From Violet Blue, special to SF Gate:
It probably started out like any other serene, sunny, safely heterosexual day in the Bentonville Public Library. But the lives of some Bentonville, Ark., residents changed forever on that fateful day, after a wrong turn down the dark back alley of a card catalog led to a nefarious lesbian sex guide that would steal their innocence, stain them with the gay agenda and probably totally show them where the G-spot was. We can only begin to imagine the harrowing ordeal Earl Adams and his 14- and 16-year-old sons, Kyle and Ryan, went through after the boys discovered "The Whole Lesbian Sex Book" — an ordeal fraught with anatomical drawings and lesbian relationship advice at the hands, nay, lubed fists, of local lesbian author Felice Newman. Unfortunately, it's an ordeal that resulted in the book's removal and a threatened lawsuit for obscenity.
Two weeks ago, "The Whole Lesbian Sex Book" was removed from the Bentonville library shelves at the e-mail request of Earl Adams, after his sons allegedly had found the sex guide while browsing for "military academy" reading materials. It no doubt took the boys hours of page-turning trauma in the stacks to fully register their horror — and we can only guess that once they learned about female ejaculation, the damage was done.
Being a concerned father who would in no way want his adolescent sons exposed to any shred of accurate sex information outside of the abstinence curriculum in public schools, or examples of lesbianism that conflict with what his sons will later pay to see in strip clubs across town, Adams initially e-mailed a complaint to Library Director Cindy Suter. She responded by relocating the book to a less accessible spot, perhaps in the football-field-size NSFC (Not Safe for Christians) section.
But for Adams, the threat posed by the safer-sex sections in "The Whole Lesbian Sex Book" evidently plagued him night and day. When he tucked his sons in at night, visions of happy lesbians with strap-ons danced in their heads, he was sure of it. Adams sent a deliciously retro letter and fax to Bentonville Mayor Bob McCaslin, threatening a lawsuit if the book were not removed, a book Adams said was "patently offensive and lacks any artistic, literary or scientific value" (neatly copying and pasting from the Wikipedia entry on the Miller test, minus the inconvenient "political value" part).
For some inexplicable reason, Adams could not stop thinking about the lesbian sex book and the deep personal tension it caused him — release, he knew, could only be found with total elimination of the book. Oh, and a $10,000 settlement per child, the maximum allowed under the Arkansas obscenity law.
Adams had stated in a previous complaint e-mail to McCaslin, "My sons were greatly disturbed by viewing this material and this matter has caused many sleepless nights in our house." After the Library Advisory Board voted unanimously April 3 to remove the book from circulation, Adams stated, "God was speaking to my heart that day and helped me find the words that proved successful in removing this book from the shelf."
One could argue that shelving "Whole Lesbian" in the West Point section could happen to anyone. Or that separating the sex and military shelves with a couple of copies of Boys' Life might give someone the wrong idea. And that anything that makes young men fantasize about lesbian sex is surely a threat to the very fabric of society. Of course, no one would know these things better than Felice Newman, author of "The Whole Lesbian Sex Book," co-founder of local, quarter-century-old, woman-run, human sexuality/gender studies/human rights publisher Cleis Press, and Bay Area resident. I got a minute to get her comments about the lawsuit and whether trading her handsome flattop for a flowery dress might get her book back in the good graces of Bentonville's heterosexual agenda.
Violet Blue: Did you know your book was in public libraries?
Felice Newman: Definitely. Library Journal recommended "The Whole Lesbian Sex Book" for all collections. Many public and university libraries have ordered the book.
VB: How do you think it ended up in the military section? Don't ask, don't tell? Or is there a section on uniforms in the book?
FN: Perhaps the book ended up in the military section because the boys hid it there. Or perhaps, having found the book in its proper section, the boys were reading it in the military section, where they had told their father they would be researching military academies. Someone catches them smack in the middle of the fistf-ing chapter and they make up the story as an alibi.
VB: According to Adams, his two sons, ages 14 and 16, were "greatly disturbed" by their discovery and apparently underwent "many sleepless nights" as a result. Do you want to comment on these statements?
FN: I imagine they went through a change of bed linens as well. Do you think the court will award them damages for a nice set of military-themed boys' bedsheets from Wal-Mart?
VB: What could they have learned from the book? Safer-sex techniques for lesbians?
FN: The first five or so chapters are really a general guide to women's sexuality. So I hope I've helped those lads find their way around a vagina and clitoris and G-spot and anus and know what to do with them.
VB: Adams is also accusing you of "pushing an immoral social agenda" in your book. So what are the juicy highlights of that agenda? Can you pencil us in?
FN: Everyone should enjoy ample pleasure, frequent and copious orgasms. Every person should know how she or he best likes to get off and should be able to tell partners in great detail just how to make that happen. Everyone deserves to feel proud of his or her fantasy life. Every woman should experience my fist buried deep inside her … er … oh my, I'm getting carried away …
VB: What's your opinion on people leveraging religion to censor the content of public libraries?
FN: Libraries are meant to be free of censorship. Librarians are professionals who sift through book catalogs and reviews of the tens of thousands of books published each year. It's best left to them to figure out what will make a well-rounded collection that will serve the public. Well-rounded, by the way, means that there should be something to piss off just about everyone, and that includes you and me. So if the hysterical Christian right wants to write a book about their ideas, I say, fine. Let the good librarians shelve it in the open stacks. If you or I wish to write a rebuttal, they can shelve that, too.
VB: Library Director Cindy Suter stands by her decision to carry your book. Library Advisory Board member George Spence thinks it's "crude" and "ought to be replaced by something more clinical." What does the notion of making LGBT sexuality more clinical say to you?
FN: Well, for starters, I'm not sure what Spence means by clinical. Some people say my book is pretty clinical, in that it gives basic health info, etc. But if by "clinical" Spence means boringly technical, I can't see who is going to write it, let alone read it. Really, even if someone wrote a lesbian sex guide that read like a car manual, he'd still object to it, wouldn't he? ("Insert phallus-shaped object into the lowermost anterior bodily orifice …")
VB: Any other thoughts?
FN: Finally, here's what I think: If there was one teenaged lesbian or bisexual girl in America who didn't know there was a book about the sexual experiences she so desires, she knows now. Thank you, Fox News.