Harmful by Minors by Judith Levine

Judith Levine wants people to think critically about young people and sex, and that's enough to get lots of people very upset. Even before Harmful to Minors was published, she had Dr. Laura leading a jihad against her as an "apologist for pedophilia" and a Minnesota gubernatorial candidate using her book and the University of Minnesota's press as a campaign issue.

None of the critics had read the book, of course; that's convenient, because the book is nothing it was accused of being; it's a look at how we deal with child sexuality in our culture, the media, the criminal justice system, and the education system. And Levine's point with the book is that we treat the sexuality of young people as if it doesn't exist, it's a pathology if ita does, and if children act on it they will be victimized and damaged.

The sections on the law are particularly horrifying: young people who have consensual sex are labeled as victims or abusers, and if they fail to feel like they were victimized, they are educated to understand that they are damaged goods. (Healthy, no?)

It's a fairly dense book and crammed with citations of what studies there are of child sexuality - it's not an area that is particularly safe for researchers to delve into. As I read it, I wondered if many of the adults Levine talks to or writes about remember being teenagers themselves. You know, the period of life when hormones explode through your body in a big confusing rush? You'd think these people skipped from toddlerhood to adulthood.

But that's the big lie that all of this depends on - that children are utterly asexual and non-sensual beings until one day when they magically are sexual adults. It's a bit reminiscent of times not all that long ago when women were told that if they felt sexual pleasure they were sick and offered surgical correction to make sure it didn't happen anymore.

Levine also takes on the idea that any exposure to sexual images or information will either damage kids or make them run out and have sex, something clearly untrue to anyone who's actually watching what kids do.

The book is nothing that its critics said it was, but it is provocative, so the storm around it is not terribly surprising. There's a foreword by Jocelyn Elders, the surgeon general who got pushed out of her job for suggesting that children be told that masturbation is a normal, harmless thing.

Get it at Amazon