"Dirty Books" I read as a teenager

Entertainment Weekly has a great article up on the 'dirty books' that the staff read as a teenager. The article came about after author, Tina Jordan, was complaining that her teenage daughter was reading The Gossip Girls series. Even though her daughter read another books besides The Gossip Girl series, including alot of literary fiction, Tina wondered what her daughter saw in the books.

This apparently sparked a debate in the office, leading the staff to reminisce about the 'dirty books' they read as a teenager. Most of the usual suspects appeared on the list, including Forever by Judy Blume, the first book written for teens that had an actual sex scene in it. Who can forget Mike naming his penis 'Ralph'? Before that, I had to read adult books if I wanted to learn about sex, like John Jakes, The Bastard and Rich Man, Poor Man, both of which I read in the 6th grade.

My parents were probably unusual in that they never censored what I read. I think they were just so happy to have a child that loved reading. Not to mention the fact that I was already reading on a college level by the time I was ten. So when I used my allowance to buy books like Rich Man, Poor Man or anything by Helen Van Slyke or Taylor Caldwell, they didn't say anything.

I mean, I read books that were age appropriate also. All of Madeleine L'Engle, Nancy Drew, Little House on the Prairie, but I have ADD when I read, so I was always dipping into 2 or 3 books at a time. I had to get permission to use the Upper School library, because I'd read everything in the Lower School library by the time I was ten.

The only time that my parents ever said anything to me about what I read was when my father caught me reading Harold Robbins, The Pirate, and then he just wanted to know if my mother knew that I read such books. I told him she loaned it to me! In fact, Sweet Savage Love, the first historical romance I ever read, I borrowed from my mother. It's where I learned that men went down to Brazil in a manner of speaking. I was almost more embarrassed that my mother had read it!

The article also mentioned Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. Now that was totally a dirty book. If you haven't read it, you might want to take a shower afterwards. Four kids are locked in an attic by their grandmother, after they come to live with her when their father dies. Their mother just goes off and leaves them with her. You learn later it's because their mother married her Uncle or something like that, which sort of foreshadows the fact that Chris and his sister end up falling in love and doing the nasty.

I'm not ashamed to admit I learned alot about male/female relations from these books. They were very informative, when you consider that my mother was still trying to pass off the cabbage patch theory of childbirth to me when I was ten. This was after I had already learned the facts of life in school!

If it weren't for Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, I would totally have been unprepared for when it hit puberty. (Wasn't that a funny scene in Talladega Nights, when Michael Clarke Duncan is reading the book to Will Ferrell?).

Thank god, for 'dirty books'! They certainly made my adolescence that much more interesting!

EKM