Books Rated R?

I find it so ironic that people are up in arms over their children reading Fifty Shades of Gray when the Bible has more violence and probably mentions sex more times than any other book a child might read.

I spent my entire childhood reading - I read pretty much anything I could get my hands on and had I been denied access to a book I'm sure that I would have figured out a way to either steal it or obtain it. If any government starts trying to censor books in this way kids will read less and less, and more and more books will be "pirated" from the internet, and authors will make even less money. The whole idea of "rating" books is complete nonsense - if people just raised their children to be honest and ask questions, then it wouldn't matter what they were reading as you could just discuss it with them after they were done.

Granted, I wouldn't want an 8 year old reading Fifty Shades of Gray, but mostly because it's filled with the type of trash that also fills daytime television talk shows.

I read A Clockwork Orange before I even started high school and I skipped over the really violent rape scenes (for the most part) - they didn't leave me with confused feelings and I'm not some crazed sadistic sex fiend now that I'm an adult. Mostly the rape scenes just made me a little uncomfortable so I would skim through them until I knew they were over. Even though I didn't necessarily understand what "rape" was, I understood that it was something, for lack of a better term, "not nice" and that it was part of the chaos of Alex.

I think people need to give their children more credit. Everyone just assumes that your child is going to see something or hear something "not nice" and then turn into maniacs. Really, you should be more concerned when your child experiences something "not nice", which, in my opinion, most parents are quick to overlook. Kids are not idiots. Yes, they're innocent, but they do have minds and are capable of thinking about the things around them.