Sex Is A Funny Word by Cory Silverberg (Part 2)
Appeal to Library Trustees
I appealed the decision of my local library to keep Sex Is A Funny Word in the children’s section. I presented the following to the Board of Trustees at their meeting1:
Before I address this book itself, I want to address an attitude that seems to be going around, trying to call what we’re doing the “banning of books.” Re-classification is not a ban, nor is asking a dangerous book to be removed from children’s section of the library. Children are and must be treated differently than consenting adults. We do not, for example, allow children to vote. We do not allow children to buy cigarettes or alcohol, drive cars, get jobs, or consent to sexual activity. To remove books that teach children to skirt the law to do one of these things would be common-sense and responsible.
Second, while re-classification of books to the adult section is perfectly fine, there is a limited amount of space in the library. Our society needs to make decisions on what books get to grace the shelves of the library. Anthony Trollope is considered one of the greatest novelists of all time. As a Victorian author, he is seen by many to be second only to Charles Dickens, yet not a single one of his books is in the library’s collection. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a detestable man and intellectual source of many of our societal ills, wrote at least five immensely influential books, yet only two—in a single volume—are here in the collection.
Rousseau brings me to another misconception. I’m not trying to get rid of this book because I don’t like it. Rousseau, as horrible I think he and his ideas are, deserves to be on the shelves. I think James Joyce is an amateur novelist with an ego, but I think his books deserve their place on the shelves. I don’t want Sex Is a Funny Word gone because I disagree with it. Here is the problem with the book: its content, as I will explain in a minute, is entirely inappropriate for children. The content is also, in a different sense, inappropriate for adults. It doesn’t provide anything useful for adults, since it was intended to be for children. It’s out of place. If there was an episode of Paw Patrol in which the team visited a sex therapist, it would be nearly the same except that some adults may find some humor in watching something so novel. Sex Is a Funny Word does not have the humorous aspect.
This book sexualizes children, and can be used as a tool for child predators. The Reconsideration Committee, in their decision, stated that there is a section of the book that, “encourages children to understand that if they are ever touched by another person in a way that makes them uncomfortable, confused, or scared, that” they can go to someone for help. It does do that, but it does not clarify and elaborate what constitutes abuse. In an attempt to include every sort of possibility, it endorses a child going to the police for having her head patted, and a preteen quietly “consenting” to statutory rape. It is not a resource; it is chaos.
As to the sexualization of children, we do not need, as the Reconsideration Committee stated, “a whole-person approach to sexuality, sex, and puberty” for pre-pubescent children. Sexualization of children is wrong, dangerous, obscene, and against every level-headed parents’ wishes. To recap, here are some quotes from the book:
“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)
As to being inclusive of different types of families, does the library have in mind the hundreds of registered sex offenders here in our county?
Finally, the book promotes gender dysphoria by adopting the barbaric radical gender ideology. 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, 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. More recently, hospitals monstrously seeking to profit off this dreadful situation have taken to the castration and mutilation of children, and experimenting with drugs that delay puberty.
And this isn’t the only book in the library’s children’s section that promotes these ideas. Gender dysphoria, the sexualization of children, and the normalization of child sexual abuse are present in The Rainbow Parade by Emily Neilson, Growing Up Trans edited by Lindsay Herriot and Kate Fry, What Are Your Words by Katherine Locke, Making a Baby by Rachel Greener and Clare Owen, the board book Bye, Bye, Binary by Eric Geron, My Own Way: Celebrating Gender Freedom for Kids by Joana Estrela, Pink, Blue, and You! by Elise Gravel and Mykaell Blais, and It Feels Good to Be Yourself by Theresa Thorn. Presumably, a few have even slipped past me, and there are several additional titles available through Hoopla. Several of these have been added to the collection since I did my initial Request for Reconsideration, showing that the librarians here seem to be unwilling to work with the community to develop an appropriate community-centric collection. Instead, they have become activists, working to undermine families and promote barbaric practices.
If a library becomes an institution that seeks to obscure the answers to questions and true information by flooding vulnerable areas with activist propaganda, it is no longer functioning according to the mission of any library, and should be shuttered. Why would a community fund and frequent a library that seeks to undermine the citizens in the community? That is exclusion, not inclusion, no matter how many buzzwords you throw at it.
While parents do have the ultimate responsibility for their own children, this indoctrination of kids has an effect on all of society, particularly the society that my kids will inherit. Is this what the library wants? Sexualization and predation and mutilation of children? I hope not. Re-classify this book, or toss it in the trash, but do not put it in the hands of children.
I have edited out the name of the library and the library director.