Real Simple - Really?!

I was perusing the articles in the June edition of my mom's copy of Real Simple magazine when I came across an article of interest, "50 Great Books That Will Change Your Life." I love books and love reading suggestions - this sounded like a fantastic article written just for me!

That is, until I started into the list. Most of it was boring and pretentious and my eyes started to glaze over. Well, the books themselves might be great, but the descriptions came across as so self-important and "Look at me, look at me" that I turned up my nose. Yeah, I think I'll stick with the reading list my husband has assigned me (Vince Flynn and the newest Brad Thor) and the books my mom suggested, as well as a few others I've been longing to check out. Then I read the description of one book that had my hair standing on end in indignation:

A Much Younger Man, by Dianne Highbridge.

“This book—about a 35-year-old woman who falls for the 15-year-old son of her best friend—changed the way I read newsreports about ‘pedophiles’ who have scandalous affairs with the underage. This is a headlong heartbreaker, tender but never schlocky. It deepened my sympathy for many people under the spotlight whose real stories are so much richer and more morally nuanced than the headlines suggest.” 

Um, excuse me? "Morally nuanced"? "Tender, [...] never schlocky" writing that "deepen[s] [the] sympathy" of a reader for a woman who has a sexual affair with a child? The reviewer, author Lionel Shriver (We Need To Talk About Kevin) gets one thing right when he uses the word "pedophile," but amazingly, he redefines the word in almost the same breath as nearly synonymous with "victim." Many pedophiles, he asserts, have "real stories" that are "so much richer and more morally nuanced than the headlines suggest."

Ahhhh!!! As a conservative in favor of traditional marriage and family, I have been accused of being a bigot, a religious fanatic, and the creator of straw-man arguments because I believe that the government forcing a redefinition of marriage will lead to the undermining of the strong moral foundation that protects and nurtures children. What, though, can be said to an article in an extremely popular mainstream magazine that promotes pedophilia? I checked out the book on Amazon.com and found similar reviews. None of the professional reviews made mention that the relationship was immoral or even illegal.

A practice I learned in college in both my literature and language courses was to examine the meaning of words. Words are but symbols, after all, capturing as best they can both the concrete and ephemeralities. The tricky part is to recognize what words actually mean and what words do not - like the word "marriage," words are not without their own history, weight, and connotation.

Getting a rigorous use of my college education, I deduced the following from the review:

35-year-old woman = adult.

15-year-old son = child (in Australia, home of the author and location of the story, too young for sex).

Teacher = someone in authority who should know much, much better (the 35-year-old is a teacher and has no excuse).

Best friend = someone in a position of trust, so raping a best friend's son is all the more shocking.

Pedophile = an adult who preys sexually on children and should be removed from their society permanently.

Tender = generally sweet and gentle; in this case, perverted and manipulative.

Sympathy = collusion.

Real Stories = excuses we are supposed to accept because "the law doesn't apply to them."

Richer = see "Real Stories."

Morally Nuanced = morally relativistic. "What is right for you isn't necessarily right for me." Bad is Good, Good is Bad.

I wrote to Real Simple magazine and let them know how disappointed I was that they promoted a book about pedophilia. I noted that the school district just up the road from my home is facing a $5.1 million lawsuit because a 38-year-old teacher indulged in a sexual relationship with two students, and now she and her husband - the school's police resource officer - are experiencing the consequences of that "morally nuanced" decision. Not all books are created equal, and it is totally okay to refuse to read a novel that promotes women preying on children; 15 years of age is still a child, despite how different that age is now than it was when I was fifteen. Our children deserve our protection, I told Real Simple. Please don't violate their trust in us through a salacious summer read.

I doubt they will print my "Letter to the Editor," but at least I took a stand.