Satire? Maybe?

"If you can't find someone with whom you truly wish to share this experience, then don't!" - p. 98

There are so many thoughts running around in my head right now, so I'm going to use bullet points.

• I googled this movie because I wanted to know what charactrrs looked like, and I realized they have an incredibly attractive cast. Watching this movie when I'm done reading is probably my number one motivation right now. It's killing me to see videos and trailers when I know I can't watch them because they'll give too much away.

• Tommy and Ruth dated? What? From the beginning, Kathy has stuck with Tommy and Ruth has always been kind of annoying and arrogant in my opinion. If Tommy and Kathy don't end up together or something terrible happens I will be very upset. 

• Finally to the actual literary point: I think the entire eighth chapter is making fun of our current culture's obsession with sex. The satirical advice given to the students is basically "politically correct" advice given to teenagers by the media today. They're told that sex is "special" and they just need to be careful.  So naturally, sex is the normal, popular thing at Hailsham. The same is true in shows like Secret Like of the American Teenager, 90210, and Teen Mom. Of course these shows weren't around in 2005, when the book was first published, but media was still the same. Pressure to have sex is virtually everywhere, and I think Ishiguro was pointing out how outrageous it can be sometimes.