Melanie Goss
14 December 2005
ENGL 380-50
Dr. Chris McGee
Children’s Lit Final Paper
Sexuality and Censorship in Children’s Literature
Sex. It’s one of the most controversial topics in our society today. Its presence is felt in all corners of our culture: media, entertainment, education, politics, and family. It is also seen in a rather unexpected, but not truly surprising, place: children’s literature. A great deal of arguing has taken place over what is considered perverse and how much sexual content children should be exposed to. These conflicts have led to the widespread challenging and censorship of several children’s books in libraries across the nation.
One such book that has faced much
opposition is Maurice Sendak’s 1970 dream-weaving In the Night Kitchen, a picture book that follows young Mickey as
he dreams of falling “through the dark, out of his clothes, past the moon and
his mama and papa sleeping tight, [and] into the light of the night kitchen,” where
he helps a group of bakers make a cake. Mickey
is shown completely unclothed in numerous illustrations, revealing all of his
young body. According to the Office for
Intellectual Freedom, this book was challenged at least nineteen times, most
notably in
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Many books that tackle the issue of
homosexuality are likely to be challenged.
One of the most famous of this sort is Michael Willhoite’s 1990 picture
book Daddy’s Roommate. Daddy’s
Roommate tells the story of a young boy who learns what “gay” is when his
father moves in with another man. “Daddy
and his roommate Frank live together, work together, eat together, sleep
together, shave together, and sometimes even fight together, but they always
make up,” says the young narrator. “Mommy
says Daddy and Frank are gay. At first I
didn’t know what that meant. So she
explained it. Being gay is just one more
kind of love. And love is the best kind
of happiness.” It does not seem very
surprising that such an outspoken progressive text would invoke a great amount
of criticism. It has been challenged at
least 84 times, with the harshest complaints stating that the book is “vile,
sick and goes against every law and constitution” (1993,
Heather Has Two Mommies, a 1989 picture book by Leslea Newman, is another children’s book that has caused a remarkable amount of controversy for stating that homosexuality is acceptable and can be just as nurturing and beneficial for a child can a family with heterosexual parents. The book is very straightforward, using the words “sperm,” “egg,” and “vagina” in describing the process of artificial insemination, by which method preschool-aged Heather is conceived. In addition to presenting a lesbian couple and their daughter as a loving family (a rather radical statement even in today’s popular culture), Heather Has Two Mommies also examines many different forms of family; adoption, divorce, single parents, and homosexual male couples are also
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considered. This book
has been challenged at least 34 times, from the time of its publication to
1996, and has been banned from many libraries at well, notably in
Books with
the purpose of explaining puberty, sex, and sexuality to children also come
into the line of fire for censors and concerned parents. Wardell Pomeroy’s 1991 books Boys and Sex and Girls and Sex are among those often challenged, along with Babette
Cole’s Mommy Laid an Egg! Or, Where Do
Babies Come From?, the many editions of Lynda and Area Madaras’ What’s Happening to My Body? and Our Bodies, Ourselves, Judy Blume’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, and Robie H. Harris’
comical but informative It’s Perfectly
In the case of It’s Perfectly Normal, much of the controversy has stemmed from the book’s use of very explicit illustrations, depicting cartoon renditions of naked bodies of all shapes, sizes, and conditions in many different situations and from several angles. In addition, the book frankly addresses homosexuality, masturbation, abortion, contraception, and sexual urges. Challenged in Utah, Pennsylvania, Missouri, North Dakota, and California, and banned in Washington, some of the complaints considered included that It’s Perfectly Normal was too racy, too explicit, concerned “family sensitive issues,” and was “an example of child pornography” (21).
Phyllis
Reynolds Naylor’s
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thirteen novel series follows Alice McKinley’s life from the
summer before her sixth grade year to the autumn of ninth grade (though Naylor
plans to continue writing books that follow Alice through her eighteenth year)
as she faces her first period, her first boyfriend, her first encounter with
lingerie, and many, many questions about sex, puberty, and growing up. The
Also controversial are books that promote – or even discuss – masturbation. Robert Lipsyte’s 1977 novel One Fat Summer has been challenged and/or banned in many areas, with most complaints addressing the following passage:
About a year ago, in that daydream, I started using my invisibility to sneak into the girls’ locker room at school. In the beginning I just sort of skulked around the locker room, watching them undress, but then I got bolder and stood very close, and ever so often I might touch someone. In my daydreams, they never screamed or ran away. I would get good warm feelings that started in my belly and flowed down. Sometimes, if I was alone in the house, or in a locked bathroom, I would stroke myself until the warm feelings became a throbbing drumbeat that exploded (45).
The subject of masturbation is one that has produced a great number of arguments, especially among the religious community. Even if masturbation were not
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considered a sin among a fair-sized section of the American population, it is still regarded as extremely personal and is not often discussed in a candid manner apart from locker room banter. As previously mentioned, even books aimed at sexual education are often criticized for addressing masturbation as a legitimate act that could concern young people.
Many books that are attacked for being perverse are progressive texts that challenge the typical case prototype. A very commonly held assumption about childhood and children is that they possess an innate innocence that should be protected at all costs. Says educator Neil Postman, “Without secrets, there is no such thing as childhood” (qtd. in Levine, 18). Furthermore, many adults worry that telling children too much about sex and sexuality will incite them to premature action, as stated in Judith Levine’s controversial book Harmful to Minors: “[T]he dark suspicion of a direct link between knowing and doing created from the start a conundrum that has endured for sex educators: how to inform youth about the facts of sex without inflaming their lust” (8-9).
In an attempt to keep children informed (but just barely) about sex and reproduction, cartoons and “child-friendly” stories are concocted, most famously the “birds and bees.” They present the bare minimum of information required to explain sex to children – but only sex as intended for reproduction – to satisfy their curiosity without giving them any ideas. Says Levine, “These ‘birds and bees’ stories can misfire on account of children’s literal-mindedness. In the 1980s, psychologist Anne Bernstein asked a four-year-old, ‘How would a lady get a baby to grow inside her?’ The child, who had studied the sex-ed picture books, began, ‘Um, first you get a duck’” (9).
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Another concern about sexuality,
nudity in particular, in children’s literature is that it may be misconstrued
as child pornography. To present a child
as a sexual creature is certainly a very risqué deed. In regards to the naked body, there is a fine
line between having simply an unclothed figure and having a sexual figure. There is a fear that viewing and finding an
aesthetic pleasure in a child’s nude form reveals a sort of pedophilic mind. In his article “The Pedophilia of Everyday
Life,” Richard D. Mohr asserts, “
Because
mainstream American society fervently denies that it is acceptable for children
to be sexual or even well-informed about sex, and because of our tendency to
fear what we cannot easily explain – especially if said explanation must be
given to a child – it is not terribly surprising that the censorship of books
that discuss sex openly is rampant. But
that is not to imply that opposition to censorship is not also widespread. In defending Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s
I don’t know that one can say that children who read Heather Has Two Mommies are reading about homosexuality. They’re reading about a family with a child who has two moms. It’s about a little girl who goes on a picnic with her moms and then goes to daycare and meets kids with all kinds of families. That’s really it. If you’re going to say reading Heather is teaching a child about homosexuality – emphasis on the ‘sexuality’ – you would have to say reading a book about a mom and a dad is teaching a child about heterosexuality – emphasis on the ‘sexuality.’…In any case, I
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don’t think a book is powerful enough to determine one’s sexuality. I always cite the fact that I read thousands of books about heterosexual people and their families when I was growing up, and none of that changed my sexuality (qtd. in Foerstel, 163).
In an ideal
society, there would be no censorship, but instead children would be taught to
make educated decisions about what they accept or reject. They would not be taught what to think but
rather how to think. Unfortunately,
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Works Cited
Becker, Beverley C. and Susan M. Stan. Hit
List for Children 2.
Blume, Judy. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Foerstel, Herbert N. Banned in the
Harris, Robie H. It’s Perfectly Normal.
Levine, Judith. Harmful to Minors.
Lipsyte, Robert. One Fat Summer.
Mohr, Richard D. “The
Pedophilia of Everyday Life.” Curiouser. Ed. Steven Bruhm and Natasha Hurley.
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds.
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds.
The Grooming of
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds.
Newman, Leslea. Heather Has Two Mommies.
Sendak, Maurice. In the Night Kitchen.
Willhoite, Michael. Daddy’s Roommate.