We'd prefer to see sex as something older adults need to be protected from, not something they'd seek out on their own. Otherwise, you know, ew.

Right -- because at Broadsheet, the people implied by "we" could never include older adults themselves. Because that would be -- ew.

Now let's gossip about an aging starlet -- you know, that popwreck who's 27 and not getting any younger.

Don't you just hate sexism? I sure do.

I hope that the Son Of Bob gets a big fat Karma payback very soon. Wretch.

To think that you will eventually be under the thumbs of your children, the way they were once under your's. I'm a librarian and just the other day I watched a child's face light up when she saw a children's book she wanted only to see her mother snatch it away from her. "You don't want that," she snapped. Yes, indeed. I thought, "Hope your kid doesn't remember this, cause one day your choices will be at her mercy."

We should all be so lucky to be as happy as these people were able to be. How shameful that the son's and the staff's squeamishness got in the way of that happiness. But the truth is that we are all very uptight and squeamish about sex in this country. Sure, sex is everywhere, sex sells. However, for the most part, we see only a very sanitized picture of sex - fantasy sex: beautiful men and women with perfect bodies, not a wrinkle, blemish or flaw in sight having mind-blowing sex. With this disconnect between fantasy sex and real sex, no wonder we are so disgusted by the idea of real, healthy, loving sex between ordinary people. Sex is for all consenting adults whether 25 or 95. How tragic that we let our the idea that real sex is disgusting get in the way of other's happiness.

I was going to comment on how awful this son was being to his father, but your comment just stole that thought.

As parents, we're expected to monitor what our kids watch and read. It's our freaking job. My son can't be expected to know what's best for him, and he needs me to say what's okay and what's not.

The library's job is to shelf every book they can without judging it's content.

Do you really believe that a parent should let their young child bring home whatever book the child wants?

I'm flabbergasted.

...you'd better raise your kids with a healthy attitude towards sexuality, or else they'll grow up into prigs who'll shut down your sex life, when you're in the nursing home.

Hell yes I think children should be allowed to read whatever they want. You're not doing your kids any favors "protecting" them from information. Better you know what they're reading so you can provide guidance and context. If you try to censor them, they're just going to read whatever they want on the internet behind your back anyway.

The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a paper recently that showed that 2/3 of adults in their 60s and 1/2 of those in their 70s are still "doin' it".

Younger adults just cannot bear to visualize their parents having sex. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I'm the author of a published (not self-published) novel with a sex scene, mild by today's standards. I learned through my son that my daughter had a fit over it. Ironically, she's an ardent feminist and professional woman with a graduate degree, a husband and kids that are not the result of immaculate comception I'd wager.

Maybe you missed where the librarian specified that the child was interested in A CHILDREN'S BOOK. I don't know that there are many children's librarians who are so libertarian that you'll find anything more extreme than "Heather has two Mommies". Is that the problem you anticipate? Or maybe "The Lorax", another censorship favorite?

I wonder what kind of dad 'Bob' was that his kid would do that - sometimes parents do the best they can and the kids turn out to be uptight republicans. Maybe Son Of Bob was just jealous.

Anyway, if you're gonna be Stalin to your kids, don't be surprised if you end up in a Gulag when you're old.

And it was pretty much a given that many senior citizens were still very sexually active. There's actually a pretty big concern in some places about the spread of AIDS in the over-60 set. The women don't see a need for condoms since they're past menopause, and since there can be three single women for every single man in some senior populations, it's common and accepted that the men are frequently not terribly monogamous. So it's easy for STDs to spread at Shady Acres Retirement Home.

And you'd also be surprised at the number of seniors who are 'living in sin' so to speak because the widowed Miss Betty was a stay at home mom for most of her adult life, has no pension of her own outside of meager social security, and will lose benefits from her husband's pension if she remarries. But she's found new love with Mister Bob, and it would work better if they only had one apartment instead of two and...

It's a far more dynamic and complex population group than what middle aged folks would expect. (Or maybe even what they'd want to think about)

When I was a child my mother found me reading an article in a news magazine. It was on prostitution. She talked to me about it. She said that she thought about taking it away from me, but instead she just asked that whatever I read, I talk to her and ask questions about it. And that's what we did. Did me more than a world of good and not the slightest harm. As far as I am concerned the mother who snatched a book (and this was a children's book mind) away from her child is falling down on her "job" by taking the lazy way out. There is more than one way to "montior" your child's reading. And my mother did it in the best way possible.