It's entirely appropriate, essential even, to restrict certain books from children. And to know about the specific restrictions. Adults are another matter, obviously.
Curation is always necessary for any library or bookstore, because having a copy of each of the 150 million available books is impossible. Choices must be made.
Do school libraries (or any physical library) contain all books published? Of course not. There is limited shelf space. So most books are not included. Are the not included books “banned”? Decisions were made about what books to include on the limited shelf space. The author’s piece provides a rationale means for addressing book selection. Now let’s also end the hysterical blather about banning books. It really is just appropriating victimhood and virtue signaling, selfish, sanctimonious and destructive.
Parents have lost confidence in schools and libraries to safeguard kids from sexually explicit content. Libraries must earn trust again by a responsible process of evaluating sexualized books and curriculum. Thank you for highlighting this need.
On the one hand there’s banning books, which few people support, and on the other there’s debating what’s age-appropriate, which most people agree with. It can’t be said enough: these two things aren’t the same!
This is a perfectly sensible article. This issue really frosts me. When did public school employees become the boss of parents? For people claiming book banning, how do they feel about the Bible in school?
When this topic comes up, and I am talking to those who defend the inclusion of these books in school libraries, I like to ask a simple question:
"Why do you want to provide sexually explicit materials to children?"
I've heard lots of responses that hem and avoid the question, but the reality is that there really isn't a way to answer it honestly without sounding like a creep at best and predator at worst.
The hushed sad truth...(most students do not use libraries; they only read books for free online (and most of that is semi porn manga trash (libraries scarcely matter at all( this entire issue is sort of meaningless ancient history for students( shhhh!!!)))).
While that may be true, it doesn't negate the principles here. All books offered or accessible to children at public schools should be evaluated for age-appropriateness.
The writer takes many examples out of context because he's uncomfortable with the idea of teenage sexuality. Of course there's limits with everything but in general exposure to books, even graphically sexual ones, is the least of the problems young people have today. You think these kids don't see much worse on the Internet? Get real dude 😎
poor argument and a weird, baseless assertion ("he's uncomfortable with the idea of teenage sexuality").
It's like saying, "they are exposed to toxins all the time, so what's one more? who cares?!" Taking away any negative is moving in the right direction.
This argument taken to its logical conclusion tells us that there's no problem with a library showing porn during its regularly scheduled kids story hour. But there is a problem with it doing that, regardless of how easy it is to find porn online.
An honest conversation has to start with an agreement to be guided by scientific evidence, not culture-bound prejudice. Some relevant findings:
Svedin CG, Donevan M, Bladh M, Priebe G, Fredlund C, Jonsson LS. (2023). Associations between adolescents watching pornography and poor mental health in three Swedish surveys. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. Sep;32(9):1765-1780. doi: 10.1007/s00787-022-01992-x.
"The repeated cross-sectional surveys did not find any consistent associations across years between poor mental health and ever having watched pornography or the frequency of watching pornography."
Štulhofer, A., Tafro, A. & Kohut, T. (2019). The dynamics of adolescents’ pornography use and psychological well-being: a six-wave latent growth and latent class modeling approach. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 28, 1567–1579, doi: 10.1007/s00787-019-01318-4
"We observed no significant correspondence between growth in pornography use and changes in the two indicators of psychological well-being over time in either female or male participants."
McKee, Alan (2010) Does pornography harm young people? Australian Journal of Communication, 37(1), pp. 17-36.
"Retrospective studies show that accidental exposure to real-life scenes of sexuality does not harm children. Our survey shows that age of first exposure to pornography does not correlate with negative attitudes towards women. Studies with non-explicit representations of sexuality show that young people who seek out sexualised representations tend to be those with a pre-existing interest in sexuality. These studies also suggest that current generations of children are no more sexualised than previous generations, that they are not innocent about sexuality, and that a key negative effect of this knowledge is the requirement for them to feign ignorance in order to satisfy adults’ expectations of them."
Who says it cannot start with culture? And as if "science" is not distorted or it is always in agreement in conclusion on every study. Science is a method to study something, it is not an answer book.
Science is how we figure out what's true, instead of just believing what others have told us is true. "What many people refer to as common sense is nothing more than a collection of prejudices accumulated before the age of eighteen." -- Albert Einstein
This paper doesn't even describe the methodology of most of the studies it cites, making it impossible to infer causation from correlation. In the only controlled study described, many of the "maladaptive" effects aren't obviously harmful at all. "More acceptance of nonmarital sexual activity"? "More acceptance of female promiscuity"? Isn't that a synonym for "less likely to slut-shame"?
There's a long history of skewed, agenda-driven research on anything related to sexuality. This is addressed in several chapters of the 2023 book _Ideological and Political Bias in Psychology_, particularly the one by Bruce Rind.
I think there is a slight mistake in this description:
"A cartoon of two minors performing oral sex on one another"
I don't think those people are minors in the narrative. I believe that the first-person narrator is working in a library by this point in the story. Most likely the people depicted are in their 20s, or at least college age.
Exactly, I've seen so many wrongly call the book paedophilic bc they thought the characters were preteens even or at least school students. It still is wrong though, ofc.
Your first statement, which is an empirical claim, isn't supported by any science. No one is more responsible for pioneering the child sexual abuse construct than David Finkelhor, yet even he wrote,
"Another attempt to consider the impact of sexual abuse has been the formulation of a specific sexually-abused-child disorder (Corwin, 1988). This effort has evolved in response to the need many clinicians perceive to have a diagnostic category in which to place sexually abused children. However, this approach has not caught on because it has proved so difficult to define a set of symptoms that clearly delineates sexually abused children. As we have pointed out, some victims appear to be asymptomatic in the immediate wake of abuse. Perhaps more important, victims manifest such a large variety of symptoms that there is no single set of symptoms that can be considered characteristic. The sexualized behavior that many clinicians think is so much the hallmark of the child who has been sexually abused occurs in only 7% of all victims according to the evaluations of 369 children by Conte and Schuerman (1987). The attempts to define a single sexually abused child syndrome are unlikely to meet with future success and acceptance." (Finkelhor, David (1990). "Early and long-term effects of child sexual abuse: An update," Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 21(5), pp. 325-330.)
Patriarchy is about more than "men holding on to power." It's specifically about a system of kinship and rules about the inheritance of property. For this purpose it's essential to know who are a man's children and who aren't. Hence the importance of enforcing female chastity. As for male homosexuality, that's perceived as a willful rejection of the male's superior position and a blurring of the boundary between the gender castes, hence an ideological threat to patriarchy.
This paper doesn't even describe the methodology of most of the studies it cites, making it impossible to infer causation from correlation. In one controlled study that is described, many of the "maladaptive" effects aren't obviously harmful at all. "More acceptance of non-marital sexual activity"? "More acceptance of female promiscuity"? Isn't the latter a synonym for "less likely to slut-shame"?
There's a long history of skewed, agenda-driven research on anything related to sexuality. This is addressed in several chapters of the 2023 book _Ideological and Political Bias in Psychology_, particularly the one by Bruce Rind.
I’m not a prude and I’m not for book banning , but a “book” like Gender Queer is not appropriate for a school library. Frankly, there is not one iota of anything remotely like literature in this trash! My husband , who was a noted librarian would never have allowed his library to buy such utter garbage. The pictures are poorly drawn and simply pornographic. The writing is pure trash! How anyone can praise such garbage is beyond
It's entirely appropriate, essential even, to restrict certain books from children. And to know about the specific restrictions. Adults are another matter, obviously.
Curation is always necessary for any library or bookstore, because having a copy of each of the 150 million available books is impossible. Choices must be made.
The curation I posted about concerns protecting children. Nothing to do with numbers of books published.
And choices should be based on value. Most of the LGBTQ books are trashy propaganda. .. not worth their price in any book shelves!
Do school libraries (or any physical library) contain all books published? Of course not. There is limited shelf space. So most books are not included. Are the not included books “banned”? Decisions were made about what books to include on the limited shelf space. The author’s piece provides a rationale means for addressing book selection. Now let’s also end the hysterical blather about banning books. It really is just appropriating victimhood and virtue signaling, selfish, sanctimonious and destructive.
Parents have lost confidence in schools and libraries to safeguard kids from sexually explicit content. Libraries must earn trust again by a responsible process of evaluating sexualized books and curriculum. Thank you for highlighting this need.
Well put.
On the one hand there’s banning books, which few people support, and on the other there’s debating what’s age-appropriate, which most people agree with. It can’t be said enough: these two things aren’t the same!
This is a perfectly sensible article. This issue really frosts me. When did public school employees become the boss of parents? For people claiming book banning, how do they feel about the Bible in school?
When this topic comes up, and I am talking to those who defend the inclusion of these books in school libraries, I like to ask a simple question:
"Why do you want to provide sexually explicit materials to children?"
I've heard lots of responses that hem and avoid the question, but the reality is that there really isn't a way to answer it honestly without sounding like a creep at best and predator at worst.
The hushed sad truth...(most students do not use libraries; they only read books for free online (and most of that is semi porn manga trash (libraries scarcely matter at all( this entire issue is sort of meaningless ancient history for students( shhhh!!!)))).
While that may be true, it doesn't negate the principles here. All books offered or accessible to children at public schools should be evaluated for age-appropriateness.
The writer takes many examples out of context because he's uncomfortable with the idea of teenage sexuality. Of course there's limits with everything but in general exposure to books, even graphically sexual ones, is the least of the problems young people have today. You think these kids don't see much worse on the Internet? Get real dude 😎
poor argument and a weird, baseless assertion ("he's uncomfortable with the idea of teenage sexuality").
It's like saying, "they are exposed to toxins all the time, so what's one more? who cares?!" Taking away any negative is moving in the right direction.
This argument taken to its logical conclusion tells us that there's no problem with a library showing porn during its regularly scheduled kids story hour. But there is a problem with it doing that, regardless of how easy it is to find porn online.
That is still no excuse for spending public money on trash. If they see it elsewhere that’s even more of a reason not to buy trashy sexual material !
An honest conversation has to start with an agreement to be guided by scientific evidence, not culture-bound prejudice. Some relevant findings:
Svedin CG, Donevan M, Bladh M, Priebe G, Fredlund C, Jonsson LS. (2023). Associations between adolescents watching pornography and poor mental health in three Swedish surveys. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. Sep;32(9):1765-1780. doi: 10.1007/s00787-022-01992-x.
"The repeated cross-sectional surveys did not find any consistent associations across years between poor mental health and ever having watched pornography or the frequency of watching pornography."
Štulhofer, A., Tafro, A. & Kohut, T. (2019). The dynamics of adolescents’ pornography use and psychological well-being: a six-wave latent growth and latent class modeling approach. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 28, 1567–1579, doi: 10.1007/s00787-019-01318-4
"We observed no significant correspondence between growth in pornography use and changes in the two indicators of psychological well-being over time in either female or male participants."
McKee, Alan (2010) Does pornography harm young people? Australian Journal of Communication, 37(1), pp. 17-36.
"Retrospective studies show that accidental exposure to real-life scenes of sexuality does not harm children. Our survey shows that age of first exposure to pornography does not correlate with negative attitudes towards women. Studies with non-explicit representations of sexuality show that young people who seek out sexualised representations tend to be those with a pre-existing interest in sexuality. These studies also suggest that current generations of children are no more sexualised than previous generations, that they are not innocent about sexuality, and that a key negative effect of this knowledge is the requirement for them to feign ignorance in order to satisfy adults’ expectations of them."
Who says it cannot start with culture? And as if "science" is not distorted or it is always in agreement in conclusion on every study. Science is a method to study something, it is not an answer book.
Science is how we figure out what's true, instead of just believing what others have told us is true. "What many people refer to as common sense is nothing more than a collection of prejudices accumulated before the age of eighteen." -- Albert Einstein
There are many studies which claim the opposite about porn’s effects
https://acpeds.org/the-impact-of-pornography-on-children/
This paper doesn't even describe the methodology of most of the studies it cites, making it impossible to infer causation from correlation. In the only controlled study described, many of the "maladaptive" effects aren't obviously harmful at all. "More acceptance of nonmarital sexual activity"? "More acceptance of female promiscuity"? Isn't that a synonym for "less likely to slut-shame"?
There's a long history of skewed, agenda-driven research on anything related to sexuality. This is addressed in several chapters of the 2023 book _Ideological and Political Bias in Psychology_, particularly the one by Bruce Rind.
You think porn is great for kids, got it.
You think dogma is more important than facts. Got it.
I think there is a slight mistake in this description:
"A cartoon of two minors performing oral sex on one another"
I don't think those people are minors in the narrative. I believe that the first-person narrator is working in a library by this point in the story. Most likely the people depicted are in their 20s, or at least college age.
Exactly, I've seen so many wrongly call the book paedophilic bc they thought the characters were preteens even or at least school students. It still is wrong though, ofc.
What difference does that make? It’s still porn !
Are you saying it makes no difference to the author's argument? In that case, he should have no objection to correcting the error?
Your first statement, which is an empirical claim, isn't supported by any science. No one is more responsible for pioneering the child sexual abuse construct than David Finkelhor, yet even he wrote,
"Another attempt to consider the impact of sexual abuse has been the formulation of a specific sexually-abused-child disorder (Corwin, 1988). This effort has evolved in response to the need many clinicians perceive to have a diagnostic category in which to place sexually abused children. However, this approach has not caught on because it has proved so difficult to define a set of symptoms that clearly delineates sexually abused children. As we have pointed out, some victims appear to be asymptomatic in the immediate wake of abuse. Perhaps more important, victims manifest such a large variety of symptoms that there is no single set of symptoms that can be considered characteristic. The sexualized behavior that many clinicians think is so much the hallmark of the child who has been sexually abused occurs in only 7% of all victims according to the evaluations of 369 children by Conte and Schuerman (1987). The attempts to define a single sexually abused child syndrome are unlikely to meet with future success and acceptance." (Finkelhor, David (1990). "Early and long-term effects of child sexual abuse: An update," Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 21(5), pp. 325-330.)
Patriarchy is about more than "men holding on to power." It's specifically about a system of kinship and rules about the inheritance of property. For this purpose it's essential to know who are a man's children and who aren't. Hence the importance of enforcing female chastity. As for male homosexuality, that's perceived as a willful rejection of the male's superior position and a blurring of the boundary between the gender castes, hence an ideological threat to patriarchy.
This paper doesn't even describe the methodology of most of the studies it cites, making it impossible to infer causation from correlation. In one controlled study that is described, many of the "maladaptive" effects aren't obviously harmful at all. "More acceptance of non-marital sexual activity"? "More acceptance of female promiscuity"? Isn't the latter a synonym for "less likely to slut-shame"?
There's a long history of skewed, agenda-driven research on anything related to sexuality. This is addressed in several chapters of the 2023 book _Ideological and Political Bias in Psychology_, particularly the one by Bruce Rind.
I’m not a prude and I’m not for book banning , but a “book” like Gender Queer is not appropriate for a school library. Frankly, there is not one iota of anything remotely like literature in this trash! My husband , who was a noted librarian would never have allowed his library to buy such utter garbage. The pictures are poorly drawn and simply pornographic. The writing is pure trash! How anyone can praise such garbage is beyond
belief!