"Harmful to Minors"

(The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex)
-by judith levine
2002
Possibly the most socially important book since peter mcwilliam's "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do". A few quotes, since it's doubtful i could speak as eloquently for her as she can for herself:
"Trying to fortify the nuclear family by fomenting suspicion of strangers fractures the community of adults and children...Projecting sexual menace onto a cardboard monster and pouring money and energy into vanquishing him distracts adults from teaching children the subtle skills of loving with both trust and discrimination. Ultimately, children are rendered more vulnerable both at home and in the world...
There is no distinct moment at which a person is ready to take on adult responsibilities...people do not grow up at sixteen, eighteen, or twenty-one, if they ever do. A three-decade study of adolescents and adults concluded that, cognitively and emotionally, both groups operated at an average developmental age of sixteen...
Legally designating a class of people categorically unable to consent to sexual relations is not the best way to protect children...the Dutch parliament made sexual intercourse for people between twelve and sixteen legal but let them employ a statutory consent age of sixteen if they felt they were being coerced or exploited. Parents can overrule the wishes of a child under sixteen, but only if they make a convincing case...
Comprehensive, nonabstinence sex education works. And abstinence education does not. In many European countries, where teens have as much sex as in America, sex ed starts in the earliest grades. It is informed by a no-nonsense, even enthusiastic attitude toward the sexual; it is explicit; and it doesn't teach abstinence. Rates of unwanted teen pregnancy, abortion, and AIDS in every western European country are a fraction of our own; the average age of first intercourse is about the same as in the United States."