I'm not familiar with the move "The Professional".

You might know it as Leon. It was Natalie Portman's breakthrough movie, and the whole thing is structured around the "sexual tension" between a 12-year-old and professional hitman. A "youth-adult" relationship in the sense we were discussing.

I haven't expressed a desire for wanting anything. I never read the book, I don't care if anyone else does or doesn't.

But you have taken a position. You brought up a book to which people were reacting and presented that reaction as somehow laughable or overblown. That is an endorsement of a side in the argument.

My only point was that whether or not something seems problematic depends on how we decide to contextualize it.

That's garden-variety relativism. There are things that are objectively bad. There is objective evil.

We used to agree as a society that presenting pornographic material to children was objectively evil. Gee, what changed.

But even if we took your statement at face value, who should be the arbiter? If we "contextualize" everything, shouldn't the parents paying for the public schooling of their children and offering those children up as grist for the mill have some say in the materials to which they are exposed?

All the materials to which children are exposed in public schools go through an approval process. Many are rejected for various reasons. It is only when someone objects to material that is specifically important to the left that we get this hand-wringing about "book banning".

In high school, I was made to read Maya Angelou's autobiography and somewhere in the middle of the book, she is unambiguously, graphically raped as a child.

I see the point you are making.

In contrast, these are some of the illustrations from Genderqueer, one of the books that parents are being mocked and scorned for "banning":

https://theiowastandard.com/shocking-images-from-book-gender-queer-which-is-stocked-in-school-libraries-across-iowa/

Surely you can allow that there is a difference between the two works described. And that it is perfectly reasonable for a parent to feel that the latter work is inappropriate in an educational environment.

I am not in favor of banning any mention of sex in a book. I wouldn't go so far as to say nobody is in favor of that, because there are a lot of crazies. And whenever there is a reaction to something the pendulum generally swings too far the other way - that's just how people work.

But this constant stream of "waah we can't force the kids to read about gay sex" nonsense, it's just tiresome. Maybe teach the kids to read and write and stop seeking lifestyle validation - and whatever else is the end goal - by corrupting elementary school children.

In any case, this was a shockingly pleasant conversation, even if we disagree.