Foreword
There is a danger in our society that too much sex and too much candor may be as disastrous as too little has been in the past. When children like Sally Jean learn about sex too quickly, when nothing is left to the imagination, perhaps sex is devalued to the point where society-and the child-is damaged.
This story has its value in contemporary truths, not in the vague rulings of a high court or the emotional upset of a shocked parent. When is a child no longer sexually, a child?
Is there an answer to that question?
Sometimes an answer is attempted by writing in a law book that there is an age for sex, an age for consent, an age for marriage. But that does not solve the basic problem. What is the age for discovery?
That is what this book is about. The fact that Sally Jean discovers fellatio, Lesbianism, anal sex, group sex and pedophilia doesn't make it more a sin and less a discovery. Sins come and go. Discovery happens to everyone.
The question this book raises, the issue it foreshadows, is when and how can society teach children properly. How can it provide the best for its young, keep them from the harm of premature knowledge as well as the danger of jail or accidental death or military combat-which is hardly accidental at all.
So far, society has failed. Not because it wants to. But solely because it doesn't know how to succeed. In fact, a dispassionate examination of the facts might reveal that society is failing because it doesn't know what it has to succeed at doing.
Today, society is like a long distance swimmer dropped into the ocean at an unspecified place. Land is too far away in some directions for him to ever hope he can reach it before his strength gives out. But if he will only stroke out in the right direction, he will live to succeed-rather than die in failure.
This book is like a compass for the swimmer. It provides a clue to society's problem and hopefully helps point the way to succeeding in finding a winning combination to salvage the country's young.
-The Publisher