It's a conflict of interest, no matter your politics, when an organization is supposed to be a neutral purveyor of knowledge. (unless I somehow misunderstood the purpose of Wikipedia, which is possible)
Just want to point out that "neutral" doesn't always mean apolitical, even though it may be convenient to think so. Hypothetically, if in a two party system there is a "burn and ban the books" party, and a "let's really not burn the books" party, the moral obligation of a neutral purveyor of knowledge is to do everything in its power to stop the "burn the books" club. How Wikipedia is interpreting that can be questioned, but not the fact that it should try to further the cause for its existence.
Not OP, but most of the controversy has been about age restrictions on the books "Gender Queer: A Memoir" which contains images of graphic scenes of gay sex and oral sex as well as a girl encouraged to “taste” herself by her own siblings or “Lawn Boy” which describes a man talking approvingly to his friend about having oral sex with a grown man when he was only in fourth grade. I'm not aware of any 'bans' per se, but the books have been removed from some school libraries or made subject to age restrictions.
Based on your descriptions, it's hard for me to conclude that these books are "targeting children sexuality" as the OP put it. Teens are--shock of shocks!--sometimes sexually active, even by choice. My brother was sexually active in the 4th grade. Is it that weird for literature to represent those kinds of experiences? I can see where one would make it generally unavailable to the very young, or maybe only with parental permission, but does this seem like a project to "turn kids gay" (as alleged by some one star amazon reviews)? No, lol.
> My brother was sexually active in the 4th grade.
I think a lot of people would find 9-10 years old a bit young for sex. One is also generally not a 'teenager' until 13 and indeed many of the age restrictions are for materials like these books with respect to pre-teens.
I think 9-10 years old is a bit young for sex. Did my brother? Apparently not! No one was making any claims about the ages of teenagers, just providing an anecdote that consensual sexual activity (insofar as two 4th graders can consent) can happen at ages where us older folks think it is inappropriate.
Age restrictions are arbitrary. Are there some 16-year-olds I'd trust more with a vote than 25 year olds? Yes.
In any case, and to reiterate my prior point, none of this seems to be "grooming" or "pedophilia."
Grooming generally consists of showing kids porn, drugging them and then raping them and making them feel guilt over their own abuse so that they do not disclose it.
So it's understandable that people are concerned by people who want to give sexually explicit material to preteens.
And some authors of children's works have long attracted controversy, like Piers Anthony who had that hotline to contact him in his books (1-800-HI-PIERS) and who wrote extensively about child sexuality both in children's books (the "adult conspiracy" in Xanth) and quite explicitly in his adult works, like Firefly which has explicit sex involving a 5 year old girl.
Quotes of that and some similar works of his can be found here, you have been warned:
I think it's fair to be concerned about such things, and I say that as someone who read much of the Xanth series as a teenager and only figured out how damned creepy it was a very long time afterwards.
Note that I do not claim to have any proof that he's a pedophile, nor do I have any evidence of him harming any kids. But at the same time, I think it's fair for people to want to keep their children away from dirty old men like him and I wouldn't give any kids of mine a Xanth book.
It seems to me that both of the books you cited actively promote not feeling guilt about what you seem to allege is grooming...wouldn't that undermine your argument? In fact, it seems that the more kids are armed with appropriate sexual education and--importantly--consent education, the less vulnerable they will be to sexual abuse. [0]
And perhaps you have been so blinded by your moral panic, but you appear to not have been reading my posts: I agree with you that texts like this should be restricted for younger kids. (I haven't stated this, but I vehemently disagree with outright bans that make them unavailable to all.) I merely contend that this is not in fact grooming or pedophilia, and that what the right is engaged in is yet another example of the moral panics they gin up to gain political power. (See: war on drugs, satanic panic, et. al.[1])
The right is weaponizing this panic, and ultimately conflating pedophilia with the LGBTQ community. See: countless anti-drag legislation, armed militias showing up at pride events, et. al.
The fact remains that most child predation happens by a person the child knows [2]
Basically to sum up: I agree with you on restricting the availability of books with sexually explicitly content in regards to young kids. I disagree with outright bans. Kids are sexually active creatures--whether anyone likes it or not. Lack of education about this topic leads to suboptimal outcomes: teen pregnancy, sexual violence, etc. These books don't strike me as grooming or pedophilia, and in fact, they seem to be the basis of a moral panic being used to gain political power.
I'm not sure how you see shame as the real harm from this, because it goes significantly deeper than that. I do think we may be talking past each other on some things, though, and may not disagree on certain points. Generally speaking, the disputes are concerning what type and at what age children should be taught things and what input parents should have.
Regarding moral panics, those are at the root of most political activism. I don't find this surprising in any way.
Finally, regarding the 'armed militias', I assume that relates to the 'sniper' story, unless there was some other story I wasn't aware of (which is possible)? I'll just mention that the story appears to be dubious in terms of whether there were any actual 'snipers', and the original allegation was that they were there to protect the drag queen story hour, not to shoot them:
You're talking about rape. I am talking about books. You seem to implicitly claim that one causes the other, or makes it more likely. I dispute that claim. Stop conflating books with rape.
Its weird for you defend children sexuality and then bring up an anecdotal point to defend it. Your brother being sexually active in the 4th grade (10 years old by my estimation) is not a good thing.
I am just pointing out that the age of onset of sexual activity is a distribution, and that nothing nefarious needs to happen to make it so, even at the tail ends. While I would not want my kids (who are older than 4th grade) to be sexually active at their current age, it is important to note that nothing bad happened in my brother's case.
In a related issue: is banning books going to lead to fewer bad outcomes? Unlikely.
Just out of curiosity, at what age do you think it is appropriate for a human to be sexually active by choice?
I think it's a pretty bold exaggeration to go from "banning books from school curricula" or even "from school libraries" to "banning books period". Conservative attempts to restrict sex education are misguided, but no books are actually being banned. Personally, I tend to feel betrayed when I'm warned of a horrible thing happening and investigate to find out it just isn't so.
