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Judith Levine

Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex Paperback – August 27, 2003

by Judith Levine (Author), Jocelyn M. Elders MD (Foreword)

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Now available in paperback, Judith Levine's controversial book challenges American attitudes towards child and adolescent sexuality-especially attitudes promulgated by a Christian right that has effectively seized control of how sex is taught in public schools. The author-a thoughtful and persuasive journalist and essayist-examines the consequences of "abstinence" only education and its concomitant association of sex with disease, and the persistent denial of pleasure. She notes the trend toward pathologizing young children's eroticized play and argues that Americans should rethink the boundaries we draw in protecting our children from sex. This powerful and illuminating work was nominated for the 2003 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Da Capo Lifelong Books
Publication date

August 27, 2003
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.75 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1560255161
ISBN-13

978-1560255161
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Judith Levine is a journalist and essayist who has written about sex, gender, and families for two decades. She is the author of My Enemy, My Love, and lives in Brooklyn, New York and Hardwick, Vermont.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Da Capo Lifelong Books; 1st edition (August 27, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1560255161
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1560255161
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,143,440 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #462 in Medical Adolescent Psychology
- #596 in Popular Adolescent Psychology
- #660 in Children's Studies Social Science (Books)

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77 ratings

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5 star		61%
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3 star		7%
2 star		5%
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TechGuy2007

The truth is that Americans have a default disgust of anything that an adolescent might consider sexual

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2018

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The truth is that Americans have a default disgust of anything that an adolescent might consider sexual. Judith Levine treats adolescent sexuality as as impartial observer and notes that when critical thinking is applied to adolescent sexuality, the taboos associated with this inflammatory topic should be mollified.

I think this book was controversial because it speaks the truth and hopefully removes prejudices associated with human teen sexuality.

5 people found this helpful

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Bumpus

What the Smart Parents Know Nd the

Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2016

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Judith Levine cuts through the bs and offers a common sense approach to dealing with a very uncomfortable subject. Very well researched and un-biased. She offers up what we already knew and we as parents should encourage our children's sex-positive attitude no matter the age. The most important thing we can do is let them do wherever feels good with whom ever they choose, no matter the gender, the partners age, the types of sexual activity as long as its CONSENSUAL. No means no. Just as there ate guardrails on a racetrack so to the parents have the responsibility of proving them with information, protection and if asked for, answer questions and provide sexual instructions. The most important thing is everybody's safety. My daughters were 7 and 8 when I discovered, as awkward as it sounds, they had both been using my electric toothbrush to masturbate. With out mentioning it i had them both come sit down with me at my computer that following Saturday. I opened my partition with all my adult links and opened 3 quality adult toys website. I told them i felt it was time they had some big girl toys and I let them pick whatever they wanted with no shame. I myself picked out 2 Hitachi "Wands" because they are pretty amazing from what the 8 women I asked had said. I then took both of them down to planned parenthood and got them both the pill as birth control and prevnar13 at the family doctor. Surprisingly All 8 women i asked were 100 percent supportive of what I did and the responses ranged from "that was so sweet!" To "that's really cool, edgy and kinda hot". I just thought it was supportive and part of my job as a sex positive parent. Anyway, we read the descriptions together, giggled and hugged a lot. After that day we became even closer. I finally broke down and laughed as I told them I wanted them to get those just in case they were getting any ideas about my electric toothbrush.

The moral of the story is kids have been having sex for thousands of years and it hasn't been the downfall of modern civilization. The way we react to it WILL be more likely to cause civilizations downfall. Dony let the hate-filled zealots win. Parents: Lighten up, Grow up and teach your kids that sex isn't bad. They will be more stable and well adjusted if you do. Do your homework...READ THIS BOOK!

4 people found this helpful

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Dr. Michael Christianson, M. Esq., JUD

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2018

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GREAT book! The author tells it like it is. Way to go, Judith Levine!-

One person found this helpful

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Thor's Hammer

Wanted to hate this, but.....

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2002

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Harmful to Minors by Judith Levine is an important title for educators on both sides of the sex ed issue. As a promoter of abstinence education, I was prepared to hate this book as a minor Pop-culture work that promotes sexual license and rooted in less-than scientific source materials. While my conclusion is that much of the books premise is flawed, I cannot fault her on her scientific sources or delivery of her ideas. In truth, she has done a grand job.
A WARNING: Sex ed advocates are like most others, they tend toward tunnel-vision. Levine is no exception. She labels those who promote abstaining as "right-wing" or "religious right" much too often, thereby hurting her case. Her style fluctuates somewhat from offering a scholarly approach and then slipping into "them-against-us" arguments that, quite frankly are tiresome. You can almost envision her get hopping mad as she types.
For those of us who care deeply that sex ed shouldn't promote sexual misconduct, Levine offers her argument- and those of her chums - very clearly. This is worth reading for yourself, even if you disagree with her conclusions.

58 people found this helpful

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A. Sheets

Only for the Liberal at heart

Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2011

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Very controversial, however rather insightful, quite frank, and perceptively keen for those who are willing and able to understand the reality of the complexities of human behavior. Tradition or religious belief is not always the answer to a progressive world, though not denying certain "values" of others, we must understand that morality and cultural diversities are a fact and that 'values' are not only a matter of religious, but social concerns in a religiously and socially diverse world. The matter of education has long been ignored by the relgious right for politico-religious expediency with the 'insistance' of only 'their' religious views about sexuality are only being valid. - Such a discussion would take volumes- and much 'debate' however the book is specifically (in my opinion) focusing on the realities which much be confronted, not with perpetuating myth, but long historical and biological facts. Several authors and artists, such as Anne Higginot for instance and Sally Mann's photographs have addressed 'child sexuality'.. again this would take volumes to debate, but this book gives attention to autonomy and basic human rights of youth to be informed, educated, and tolerated for their individualy without specifically invoking religion but truly the carnal aspects of what it is to be human, a child, and yes sexual.

6 people found this helpful

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The Old Philosopher

Courageous and compelling

Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2004

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Controversial isn't the word for Levine's thoughtful text. She has the audacity to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Much of what so-called Child Protection Services does to children is not only wrong, it harms as many or more children than it helps. There are countless sad stories of children who have been taken from their parents homes and put into foster care where they were tortured or killed. Even if there is some valid suspicion about the parents, the cure is often much worse than the problem. In what has grown into a huge and insane monster, the CPS industry breaks up families and destroys lives with no legal hearings, or even legal recourse for those who are targeted. Levine's book ought to be must reading to every legislator, congressman, and CPS child abuser. It ought to be the first book that new parents read.

16 people found this helpful

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Lindosland

Makes a good case, but one-sided - there are other things to consider

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 31, 2018

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Judith Levine, claims that many of today's psychological and social disorders are the result of the secrecy and taboo that surround sexual matters. I agree. And I especially agree that modern approaches are frightening adults away from normal physical contact with children, and taking away from children the 'doctors and nurses' type of sex-play that was once seen as normal (as written about by such authors as Melvyn Bragg, without any research into what bad effects the new approach might have. Children realise early on that there is a secret being withheld from them, and can obsess over the need to understand what it is. Even when children are given what is supposed to be 'the facts' about sex, they are almost never told the really important stuff, about pleasure, the misuse of power, the relationship traps. The facts are usually about bodies and babies and maybe diseases. Levine promotes extremes in places, but fails to talk about the dangers. One clear danger that is becoming apparent is the issue of actual addiction to pornography, which can even lead to impotence and inability to cope with sex in the real world. Another is the uniformly wrong presentation of sex to minors in extreme forms that stem, ironically, from repression. And another of course is jealousy and shaming or blackmailing over the internet that we see when 'sexting' becomes the norm in the child's everyday world (the book was written in 2002, before the current explosion of problems arising from the use of mobiles and the internet by children).

In his 1982 classic, 'The Disappearance of Childhood', Neil Postman provided something of an antidote to this book, but he is also one-sided and does not even contemplate the possible dangers of his way. He supports what some would see as the 'traditional' way, of bringing up children, though if you read Hugh Cunninghams's 'The Invention of Childhood' you will get a view of childhood throughout history as forever changing. Postman himself likes to make the point that childhood came with the invention of the printing press, and ended with the invention of television; because the former created a world of things that only adults knew, while the latter ended that by bombarding children with things they would not previously have known anything about. This is a good point, although at the time of writing some of his comments were more applicable to the USA than the UK, where we lagged twenty years behind when it came to new and damaging ideas and advertising. Today we are only a few years behind, and Postman would be horrified by the huge impact of the internet on our lives and the current debate over social media (he died in 2003 before it really got going).

The main claim of Postman's book is that there must be secrets that adults keep from children. Why? Because some things, like war and death, are too shocking for children to deal with without being damaged and because sex, the big issue, is a dangerous distraction. I like the quote from G K Chesterton who said, 'All healthy men know that there is a certain fury in sex that we cannot afford to inflame, and that a certain mystery and awe must ever surround it if we are to remain sane'. Well put; sex can change lives in an instant, leading to unwanted pregnancies that limit life possibilities, to jealousy and fighting, to relationships that become addictive and are hard to escape from, and from addiction to sex itself through pornography. But does this really mean that the best thing to do is keep it secret? I think there is a strong case for a different approach, especially when the keeping of secrets is no longer as easy as it was.

I am especially interested in the Bronte family of famous writers. They grew up to be famous for their books, yet, many ask, how could they know so much about life when they lived in such isolation on the Yorkshire moors, with an austere minister for a father and no mother. My answer is that they had full access to their father's newspapers and political magazine, Blackwoods, They knew the lives of the men who ran their world, from Napoleon to Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, and the stories of their love affairs and jealousies. They listened to the gossip of their cook and servant, and, with no television or internet to distract or mislead them, they became first-rate thinkers who developed their own minds to a high level that is probably not seen today. It's something that could only happen in an Amish community, or N Korea, today, but doesn't because of the propaganda. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it as a desirable possibility, especially as people start to wake up to the fact that, so far, we have let inventions change our lives too much in ways that we failed to anticipate or sanction. Just turning on child-safeguarding internet-site blockers on our devices is not, I think, the answer. Today I heard someone on the television talking about the possibility that Facebook and other major digital powers may have had their day, and that numerous independent subscription services could become the norm, replacing the Google and Facebook models based on selling our data, and pushing adverts in our faces, in exchange for free service. Big changes can happen - history is the story of extraordinary things that happened. I see now that Postman's later book, 'Technopoly' would appear to put my case; I look forward to reading it.

Arachne646

Harmful to Minors

Reviewed in Canada on August 29, 2011

Verified Purchase

An absorbing read for anyone interested in children's rights or raising children who have a healthy, joyful sexuality. Covers the years of my son's life and a bit of historical info, current events from about 1980-2000 in the updated edition. Looks at abuse and abduction panics and their legacies; what do these do to children? What do sexuality education programs in public schools look like (yikes!) in the US and abroad, and in the States they completely leave out the point that sex feels good and is normal! For a Canadian parent, whose son heard storybooks in Kindergarten about all different kinds of families loving each other, Susie has 2 Daddies etc. and condoms free in the Nurse's office in High School; this was a pitiful picture of the blind leading the blind to disease and pregnancy--the author shows how badly "abstinence education" works. The most controversial part of the book is her assertion that Statutory Rape may not be harmful to all teens--it nearly sank the book; I encourage you to read the book and decide for yourself.

One person found this helpful

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