by Christopher Chow

The University of Minnesota Press's publication of Judith Levine's book, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex, has stirred nationwide controversy because of the book's encouragement of pedophilia.

"Where's your nose? There's your nose! Where's your clitoris? There's your clitoris," writes feminist Judith Levine. "Children need adult affirmation of the emotions and sensations we would call sexual excitement. They need names for pleasurable touching that do not convey shame and that communicate positive feelings about the sensations those touches elicit."

Harmful to Minors' overall theory is that parents should teach their children how to masturbate and have sex with other children. Children how young? Levine says "all ages," including infants. She cites Dr. Alfred Kinsey's discredited claim that infants masturbate and can be brought to "orgasm" by adults multiple times a day.

Levine goes into great detail describing how a preschool, the Children's Liberation Day Care Center in New York, instructs their "four and five year-olds" to masturbate and perform "child-on-child touch." According to her, "Very few parents objected to any of these practices in years of teaching." Levine claims that, "Three-quarters of kids had engaged in masturbation or some kind of sex with other kids before the age of six." She cites no source for this statement.

Levine opposes laws banning child pornography and voluntary installation of Internet anti-pornography filters for home computers, because according to Levine, chocolate is more dangerous to children than sex. "A wide range of sexual behavior is normative in children. In spite of a paucity of empirical data, we know that masturbation is ubiquitous from early on, more noticeably among little boys than little girls. So is 'playing doctor,' inserting fingers into orifices, and other such pastimes. In the so-called latency years, from about seven to eleven, children continue to masturbate, touch each other, and have crushes on their classmates and friends."

The author assures readers that pedophiles, unwed pregnancy, and venereal diseases are the "myths" and "fictions" of "Right-wing propaganda." "It's as if they [parents] cannot imagine that their kids seek sex for the same reasons they do: They like or love the person they are having it with. It gives them a sense of beauty, worthiness, happiness, or power. And it feels good."

"Pedophiles are not generally violent," writes Levine, "If there is such a thing as a pedophile at all…. More important, sexual contact with a child does not a pedophile make." She accuses America's Most Wanted host John Walsh of creating a "panic" after his six year-old son Adam was abducted and decapitated. She refers to Adam's murder as a "liaison." According to Levine, when adults rape and murder children it is the fault of the government for making pedophilia illegal. "[Pedophiles], if left alone, might do nothing more harmful to minors than sit around and masturbate to pictures of ten-year-olds in bathing suits."

Critics contend that children of "any age" could not possibly consent to sexual intercourse, and it is therefore abuse. Levine refutes this argument by writing, "Just like the word abuse, the word consent is subject to multiple meanings. Negotiation is part of children's sex play. It may involve bribes and trickery, conflict, trade-offs, and power imbalances, like all other interactions between children."

Unwed pregnancy is also a creature of "Right-wing propaganda" to stop children from having sex, claims Levine, since abortion is legal. She professes that groups favoring government funded abortions, like Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), do not go far enough because they claim to oppose abortion itself and support only the legality of abortion. Levine concludes that these groups should be supporting the act of abortion itself.

Levine refuses to refer to abortion opponents as pro-life or anti-abortion. Instead, she calls them "antichoice." She labels pregnancy and childbirth, "the biological handicap of the female sex."

Hollywood and the entertainment industry are also staunchly "antichoice," according to Levine, because they sometimes show pregnant female characters upset about being pregnant, or show women who have had abortions regretting their actions. Levine refers to depictions of abortion as negative and not positive as, "Right-wing propaganda." She dismisses any claim that women suffer any ill effects from abortion, once again as, "Right-wing propaganda." The morality of abortion is never discussed.

Parts of the book are also devoted to Levine's condemnation of capitalism, school vouchers, George W. Bush and other issues unrelated to the book's subject.

AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are classified as the same "right-wing propaganda" by Levine. She preaches that promiscuity is "safer" than marriage because unmarried people use prophylactics while married couples do not. Hence, married couples are the greatest "risk-group" for AIDS. Marriage is "a risky practice." "Family values will not make the world safe for children and surely not sexually safe," she writes.

Questionable statements in Harmful to Minors about pedophiles being harmless, infants masturbating, and STDs being "myths," has lead to nationwide attention and criticisms of the University of Minnesota Press for publishing the pro-pedophilia book. Minnesota House Majority Leader Tim Pawlenty expressed outrage over the publicly funded institution endorsing pedophilia. "This kind of disgusting victimization of children is intolerable, and the state should have no part in it."

The University of Minnesota Press has defended its decision. "It's being presented as a book about pedophilia, and it doesn't advocate pedophilia, and it isn't about that," announced Press Director Douglas Armato. "There are four pages in the book that talk about intergenerational sex." This account is untrue. Campus Report found fifteen pages on pedophilia in the introduction alone, and numerous others throughout the book.

"We just hope that if people keep an open mind and don't turn away from the idea of the book that they'll see it is a breadth of carefully researched documents and scholarly evaluation," professed Marketing Director Kathryn Grimes. Yet many of the book's sources are from self-serving pro-pedophilia essays, some from the North American Man/Boy Love Association's NAMBLA Bulletin. Few scientific studies are cited. No source is given for Levine's allegation that 75% of American children have sex before the age of six.

Grimes said, "We've received a lot of phone calls, e-mail, and mail from people expressing concern about the book."

All of this negative publicity has forced the University of Minnesota Press to take action. Vice president of research Christine Maziar said the University has appointed a committee of five experts to review the criteria by which the Press chooses to publish a book.

Harmful to Minors has also caused controversy because of its forward by former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. Elders served as surgeon general under President Bill Clinton until he asked her to resign in 1994 after she proposed adding masturbation to the curriculum of public schools.

Judith Levine is a feminist who has written for the publications Ms and My Generation. She is also the author of My Enemy, My Love: Women, Men, and the Dilemmas of Gender.

"I don't endorse sex between anyone, actually," stated Levine on the Fox News channel. Harmful to Minors' conclusion seems to contradict this. "Sex is not harmful to children. It is a vehicle to self-knowledge, love, healing, creativity, adventure, and intense feelings of aliveness. There are many ways even the smallest children can partake of it. Our moral obligation to the next generation is to make a world in which every child can partake safely, a world in which the needs and desires of every child-for accomplishment, connection, meaning, and pleasure-can be marvelously fulfilled."