'Wait, did she just get raped or what?'

Children of the Corn : learning about sex through books, an essay on nerve.com.

"The sex parts, rare and oblique as they were, felt familiar to me, too — my first little horny urges also felt dirty and wrong and confusing. When Cathy, letting Chris treat her wounds after being beaten by their grandmother, says "it felt odd to be kissed while lying naked in his arms . . . and not right," I could certainly relate to the sentiment, if not the circumstances. And I wasn't alone.
    "I can't remember what I reviewed six months ago," a magazine-writer friend admits, "but I could tell you every plot detail from the Judy Blume, Sweet Valley High or Ramona books. Those were all exciting, but Flowers in the Attic was a different kind of 'Whoa!'"

   "These books really got me tingly, and they made me feel like my parents and teachers were oblivious fools," a novelist friend says. "I read the damn things in class and in carpool and at Christian summer camp and no one ever thought to ask what the basic premises were. Also, they addressed two troubling issues that all teens struggle with, namely, incest and arsenic poisoning, which really helped me to feel a little less alone in the world."

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