I’ve known a lot of librarians over the years. In fact, I married one. For the most part, they’re an idealistic sort. They preserve the culture, bring people and information together. Right now, because some of them want to do that wholeheartedly and others don’t, they’re engaged in a civil war.

That battle has always been going on at some level. When Madonna’s Sex was published some years ago, some library staffs condemned it, while others bought it and added it to non-circulating, by-request-only shelves. Every week we learn of cases in which conservatives demand removal of specific titles from the shelves of public libraries. Sometimes they get their way. Sometimes they don’t.

The Internet is bringing this conflict to a head. Allowed free access to library computers, mere children, properly motivated and with the necessary access information, can see and learn all sorts of things about the human body and its sexuality. And there’s the rub, if you will pardon the expression.

Mark Y. Herring, of Oklahoma Baptist University, writes in the May 1, 1998, issue of Library Journal, “If a great work can inspire courage, greatness and magnanimity, then bad ones can also provoke lust, rage, and parvanimity ….” (I would love to tell you what parvanimity means. I looked it up in the American Heritage Dictionary and the Living Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, and I can’t find it anywhere. If anyone knows what parvanimity means, please let me know.)

Another librarian, writes in that same issue, “We don’t put snuff films in the video section of the library.” Then she makes her point: “Why allow material offensive to the reasonable and rational person into the library just because it comes on the Internet?”

Cheryl Banick’s question, in effect, is “Why should anyone of any age have access to sex information just because they want to?” My question is, “Why shouldn’t they?”

I was a kid once, as interested in sex as anyone else my age–which is to say, not very. I remember that Michael Lowenthall and I met behind his sofa when we were six years old and rubbed our penises together. At the time I felt heat flashes that virtually took my breath away. But you know something? We soon grew tired of that and never bothered doing it again. We had other things to do. We climbed fences, chased each other across Newark’s garage roofs, ran through people’s gardens, explored the neighborhood.

Four or five years later, I discovered my father’s treasure trove of pornography. These were photos, many of them taken by him, mostly of my mother and he, in some cases the two of them together in sexual acts. Then, again, I felt the flush, the breathlessness. I’m sure I sprouted an erection, but I knew nothing of masturbation.

Those photos remained in that same cabinet even after I left for college at age 18, but I perused them only twice more, briefly, curious about the secret play my parents were involved in; also, even more, the strange things that I felt in my body at observing them. But I wasn’t yet ready for sex, and soon became caught up in other matters. I was, in a sense, educating myself in ideal fashion, sating my curiosity.

What’s wrong with young people sating their curiosity about sex? How dare any educated person equate that to a snuff film in which someone is murdered?

Here’s the line in the sand. Is sex–the knowledge, portrayal and practice of it–good, positive, and celebrative? Or is it to be equated with “rage, and parvanimity,” with “snuff films” and that which is “offensive to the reasonable and rational person”? Ultimately, we are not only defending the First Amendment, but the rightness and naturalness of the body and its sexuality.

Don’t let the spin doctors succeed in their deceit. This isn’t about kids–have you seen any serious efforts to protect youngsters from movies about chain saw killings and other depictions of stomach-churning violence? Sex is being vilified here. That’s what this conflict is all about, and whether or not our children will someday escape the sexual hypocrisy and shame our generation has borne.

Have you noticed the way today’s teenagers hide their bodies? Remember the ’60s and ’70s and even the early ’80s? The popular teenage bathing suit was a bikini. All summer the boys were bare-chested and skin was in.

Then, things changed. You’ve seen those baggy shorts and baggy shins, everything sold in one size–large. The most popular teenage garment on earth would be burlap sacks if anyone manufactured them with holes for heads and arms. Poet and novelist Kevin Esser captured the problem and the longing for the good old days in a poem published in Volume III, Number 2 of Gayme:

Too late for these boys to save themselves now.
Something honest and beautiful has already been stolen,
a generation has already been turned against itself.
Wait, perhaps, for the next millennium
to see boys once again embrace their own loveliness,
to see them strip away the ugly layers of suspicion
and phobia and erotic denial.
Wait for that distant day as a small step back
toward a freedom that once glowed briefly,
but joyously like a bold renaissance sun.

Most teenagers today in the United States and England and to a lesser extent elsewhere seem to have basically two choices when it comes to their sexuality: They can deny it with baggy clothes and be forced into a life of hypocrisy through shameful rather than celebrative solo sex; or they can express their sexuality in inappropriate and illegal ways.

Our local newspaper recently reported about a 15-year-old boy who was sent to prison for the attempted rape of an 11-year-old girl. I hate rape. It is as blasphemous as committing murder with a crucifix. So what alternative does our society give that kid? It says abstain. Last year the Pope condemned masturbation. Society condemns fooling around with another guy. And forget about an adult partner altogether. Any man who would think about having sex with a kid today should have his head examined. One mother actually said she’d have preferred the pederast to have murdered her son rather than have sex with him. Another mother got off virtually free after murdering her son’s abuser in front of a courtroom full of witnesses.

So, what’s the answer? This sexually needy teen male thought it might be rape. If these kids were starving for food instead of sex, the decent people of our society would give them feasts. We’re not a selfish people; we’re generous as can be. Instead, they’re starving for sex, and we offer them sermons instead of solutions. Why? Because this God-given appetite for sex is one we think they shouldn’t have. It’s immoral. It’s sinful.

But as Ann Landers wrote last December (1997) in a repeat of the column on masturbation that won her the first annual Golden Phallus Award, “Sex drive is the strongest human drive after hunger. It’s nature’s way of perpetuating the human race. Males reach their sexual peak as early as seventeen. There must be an outlet. I’m recommending self-gratification or mutual masturbation, whatever it takes to release the sexual energy. This is a sane and safe alternative to intercourse, not only for teenagers but also for older men and women who have lost their partners. I do not want to hear from clergymen telling me it’s a sin. The sin is making people feel guilty about responding to this basic, fundamental human drive.”

Let’s help kids to start feeling good about feeling good. Let’s tell them sex is okay, and then we can begin telling them how to do it safely and responsibly.