Well, the Grimms certainly didn't like to write about sex. Tatar points out, "Pregnancy, whether the result of a frivolous wish or of an illicit sexual relationship, was a subject that made the Grimms uncomfortable" (450).
And I can appreciate this. My daughter is a gifted student in the fourth grade who reads on a ninth grade level. Reading is a huge part of her life. She is always seeking out the next Accelerated Reader point and is never without a book somewhere in her possession. Ironically and unbeknownst to me until yesterday, her latest reading is "The Best Fairy Tales" from Anderson and the Grimms. Yesterday I heard her talking to her brother about reading "Puss and Boots" and I got seriously worried because my printed Carter version is just lying on my desk. I ran into the next room and shouted, "Where did you get “Puss in Boots”?!" She replied, looking at me like I'd lost my mind, "The library, mom. Duh." Oh. OK. Sigh of relief. Crisis averted. I asked her what she thought of it, explaining the content of our class, as she showed me her little anthology, and she said thought it was OK, but she was having trouble with the lesson, settling on:
"You shouldn't always listen to what people think of you, especially if they think you're dumb. But, then again, he listened to the cat. So, maybe it's saying animals can be trusted more than people? Anyways, I didn't like it nearly as much as i liked “The Little Mermaid.” Do you know that in the story in this book, it's different from the movie, because she doesn't wear a shell bra; she just goes without covering up. I hope it's OK that I read that--there are pictures, too, of her without a shirt on."
Well, after the thought of her reading about Carter's Puss “...tonguing [his] arsehole with the impeccable hygienic integrity of cats...” (3) or recalling how the two lovers “...strip each other bare in a twinkling and she falls back on the bed, shows him the target, he displays the dart, scores an instant bullseye...” (10), a topless mermaid didn't concern me so much.
Carter is not for children. Even if Bettleheim does think children should be made privy to the doings of the world, I don't think he'd agree that Carter was the way to teach them about this. Her re-envisioning of these tales is pure genius, to put it lightly, but I think her “hyper sexualizing” them is more to portray the gap between childhood and adulthood that is bridged by sexuality. Anything adult can be toned down for kids. Anything made for children can be made sexual if we try hard enough. The bridge is a tough one to cross. How our children see and learn about sex is one of the most important parts of their adolescence and one of the scariest parts of parenting. My daughter is still talking about breasts of that darn mermaid, reminding me that children will always be curious about such mysteries—the things they come across in the world will make them wonder; it's a parent's job to explain it all and help them walk over the bridge slowly, one foot at a time. Had my daughter got hold of Carter, I would have fallen off entirely and drowned.