts. No treasure hunt required, and a natural attraction for the young'uns to pick up and peruse.

[David Bremer]

This court-order stuff does seem to be a good marketing move by the publishers.

Given this post and the court orders, I decided to read some reviews on the book to see what the fuss was all about. I figured it would be some graphic novel with naughty anime or something. Nope. Based on my read of some reader reviews, my guess is that its a standard ol' romance novel, but written with a mix of the corniness of the Twilight series and background, setting similar to Game of Thrones, and few passages of standard romance novels. It's also something like a 600-page book with a few passages that some reviewers thought were a bit graphic.

And seriously, if people think we need to protect kids from this stuff, they really don't want to know what teenagers can freely access on the internet.

[great Unknown]

"...of course I expect we have few teenage readers."
Given many of the comments on this site, including on this post, I think Professor Volokh is wrong.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Eh. That's just the comments. Teenagers get interested in politics, and a lot of them get interested in libertarian politics especially. So I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few readers.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Because this is a libertarian blog!

It says so right on the mugs and t-shirts!

Nothing about conservatism, so . . .

this must be a libertarian blog!

Carry on, clingers. With your delusions, fantasies, lies, and superstitions of all manner.

[LawTalkingGuy]

When I was in tenth grade AP English, my teacher told us: if someone tries to ban a book you should probably read it.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I am really curious how the second book in a five book series and one that was published six years ago ended up as the target for these buffoons.

[LawTalkingGuy]

A Very Online parent who didn't really pay attention to what their teenager read found it one day flipped through and freaked out?

[QuantumBoxCat]

So, are mass shootings at elementary schools the one event that the conspirators won't blog about? How do you expect to influence the national discussion if you won't talk about the issue on everyone's mind right now?

[DaivdBehar]

Eugene teaches criminal law. He is in total denial about its failure. 15 million common law crimes a year, 5 million being violent. 100 million internet crimes a year. Only 2% of crime is prosecuted. When they have a guy, 20% of the time, it is the wrong guy. Worse, they forced a plea deal on him, and he falsely confessed to a crime. This is total failure.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The Volokh Conspiracy, like all right-wing organizations, cowers before the NRA and is afraid of crossing the gun nuts.

Better Americans will handle this.

[Bob from Ohio]

"TX DPS Director Steve McCraw now on Uvalde:
- Door was left propped open by a teacher before the crash"

Not EV, how about this to discuss?

Should the teacher be arrested or just fired or both?

[ReaderY]

This is a fairly obvious development, and it’s surprising these laws haven’t been tested recently.

[FilioScotia]

I thought you'd get a chuckle out of this. Before he started creating game shows and making millions, the late great Merv Griffin was a struggling singer. This song is just one reason he gave it up to get into television. The title is "Banned in Boston".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk4vybRahXg

[Eugene Volokh]

Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to create a Streisand effect, partly for the reason you mention and partly because I really have no interest in having more people (or fewer people) read the books -- I was suggesting that this is the effect that the attempt to suppress the books will have.

As to 50 Shades of Gray, I doubt that my boys had much interest in it, but I expect I wouldn't have stopped them, especially beginning when they were in the mid-teens. (Recall, as my earlier post notes, that the Virginia Supreme Court has understood "obscene as to minors" as requiring a focus on suitability to "a legitimate minority of normal, older adolescents"; plus I doubt that a lot of 10-year-olds are shopping unsupervised at Barnes & Noble.) But 50 Shades of Gray really does seem to be focused (again, based on press accounts) on depicting sex as at least a major theme of the work. The sorts of sexual passages that are present in Court of Mist and Fury sound like the sorts that are likely present in many books that my kids would have read if (grrr) they were actually reading a lot of books on their own.

[DaivdBehar]

I read the entire Genesis. It is XXX rated and needs to be banned. Its depictions would not be allowed in porn today.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Fuck off pedo

[DaivdBehar]

Hi, Queenie. Defending grooming for child sex is not a good look for you. Shouldn't you be applying for a better job at this time? Put me down as a reference. I think you are great.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Dude, you literally proudly admitted to viewing child porn. Of course I’m mad at you for pretending to care about morals and children when you’re a victimizer of them. Seriously you are calling people a “groomer” when you openly admitted to committing a federal sex crime.

So again, fuck off pedo.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Fuck off pedo.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Wait what

[LawTalkingGuy]

"Hunter Biden child porn." He admitted to viewing a video of child pornography somewhere that he claimed showed Hunter Biden engaging in sex acts with minors. He encouraged others to look at it. Straightforward violation of 18 USC § 2252A(a)(5)(B), see also
United States v. Croghan, 973 F.3d 809, 828 (8th Cir.2020)("knowingly accessing a child-pornography website with the intent to view illegal materials is itself a criminal act.")

[Krychek_2]

"One had better put on gloves before reading the Bible; the presence of so much filth makes it advisable." Frederick Nietzche.

As an example of what he meant, this is Genesis 34:

34 Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land. 2 When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and raped her. 3 His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob; he loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. 4 And Shechem said to his father Hamor, “Get me this girl as my wife.”

5 When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he did nothing about it until they came home.

6 Then Shechem’s father Hamor went out to talk with Jacob. 7 Meanwhile, Jacob’s sons had come in from the fields as soon as they heard what had happened. They were shocked and furious, because Shechem had done an outrageous thing in[a] Israel by sleeping with Jacob’s daughter—a thing that should not be done.

8 But Hamor said to them, “My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. 9 Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves. 10 You can settle among us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade[b] in it, and acquire property in it.”

11 Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and I will give you whatever you ask. 12 Make the price for the bride and the gift I am to bring as great as you like, and I’ll pay whatever you ask me. Only give me the young woman as my wife.”

13 Because their sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob’s sons replied deceitfully as they spoke to Shechem and his father Hamor. 14 They said to them, “We can’t do such a thing; we can’t give our sister to a man who is not circumcised. That would be a disgrace to us. 15 We will enter into an agreement with you on one condition only: that you become like us by circumcising all your males. 16 Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves. We’ll settle among you and become one people with you. 17 But if you will not agree to be circumcised, we’ll take our sister and go.”

18 Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. 19 The young man, who was the most honored of all his father’s family, lost no time in doing what they said, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. 20 So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak to the men of their city. 21 “These men are friendly toward us,” they said. “Let them live in our land and trade in it; the land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours. 22 But the men will agree to live with us as one people only on the condition that our males be circumcised, as they themselves are. 23 Won’t their livestock, their property and all their other animals become ours? So let us agree to their terms, and they will settle among us.”

24 All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised.

25 Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male. 26 They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem’s house and left. 27 The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where[c] their sister had been defiled. 28 They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields. 29 They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses.

30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me obnoxious to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.”

31 But they replied, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?”

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Are you a fan of the Bible, mad_kalak?

Do you ever intend or expect to grow up?

Do you also have trouble determining whether Game of Thrones or Spider-Man is fact or fiction?

[LawTalkingGuy]

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/03/22/the-question-i-would-ask-kbj-how-would-you-change-the-supreme-court-confirmation-process/?comments=true#comments

"The laptop has been brought up again lets dispel disinfo about it. There is absolutely 100% a video of him getting a footjob from a 14 year old looking girl who says "I didn't know my feet could do that!" who he explicitly calls "Nat." Anyone telling you otherwise is stupid or lying.

You get some silly fool saying "hey hey hey that CP stuff was BS! It's fake and not real it's just misinfo! The rest is real though!" Yeah, no. There's also images of what appears to be him nude with BLATANTLY prepubescent girls who are in lingerie. You need to confirm this for yourself. I would not be caught dead spreading this allegation if I hadn't at least seen the images and videos myself. Btw reddit will give you a sitewide ban for linking to their competitors where this can be found."

Wow. So it seems you are either lying now or were lying then. So pedo or liar? Which is it? I suggest liar because openly admitting to accessing child porn, complaining that it's not hosted on other sites due to a MSM conspiracy (not because of the fact that hosting it would be highly illegal), and encouraging other people to go access child pornography, seems pretty fucking bad dude.

[Estragon]

Lollllll he brought receipts! Time for a new screen name kalak

[Sarcastr0]

You're deep down a rabbit hole of wanting to believe. In real life such coverups are not easy not generally successful.

You're past just nodding along. You're already admitting some stuff that it's best if I assume you're lying about. Stuff that even if true, is not really verifiably connected to the real laptop; not by the likes of you.

You think QAnon was real, but all lies concocted by...what, the CIA?

I hope you deprogram from this nonsense; it ends in alienation from friends and family, at best.

[Sarcastr0]

I revised my take on the general provenance of the laptop when the facts changed. Like someone who lives in reality does.

And your dodge in conflating QAnon from being false to being faked as a psyop (by parties unspecified) is weak. Are you ashamed of your conspiracy theory, now?

Lots of right-wing fools like to lean on the easily disproven canard that the investigation of Russia was all based on a hoax. The criminal trial is, of course, not 'for Russiagate.' There was an above board pretty damming report released. And the investigation was begun based on bottom-up reasons.

But you take it that extra mile, with QAnon and taking stuff Rudy Giulliani says as gospel. And, apparently, some light child porn viewing just to button up your insane bona fides.

It's not a happy road you go down, outflanking most of the true believers on here in crazy nonsense.

[LawTalkingGuy]

You can call me a groomer all you want, but it won't change the fact no one is going to investigate me for accessing child pornography. Hope you get a democratic appointee as a judge since apparently they sentence on the low end of the guidelines.