Challenging widespread anxieties (pedophilia,
stranger kidnapping, Internet pornography) and
sacred cows (abstinence-based sex education,
statutory rape laws).

HARMFUL TO MINORS

By JUDITH LEVINE
Foreword by Dr. Joycelyn M. Elders

A radical, refreshing, and long overdue reassessment of how we think and act about children's and teens' sexuality.

Sex is a wonderful, crucial part of growing up, and children and teens can enjoy the pleasures of the body and be safe, too. In this important and controversial book, Judith Levine makes this argument and goes further, asserting that America's attempts to protect children from sex are worse than ineffectual. It is the assumption of danger and the exclusive focus on protection-what Levine terms "the sexual politics of fear"-that are themselves harmful to minors.

Through interviews with young people and their parents, stories drawn from today's headlines, visits to classrooms and clinics, and a look back at the ways sex among children and teenagers has been viewed throughout history, Judith Levine debunks some of the dominant myths of our society. She examines and challenges widespread anxieties (pedophilia, stranger kidnapping, Internet pornography) and sacred cows (abstinence-based sex education, statutory rape laws). Levine investigates the policies and practices that affect kids' sex lives-censorship, psychology, sex and AIDS education, family, criminal, and reproductive law, and the journalism that begs for "solutions" while inciting more fear.

Harmful to Minors offers fresh alternatives to fear and silence, describing sex-positive approaches that are ethically based and focus on common sense. Levine provides optimistic, though realistic, prescriptions for how we might do better in guiding children toward loving well-that is, safely, pleasurably, and with respect for others and themselves.

"Finally, THE book parents, teachers, librarians, clergy, and health professionals need to help them educate our children and teens about the real fact that most things about sex are healthy and normal. In a voice that reassures the adults who care for our children, Levine tells us why it is harmful to keep from children the honest and critical information they need to feel and stay physically and emotionally healthy." -Robie Harris, author of It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health

"Sharp, extraordinarily informed, and wittily incisive . . . This is a major book, far and away the most wide-ranging, well-informed, and judicious we have on the subject. Levine's wisdom is compelling, and she offers the best kind of sophisticated and skeptical analysis. Each chapter is full of surprises, yet offers sensitive and gentle pointers to all of us, kids and adults, who are looking for ways out of these crushing dilemmas. It's a crusading book that is also kind, a very rare phenomenon, and it comes down always on the side of trusting not only our kids and their pleasures but our own." -James Kincaid, author of Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting

"A much needed contribution to the discussion about children's sexuality, adult fears and irrationality about it, and the moral, political, and public health risks of failing to confront anxiety and ignorance about children's erotic desires and needs. Levine makes a compelling case that respecting and celebrating such desires and needs is essential to this country's historic project of promoting 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' for everyone who lives here--including those under 18. . . . An exceptionally smart and readable book." -Debbie Nathan, coauthor (with Michael Snedeker) of Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt

Judith Levine is a journalist, essayist, and author who has written about sex, gender, and families for two decades. Her articles appear regularly in national publications, most recently Ms., nerve.com, and My Generation. An activist for free speech and sex education, Levine is a founder of the feminist group No More Nice Girls and the National Writers Union. She is the author of My Enemy, My Love: Women, Men, and the Dilemmas of Gender (1992), and lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Hardwick, Vermont.

Sample Excerpts
The Pedophile: The Myth
Facts
The Enemy Is Us

University of Minnesota Press
$25.95 Cloth/jacket ISBN 0-8166-4006-8
296 Pages 5 7/8 x 9
April 2002

STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS

The undersigned members of the Free Expression Network strongly support the University of Minnesota Press, which has been attacked for its decision to publish Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Minors from Sex, by Judith Levine. Without even reading the book, critics have called for its suppression and demanded that the Minnesota legislature cut the funding of the University of Minnesota

Ideas become controversial when they challenge conventional wisdom. Many are unwise. However, some are beneficial, challenging us to examine our basic assumptions and consider changing the way we have always done things. The First Amendment exists to allow us to debate the wisdom of those ideas and make up our own minds. Censorship only supports a status quo that cannot otherwise be defended.

We applaud the University of Minnesota Press's decision to face that challenge and enrich the public debate about this essential issue. Its decision is one of which a great university can, and should, be proud. We trust the University of Minnesota appreciates the value of a courageous press to its educational mission and reputation.

Signatories:

Association of American Publishers
PEN American Center (Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Editors, and Novelists)
American Booksellers Foundation for Freedom of Expression
American Library Association Office of Intellectual Freedom
Association of American University Presses
Freedom to Read Foundation
National Coalition against Censorship
Feminists for Free Expression
Boston Coalition for Free Expression
First Amendment Project