Dirty books have played a role in sex education for decades. I still remember the bonkbuster titles by Jackie Collins, Shirley Conran and the like passed around classrooms in the 1980s with key pages folded down. And I still remember my surprise, aged maybe 13, at just how far consenting adults could deviate from the sober positions outlined in Peter Mayle’s Where Did I Come From?. These lurid scenes didn’t erase my wistful hopes for a kiss one day from the boy of my dreams, but lived alongside them. As a teenager, I secretly read Nancy Friday’s 1973 fantasy anthology The Secret Garden, discovered at a local library and studied in sequential visits as I was too shy to take it home. Much of this anthology of women’s wildest fantasies disgusted me - it’s extreme stuff even today - but it taught me about the divide between the imagination and the act. I also read Puberty Blues, a great book about how lousy a teen’s sex life could be, and Judy Blume’s sensible story of the first time, Forever.

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Michelle Griffin - Why teens should read raunchy novels and straight-up smut | The Age

I have fond, vivid memories of reading Forever in the geography section of the library (i.e. where nobody would spot me). Is it still one of the most-stolen library books?

(via clambistro)