Sex Is a Funny Word: A Book About Bodies, Feelings, and YOU by Cory Silverberg
The purpose of this book, according to the authors is to provide: “the framework and basic information about bodies, gender, and touch, and we’ve left blanks that only you and the kids in your life can fill in.” (“To the Grown-Up Reader”) Elsewhere, Cory Silverberg has admitted to wanting to confuse people’s ideas about gender and sexuality, undermining the stated intention of the book. Additionally, the lack of clarity in the book is an indication that it is likely not intended to be informational, but propagandistic. A surface reading of the book shows that it is an introduction to sexuality itself, not information about it. In working to get this book removed from a local library, the below are the reasons I gave in my “Recommendation for Reconsideration.”
The book promotes gender dysphoria.
One page asks children to draw a picture of their “outside body,” and another picture of “what the stories inside you feel like,” encouraging a disconnect between reality and one’s emotional state (p. 39). By teaching children to find a disconnect between themselves and their bodies,1 the book promotes depression and confusion about gender and identity. Rather than simply encouraging children to be comfortable with their own bodies, it separates sex and gender in an unnatural way that does not conform to reality. As a solution cannot be truly manifested in reality, children who are tricked into these unrealistic expectations will be prone to depression, suicide, and a disconnect from society. This doesn’t only affect the children and parents who check out the book, it creates a chaotic society dominated by rapidly-changing emotional states rather than truth and justice. [See pp. 36–39, 70–87.]
Particularly egregious portions promoting this confusion include:
“When we are born, a doctor or midwife calls us boy or girl because of what we look like on the outside. They choose a word or label (usually boy or girl, or male or female) to describe our bodies. But that’s based on our outside, our cover, and who they think we are.” (p. 81)
“Maybe you’re called a boy but you know you’re a girl. You know how girls are treated and what they do. That’s how you want to be treated and what you want to do. […] Maybe you aren’t sure, or don’t care that much. Maybe you don’t feel like a boy or a girl. Maybe you feel like both. Maybe you just need some time to figure it out, without all the boy and girl stuff. Because everyone’s bodies are different, all our feelings are different too.” (pp. 84–85)
The book promotes child sexuality, particularly masturbation.
According to the publisher, this book is written for children between the ages of seven and ten years old, an age that is generally pre-pubescent. It’s a colorful book, drawing children’s eyes among many of the other, more scientific and muted books of the biology shelf in the children’s section of the library. Children are not sexual beings. In fact, Arkansas law does not allow children to consent to sexual activity until age 16, a full six years after the upper age the publisher intends this book for.
In one section of the book, touching of sexual parts of the human body are invariably described as “sensitive” and “warm and tingly:”
“Nipples can feel very good to touch, but if you pinch them it can hurt!” (p. 60)
“Like nipples, some people’s breasts are sensitive and can feel good when they are touched.” (p. 61)
“Like other holes in the body, the anus is usually very sensitive, which means it can feel good to touch but can also hurt if we are rough with it.” (p. 63)
“The clitoris can be very sensitive, and touching it can feel warm and tingly.” (p. 65)
“Like the clitoris, the penis can be very sensitive, and touching it can feel warm and tingly.” (p. 66)
Additionally, the book specifically advocates masturbation to children:
“If your body has a penis, you might have noticed that sometimes it is soft and bendy, and sometimes if gets hard and doesn’t bend. When it’s hard and doesn’t bend, that’s an erection. […] Erections can happen when we touch ourselves to feel good […] One way to think about erections is that they are just your body’s way of exercising on its own.” (p. 68)
“Touching isn’t just something we do with other people. We also touch ourselves. We touch ourselves all the time, in all kinds of places, for all kinds of reasons. Touching yourself is one way to learn about yourself, your body, and your feelings. You may have discovered that touching some parts of your body, especially the middle parts, can make you feel warm and tingly. Grown-ups call this kind of touch masturbation. Masturbation is when we touch ourselves, usually our middle parts, to get that warm and tingly feeling.” (p. 107)
Although sexual relationships between children are generally only implied,2 one page does include a 9-year-old girl telling her classmate, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!”3 An additional concern is the voyeurism exhibited by the same girl looking over a fence at a nudist colony (p. 58–59).
To any average person, this book would seem to have a prurient interest in the sexuality of children. [See pp. 48, 56–68, 106–109, 122–125, 130.]
The book is a tool preparing children for sexual abuse by “trusted” adults.
The book does include a section on “secret touching” (pp. 110–115), but the section is so vague that it is useless or even counter-productive. Unlike our society, it does not clearly define sexual activity between an adult and a child as wrong. It only condemns non-consensual4 and “secret” touching. Additionally, there does not seem to be any differentiation between, say, an unwanted side hug and rape. Both of these acts are included under the “secret touching” heading without clarifying that they vary widely in seriousness.
Some statements add to the confusion, particularly: “There are times when someone might have to touch you even if you don’t want them to. Those are helping touches, but they might feel like they hurt.” (p.100)
The entire book is framed as a story of a male teacher encouraging students in his classroom to explore their sexuality (pp. 10–15, 156–157). Throughout the book, children are encouraged to discuss sexuality with “trusted adults.” While there are situations in which a parent would not be the best person to discuss these matters with, in the overwhelming majority of cases it should only be parents that receive the questions and concerns of their children on sexual matters.
The lack of clarity on these matters is a wide open door for predatory behavior. It blurs boundaries in such a way that this book would be a powerful tool for a sexual predator grooming a child for abuse. As we have such a problem with human trafficking here in Arkansas, why would we give ammunition to these evil-doers?5
This book is poorly written twaddle, talking down to children like a sexualized Dick and Jane.
I think the above three reasons are sufficient to show how inappropriate this book is for children, but it is not as though it has a valuable message. There are controversial books that parents may not want to read to their children, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or To Kill A Mockingbird, but many of these controversial books are valuable additions to the American canon. This book is poorly-written, vague, and entirely lacks that artistic quality that separates a controversial book from garbage.
The author of this book is not someone we should trust discussing these issues with children.
Spencer Lindquist in The Federalist has provided detailed information about author Cory Silverberg’s Toronto sex shop and his seeming fascination with the sexuality of children. It is worth reading the entire article.
I do not think that any responsible adult would think that this book is a valuable addition for a children’s library. Whether through ignorance or malice, it has made its way into the shelves at the our local library, but we are hoping to have the opportunity to prevent any further damage by having it removed entirely from the collection.
Confusingly, the two are also made synonyms in the book on pages 34–35.
“Some people think that sexy feelings should only happen in grown-up relationships. And many grown-ups say that sexy is a word to use only when you’re older.” (p.130)
The 10-year-old boy declines, but not because it is wrong. He declines because he wants “do a lot more research on mine before I’m showing anyone anything.” (p. 56)
Obviously, children cannot actually consent to sexual activity, but the child/adult distinction is not made in the book.
In professional development for teachers in my state, one of the primary indicators for teachers to recognize sexual abuse and trafficking is students with over-sexualized language and actions. This book encourages and normalizes the same behavior, at best muddying the pool for that indicator.