Looking for Alaska

I have read that some people, mostly parents, take umbrage at the inclusion of smoking, drinking and sex in Looking for Alaska. Not only does this bring up the age-old issue of censorship but, with the novel specifically, it also is a detriment to the real subject matter.

First, I have realized that with any media including literature, film, television, etc., people can tolerate violence and language but there is a strict tolerance for anything of the sexual nature. Just turning on the news, bombing and war are headliners but fines are issued for anything promiscuous. In the classroom, parents become very uncomfortable when novels such as Looking for Alaska are taught because they do contain scenes of sex. Why is this? Do parents feel uncomfortable when their children learn about sex from any other source than them? If that were the case, then a properly educated adolescent should be able to handle the subject matter appropriately and maturely. 

Also, the reason I enjoyed Looking for Alaska so much was because of its realism in both conversation, behavior and approach to opposite sexes. That is what high school is really like and that is how boys and girls really behave. If you try to feed the readers some fantasized PG-version of growing up, they will dismiss it immediately. None of the subject matter is gratuitous solely because it never goes beyond the realm of something which would realistically happen at that age. So, if one were to have a problem with the content of the book and an eleventh-grader reading it, then removing it from the reading canon would by no means hide those truths. In fact, reading such a novel like Looking for Alaska would help me realize that these same things are universally occurring. 

I don't mean to spend so much time focusing on the inappropriate content of the novel because by doing so, I am just as bad as the novel's detractors. The sexual ethics of Looking for Alaska are not its main points. There is a wealth of knowledge and lessons within the pages of the book and to argue whether or not it is a "dirty" book would be doing those lessons a disservice. 

I assume that in many years, anyone that took offense to the subject matter in the novel will rethink their position just as those that found The Catcher in the Rye to be an inappropriate and wrong novel when it was published are probably now bashfully regretting their opinion.