Our Inspired Sexual Freedom Fighters

D. J. Tice

D. J. Tice is an editorial page writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. This article is reprinted from the Pioneer Press.

The most gratifying of self-images appears to be that of the righteous underdog-the intoxicating notion that one is in a last-ditch fight to defend all that is sane and good against implacable foes.

I admit this Alamo-like siege mentality stimulates many conservative minds-sometimes even my own. But I was mildly surprised the other day to be reminded that this inspiring sense of defying long odds even preoccupies advocates of sexual liberation-a cause that doesn't seem irretrievably lost in Howard Stern's America.

If I were to insist that what troubles America today is it just doesn't have enough cars, or kids don't watch enough television, all but the friendliest readers might suspect me of having some hidden agenda-for the argument, on its face, would be hard to take seriously.

Something like this may have happened to Judith Levine and the University of Minnesota Press last spring when the journalist's book, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex, set off a nationwide storm of indignation.

Earlier this month, I was invited to a discussion and book signing with Levine. The Minneapolis gathering, sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association, was, to quote one speaker, "pro-sex" and "queer friendly," and drew about 100, mainly admirers of the author.

She can evidently use the moral support. The evening's subject was not Levine's book, but what she considers its cruel and dishonest mistreatment by the media and the Religious Right.

It's true that when this controversy exploded in April, one heard alarming claims about Harmful to Minors. It was condemned for excusing, even promoting, pedophilia. The most scalding attacks came from the always-steamy cauldron of talk radio and cable television's shouting matches-the pro wrestling circuit of public affairs. Conservative politicians, including Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Pawlenty, weighed in theatrically, calling for the university to suppress the book and rein in its publishing arm.

The Press printed more copies. Harmful to Minors has become a considerable success, if also a punishing one. (Full disclosure: I have had a book published by the University of Minnesota Press. Unfortunately, it was not denounced coast to coast.)

At the Levine event, laboring under the handicap of not having read her book, I said that my own media-based impression of it was not really so extreme. After listening skeptically to a few harangues and reading better-balanced newspaper coverage. I had come away thinking the most inflammatory idea in Harmful to Minors was Levine's notion that not all sexual relationships between adults and minors should be assumed to be exploitive. Levine did not dispute that she believes this.

But that alone, I replied, is a very provocative idea, contradicting a settled social consensus in this country-that adults, even young adults, ought to leave minors alone, even if they're willing. Many people simply disagree with Levine on this point strongly enough that they wonder what a person advancing such an idea is really up to.

Curious myself, I have since read Levine's book. It mostly confirms my impressions. The book is not, by today's spacious standards, especially shocking. It does not legitimize child abuse. It mainly argues that what troubles America today is an exaggerated "fear of Eros" and that we need to give youth more sexual openness, more extensive and pleasure-endorsing sex education, and in general a fuller embrace of "the infinite gifts of the erotic."

"Infinite."

The book unloads a steady stream of claims about what research tells us. Yet the facts Levine cites sometimes clash with her conclusions. She assures us, for example, that "youthful rates of (sexual) activity are not galloping forward." Among the "less-than electrifying facts" she reports: "[I]n the mid-1950s, only 3 in 100 girls had had sex before the age of 15 . . . ; today, that number is 2 in 10."

Those figures don't seem presented with an eye toward making them easy to grasp. They mean that 3 percent of young teen girls were sexually active 50 years ago, while 20 percent are today. That nearly 7-fold increase, if not "electrifying," gets your attention.

"America is being inundated by censorship," Levine warns. One can't help remembering, reading this, that only this spring federal courts ruled that Congress may not constitutionally do much of anything to outlaw computer-generated child pornography or to pressure public libraries to block out internet porn.

Levine isn't wrong that fear of youthful sexuality has been taken to extremes in some cases. But the fear she encourages-fear of the Religious Right's irresistible power-is also overwrought. At the book signing, one audience member said the fearsome march of the Right Wing makes him feel as if he's living in Berlin in 1933.

I wondered how often Hitler's enemies dared voice their dissent at wine and cheese receptions in public places.

Another speaker, a sex educator, said things are so bad that 'I have 10th graders who don't know what a uterus is!"

Shocking. But how many 10th graders don't know what a veto is, or what the Confederacy was?

The consolations of feeling persecuted are ample, if not infinite. Levine wasn't treated generously by her critics. But her book, for its part, is a lengthy indictment of conservative Christians and moral traditionalists.

Whatever we teach kids about sex, let's be sure to teach them this life lesson: If you go out to pick a fight, don't be surprised if you come back with a bloody nose.