Teens and sex

[/ dave /]

U book on teens having consensual sex with adults is denounced as evil
David Crary
Associated Press

Published Apr 2, 2002

A month before its publication, a provocative book about children's 
sexuality is being denounced by conservatives as evil and prompting 
angry calls for action against the University of Minnesota Press.

The book, "Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From 
Sex," argues that young Americans, though bombarded with sexual images 
from the mass media, are often deprived of realistic advice about sex.

"What's happening to me is a perfect example of the very hysteria that 
my book is about," New York-based author Judith Levine said in an 
interview.

Levine has been working on the book since the mid-1990s. With the 
recent sex scandals involving clergy and young people, she admits it's 
a particularly challenging time to make her case that American youth 
are entitled to safe, satisfying sex lives.

Publisher after publisher rejected the book -- one called its contents 
"radioactive" -- before the University of Minnesota Press accepted the 
manuscript a year ago.

Writes Levine in her introduction, "In America today, it is nearly 
impossible to publish a book that says children and teen-agers can have 
sexual pleasure and be safe too."

 From the outset, officials at the Minnesota press knew the book would 
be controversial; they had the manuscript reviewed by five academic 
experts, instead of the usual two, to be sure its contentions were 
based on sound research.

Still, the uproar exceeded expectations after the book was condemned on 
conservative Internet sites.

"We've never seen anything quite this angry," said the press director, 
Douglas Armato. "The book isn't actually out yet. What people are 
reacting to is not the book itself, but the idea of the book."

In "Harmful to Minors," Levine argues that abstinence-only sex 
education is misguided. She also suggests the threat of pedophilia and 
molestation by strangers is exaggerated by adults who want to deny 
young people the opportunity for positive sexual experiences.

"Squeamish or ignorant about the facts, parents appear willing to 
accept the pundits' worst conjectures about their children's sexual 
motives," Levine writes. "It's as if they cannot imagine that their 
kids seek sex for the same reasons they do."

Levine said much of the furor over her book stems from an interview she 
gave last month to Newhouse News Service, amid the Roman Catholic 
Church sex-abuse scandal. Newhouse quoted her as saying a sexual 
relationship between a priest and a youth "conceivably" could be positive.

Levine said this week that she disapproves of any sexual relationship 
between a youth and an authority figure, whether a parent, teacher or 
priest. However, she believes teen-agers deserve more respect for the 
choices they make in consensual affairs, and suggests that America's 
age-of-consent laws can sometimes lead to excessive punishment.

She cites the Dutch age-of-consent law as a "good model" -- it permits 
sex between an adult and a young person between 12 and 16 if the young 
person consents. Prosecutions for coercive sex may be sought by the 
young person or the youth's parents.

"Teens often seek out sex with older people, and they do so for 
understandable reasons: an older person makes them feel sexy and 
grown-up, protected and special," writes Levine, who had an affair with 
an adult when she was a minor.

Several conservative media commentators and activists have accused 
Levine of condoning child abuse.

Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America's Culture and 
Family Institute, is urging the University of Minnesota to fire the 
university press officials who decided to publish the book.

"The action is so grievous and so irresponsible that I felt they 
relinquished their right to academic freedom," said Knight, who has 
described the book as "very evil."

Armato said he has informed university officials about the irate 
reaction to the book and explained to them how the decision to publish 
was made. He stressed that the book was accepted not out of hopes for a 
profit but because the University of Minnesota Press thought its 
arguments were worth public debate.

"What we've encouraged them to do is let the book speak for itself," 
Armato said. "The book is very nuanced and very complex."

Levine, a journalist and author who writes often about sex and gender, 
has no children of her own. She writes in her introduction that some 
publishers felt her book was insufficiently "parent-friendly."

Parents deserve support and respect, but so do young people, she said.

She said the weakening of comprehensive sex education programs has left 
sexually active teen-agers uninformed about ways to protect themselves 
from AIDS and other diseases, and ignorant about contraception.

"Operating in an atmosphere of complete ignorance, it's very easy to 
exaggerate threats and foment fear," she said. "America's drive to 
protect kids from sex protects them from nothing. Instead, it is often 
harming them."

http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/2202820.html

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/  dave  /