Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex

by Judith Levine

Book Overview

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

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816640068
• ISBN13: 9780816640065
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Haley's Comet

I first knew about this author and the title of the book from watching C-SPAN "Book TV'. She made observations that impressed me sufficiently to purchase this book. If you are very concerned about the increasing rate of child sex abuse growing in our nation, then you must read this book. The author has bravely written about a very controversial topic in a candid and cogent manner. She reveals that a lot of the agencies (both government and private) that are involved in the business of child sex abuse are in it only for the money and unbridled power that is placed in their hands. In one case, she exposed the humilitating conditions that one agency imposed on children whose only crime was acting in a juvenile manner, which one can aptly state that 'corrupted power' was used in this instance. She also shows how they use questionable statistics to support their existence, which is laughable to serious social scientists. To read the children's description of their experiences with the agencies that were suppose to investigate or cure them should be described as an abuse of public trust and, more importantly, to the children affected.

A wonderful and important book

Judith Levine asks the important questions that have lurked in my mind for a long time. Where is the proof of this that "everybody knows" that sex or porn is harmful to minors? There is none, but there is plenty proof that making a great mystery out of it is very harmful indeed. There is no doubt that writing and publishing a book like this puts one's career in jeopardy in the current political climate. My hat is off to the author and the publisher!

Refreshing reality at last, not Politically Correct theory

.It is readily apparent that most people who vote on these reviews vote according to the reviewer's perceived position on the subject discussed rather than on the quality of the book review and its helpfulness in a decision to purchase. With this in mind I expect to get very few positive votes and perhaps many scathing comments because of my position.First, let me establish my credentials. I am a retired psychotherapist with many licensed years of private practice as a marriage, family, and child counselor in Texas, California, and Washington. I took graduate courses in the same classrooms with LCSW's, MFCC's, Clinical Psychologists, and in some cases M.D.'s with a specialty in psychiatry. Four semesters of grad school were in Switzerland. I did my internship in an outpatient clinic of a large psychiatric state hospital. I have worked with patients across the spectrum from students who were depressed because of grades to patients who had been lobotomized many years before, and many who were overmedicated with everything from Haldol to lithium carbonate.In short, I consider myself well qualified to comment on Judith Levine's landmark book "Harmful to Minors." A number of years ago a colleague and I were discussing the infamous McMartin Preschool case in Bakersfield, California. It involved an overzealous D.A., false charges filed against innocent teachers, an unqualified child behavior "expert" with no formal training, and a crazy mother who ultimately even charged the defense attorneys and the trial judge of child molestation. The woman had a history of mental problems and later killed herself. But with the help of a publicity hungry D.A. the system was successful in destroying several professional teaching careers closing down a well functioning preschool, and probably bringing about an early death of its elderly founder. The public ate up the titillating case details during the months-long farcical trial.With McMartin and similar cases in mind my colleague and I agreed that a book like Levine's needed to be written but neither of us were willing to risk our careers by being the first to write it. Levine had the courage to say what many experienced therapists have thought and said privately for years. Sexual experiences of children, either with peers or in some instances with adults, tend to be harmful to the child more because of the hysterical displays of adult care givers on discovery of the event than from the event itself. When an adolescent sees an adult having a panic attack on discovery of what is usually an exploratory exercise to satisfy curiosity, the child may suddenly feel he/she has participated in an act comparable to an axe murder. Then some misguided child counselor or Child Protective Service (CPS) self-proclaimed expert validates to the child the seriousness of the event in therapy, even though there is rarely any physical or mental harm. The pseudo-therapy establishes in the mind of the child that they have been damaged for l

This book disturbed me.

I appreciate a book that challenges my personal biases and makes me aware of research and information I didn't even know existed. As I read this book over three days, unable to put it down, I felt like it was giving me a serious education in American culture and human sexuality. I rather wish I'd taken a college course with this sort of information in it. Or better yet, a high school class. I found reading this that the author drove me to the desire to find out more. I want to read the other books she references, and look up the works listed in her notes. I wanted to be educated about things like sexual development in human beings, perceptions and repressions in the culture I live in, and all the points of view human beings have about sexuality. Even though I had a similar perspective to her on some things, I found she still challenged some old beliefs I was hanging on to, that I hadn't bothered to ever question or examine.I'm female. I grew up in a conservative family and practiced abstinence in my teen years. I believed only in sex after marriage. I had never seen a condom, and I thought AIDS was something that promiscuous gays got. My parents kept me out of sex ed in high school, but never gave me "the talk." I got some basic information from books in the library, and that's all I had. I never masturbated and did not know how to have an orgasm until I was 18. When I finally did have sex, I used no protection, no birth control, and I didn't ask my partner if he had any STDs. It didn't even cross my mind. I hadn't been taught to think about these things. I was sure I was in love, and love made the sex right and "safe." When you think sex is love, you think nothing can possibly go wrong -- God will protect you.Talk about naivete.In the end, I changed everything I believed about sex and relationships. I changed because my life experiences contradicted what I'd been taught growing up. I found out that sex wasn't evil or even negative just because it was outside of marriage. Neither was it love just because it felt good. I discovered that AIDS kills everyone, and that there are easy ways to protect against it and still have sex. I discovered that I prefer safe sex to abstinence because safe sex protects me, whereas abstinence flees the moment it is faced with passion. I also discovered that abstinence leaves me with hunger, and hunger can lead to a sense of starvation. Which isn't to say I'd die without sex; it's to say that as long as I felt like having sex was forbidden, I was desperate for it...I'd see sex everywhere I went. I'm not talking about in the media -- I'm talking about in the boys in my classes, in the glances between students, in the conversations at lunch, in the seemingly brilliant older male drama teacher. I had hormones, only I didn't even know enough to call them hormones. And my hormones were driven mad by the thunderous command not to exist, and not to feel. Now that I have sex any time I want to (w

WOW! Is this book long overdue!

I just finished the book, 'Harmful to Minors' by Judith Levine and all I can say is WOW!, is this book long overdue. It is sensible, concise and intelligent from cover to cover, and is a must read for any parent suffering anxiety over raising a child in the current alarmist atmosphere surrounding child sexuality. There has been plenty of controversy in the US over the publication of this book, mostly from the right-wing x-tian conservative faction. After reading this book it has become glaringly obvious that they have not read it. Perhaps a few have skimmed it looking for choice morsels which they can extract from the surrounding context and infuse with their own meaning (you know, much like they do the bible), so let me set a few things straight. Not once in 'Harmful to Minors' does Ms. Levine excuse or advocate abusive coercive or violent sexual behavior with children (or anyone else for that matter). On the contrary it seems that Ms. Levine cares very deeply for children. What the book does do is research the origins of our current alarmist attitudes and examines how this prevailing hysteria about child sexuality can do children more harm than good. (just one example among many, parents may become increasingly afraid to show physical affection to children, thus depriving them of much needed loving contact.) The book also examines present US laws, policies and trends in sex education and how they fail children on almost every level. (another example:the age of consent laws which protect an 8 year old from unwanted sex also 'protect' a 17 year old from sex with her 18 year-old boyfriend.) This book gives us a disturbing insight into our increasingly vigilant restriciton of normative activities in children - 'playing doctor' is now seen as sexual misconduct, sending love-notes in class is 'sexual harrassment' and an adolescent mooning resulted in him being placed in a restrictive and brutal program for child 'sex-offenders'. But the best thing Levine does in the book is offer some sound ideas and solutions for raising children out of this oppressive hysteria. 'Harmful to Minors' does NOT advocate any form of child abuse. What it does advocate is raising children in a happy, healthy, safe, loving and informed envronment with lots of affection, care and respect. How can anyone argue with that?