By Jason Collum, AFA Journal staff writer
June 2002 – In Judith Levine’s ideal world, children and young people would be educated to freely explore all realms of sexuality with each other and with adults without regard to religious, moral or psychological consequences. In Levine’s world, adults should be able to have sexual relationships with children, so long as the child consents. In Levine’s world, pedophiles simply don’t exist, or if they do, there are so many traits that could define a pedophile that virtually anyone could be one.
So says a new book by the journalist and author. Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, has only been out a few weeks but generated a firestorm of controversy before it was even released for sale to the public. Among those voicing the most outrage are Dr. Laura Schlesinger, nationally syndicated radio talk show host, and Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America.
Schlesinger said on several occasions the book was another effort to legitimize adult sexual abuse of children. That idea is further supported by some “serious researchers and academics” (as USA Today called them in an April 17 article), who “want to review the term ‘child sexual abuse,’ preferring a more neutral term such as ‘adult-child sex.’” Others are promoting an even less intimidating and socially acceptable term, “intergenerational intimacy.”
Knight called the book evil. Others praised the book and its author for taking a stand suggesting young people, even very young people, can have positive sexual relationships with adults.
Contradictions, ignoring facts
Levine’s supporters cried foul and screamed censorship over calls for the book’s publisher, University of Minnesota Press, to stop publication. Levine went on the interview circuit defending herself and the book, saying she in no way condones pedophilia. “No sane person would advocate pedophilia,” Levine told Salon.com in a lengthy, one-sided interview.
This statement could be seen as hypocrisy at its height, though, as some of the authorities Levine cited in Harmful to Minors have had long, storied careers in promoting pedophilia.
According to Knight and the Culture and Family Institute, Levine cites Theo Sandfort and Dr. John Money, among others, in her book, using their research to back her argument that children aren’t necessarily harmed by having sexual relationships with adults. In her book, Levine identifies Sandfort only as a “sexologist” in one place and a “psychologist” in another. “She neglects to inform readers that Sandfort is an open pedophile who has written consistently about the joys of sex with young boys,” Knight said.
Indeed, the facts speak for themselves. An AFA Journal review of Sandfort’s work found he has been an ardent proponent of male-on-child sexual relationships. In 1981, Sandfort, a lecturer in psychology at the State University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, published the results of a study he performed on boys in the Netherlands, ages 10-16, who were in ongoing pederastic relationships with adult men. He concluded that “for virtually all the boys ... the sexual contact itself was experienced positively and had no negative effect on how the youngster felt in general.”
The use of Dr. Money’s research isn’t much better, and Levine, according to Knight, conveniently overlooks Money’s most famous research. A couple had twin baby boys, but one was seriously injured in a botched circumcision. Under Money’s advice and supervision, the boy was then castrated and raised as a girl. Money called the gender reassignment and subsequent raising of the child as a girl a success, concluding that gender is only a social construct.
However, no amount of being treated and raised as a girl could keep the child from feeling different, and when he was 14, his parents finally told him what had happened. The child then chose to live life as a boy. He later had reconstructive surgery and is now married and has adoptive children. His story has been told in the widely publicized book, As Nature Made Him, by John Colapinto.
“Either Levine was unaware of this scandal or decided not to tell her readers,” Knight said.
Money, professor emeritus of psychology at Johns Hopkins University, has also given interviews to Paidika, the Holland-based Journal of Pedophilia, and according to CFI “said he found nothing ‘pathological in any way’ if a 12-year-old boy had a sexual relationship with a man in his 20s.”
Furthermore, AFA Journal found where Money gave a glowing introduction to Boys on their Contacts with Men – A Study of Sexually Expressed Friendships, a book by Sandfort.
It’s all a matter of consent
Central to the theme of Harmful to Minors and other books and reports like it is the argument that adults having sexual contact with children is all right so long as the child, no matter what age, consents.
“Sex is not harmful to children,” writes Levine. “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.”
Levine states in the book and has said in other interviews she feels the Dutch age of consent law is a good model that should be adopted in the United States. The Dutch law permits sex between an adult and a young person between 12 and 16 if the young person consents. Prosecutions for coercive sex can be sought by the young person or the child’s parents.
“Consent is irrelevant,” Knight wrote. “Children are incapable of giving meaningful consent. That is why it is illegal for adults to have sex with children, regardless of the child’s state of mind. Miss Levine’s fine line between ‘abuse’ and ‘consent’ is nonexistent.”
On the University of Minnesota Web site, which heavily promoted the book, Levine posted responses to several complaints voiced about the book. One of the responses was on pedophilia. Levine stated: “Indeed, say some psychologists, there may be no such thing as a ‘typical’ pedophile, if there is such a thing as a pedophile at all.” She also used a statement from Money, whom she calls “a preeminent expert on sexual abnormalities,” to say that it isn’t fair to classify all who have sexual contact with children as pedophiles because most instances of child sexual abuse are not carried out by pedophiles, but by family members or adult men in relationships with adult women or men.
In a section dedicated to debunking what Levine calls the myths about pedophilia, she says the Internet and chat rooms aren’t crawling with child molesters, kidnappers and murderers. She says statistics (defined no more than “police files”) show 95% of allegedly abducted children turn out to be runaways and throwaways from home or kids taken by one of their parents in divorce disputes.
In effectively saying the threat of dangers on the Internet is overblown, Levine ignores a warning issued in 1998 by the FBI to parents that Internet pedophiles are a serious threat. Then FBI Director Louis Freeh told a Senate panel that child sex predators are far more pervasive on the Internet than most parents suspect.
Sexual freedom for teens
The majority of Levine’s book is dedicated to arguing that children and adolescents should have the right to freely explore all realms of sexuality without hindrance by judgmental or non-approving parents and adults. She argues that abstinence-only sex education is dangerous to teenagers, saying it does not tell them how to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases and limits their knowledge of options of contraception and abortion.
Levine blasts the “religious right” and conservatives for choosing to promote abstinence-only education, and says so-called “virginity pledges” are primarily a Christian thing. She says conservative efforts to keep unbridled, open sex education out of public schools has limited the knowledge of too many children. She also says the Christian view of sex education is not the best.
“I think the best sexuality education, and the best attention to the whole child and the teen, has often come from the gay and lesbian community,” Levine told Salon.com.
If history is any indicator, Levine’s latest work will be followed by even more fervent calls for the acceptance of adult-child sex, or child sexual abuse. It will be up to Christians and family advocates to take a stand each time this movement rears its head, or the world, in the future, could be the one Judith Levine envisions as being the best.
And that world could very likely be harmful to everyone. 
