North Carolina teen says class read story about cousins having sex, rebukes school board
WARNING: The following article contains descriptions of sexually explicit content.
A teenage girl is leaving her high school after reading a story in English class that she said described an incestual sex scene, sparking the school district to launch a human resources investigation.
A viral video clip posted on the social media platform X by parental rights activist and Pastor John Amanchukwu Wednesday shows a 15-year-old sophomore at Athens Drive High School in Wake County, North Carolina, speaking at a school board meeting Tuesday about how the students in her English class last Friday were asked to read a story independently and then come together and discuss it in groups.
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The full video from the school board meeting identifies the student as Lorena Benson.
"There was a part in this story that made me feel very uncomfortable, and I looked around and saw the same expression on other students' faces," she said.
Benson read aloud the passage in question, which discussed how a character fell in love with her cousin and the two characters "wiggled into the tiny space behind grandma's garage" and tried to fit "his banana" into her "tomato" while noting that neither character was "sure which was the right hole."
Benson said, "Even after reading [it] again, it makes me feel very uncomfortable." According to Benson, "This graphic, incestual, sexual language should not be taught in any class, much less an honors English class."
"That day, I came back home from school," she recalled. "As per usual, I told my parents about my day and the things I did. I showed them what I was taught in my English class, and they were as outraged as I was."
Benson believes exposure to sexually graphic material goes against the best practices she learned in another class.
"This incident got me thinking in my healthful living honors class; I am being taught about brain functions and development. I was taught that the teenage brains, like mine, are not fully developed yet and that we must be careful about what we engage [in] during these years."
"Based on this logic, I am a teenager, my brain is not fully developed, and I should not have graphic, incestual, sexual content taught to me in my classes," she explained. "I am deeply bothered and deeply disappointed. I have decided to leave Athens Drive High School because I should not have to deal with pornographic, incestual, sexual content taught to me in my classes."
Benson never specifically named the story in question, but the dialogue used in her description is found in a short story called "Tomorrow is too far."
A spokesperson for the Wake County Public School System told The Charlotte Observer that it is reviewing the claims and labeled it an ongoing human resources investigation.
In recent years, many parents, pastors and other community leaders have raised concerns at school board meetings about the presence of sexually explicit material in public school libraries and curricula.
In 2021, the mayor of Hudson, Ohio, confronted the school board and ordered them to either resign or face criminal charges for allowing a college-level English class offered to high school students to use the book 642 Things to Write About, which encourages students to write about "a time when you wanted to orgasm but couldn't."
That same year, parent Stacy Langton read aloud excerpts from sexually explicit books available at her son's high school library in Fairfax County, Virginia, that included graphic depictions of sexual activity between men and boys.
Opposition to sexually explicit material in public schools is one of several factors that have led to the creation of parental rights advocacy groups such as Parents Defending Education and the 1776 Project PAC.
Parents Defending Education describes itself as a "national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists pushing harmful agendas," while 1776 Project PAC works to elect school board candidates "who oppose political indoctrination and believe in parental rights."
In the past several election cycles, the 1776 Project PAC has had a mixed success rate in electing its preferred candidates to school boards across the United States. Following last year's general election in November 2023, the group reported that 58% of its 118 endorsed candidates won their races.
Following the November 2022 midterm elections, 1776 Project PAC founder Ryan Girdusky announced that his organization had flipped "100 school board seats across the country" since its founding a year earlier. While less than half of its preferred candidates won in the 2022 midterms, the 1776 Project PAC had a much higher success rate in elections earlier in the year in Florida and Texas.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
