Banning books on sex is more dangerous than helping teenagers discover it safely

The protection of children – and, by the way, teenagers are not children – is often a code for controlling them. Protection from what? One of the biggest social issues we are still failing to confront is the sexual abuse of children, which most often happens in the place they are meant to feel safe. The family.

Giving young people information about their bodies, their emerging sexuality, how to understand and communicate in intimate relationships, is vital. Sexual abusers and predators rely on silencing young people. They rely on shame to silence them. The more information we can give children and teenagers about their bodies, and how eventually to form consensual intimate relationships in age- appropriate ways, the better. We need to let them know there are many ways of expressing their sexuality and gender identity.

The banning of books in schools in conservative US states has recently escalated. A particularly hilarious example is the recent banning of the Bible in a Utah school library. Apparently, someone actually read the Old Testament, which definitely contains some pretty weird stuff. So does Shakespeare, for that matter.

Banning books is an age-old mechanism of controlling access to knowledge and has been directed at children, women and the working classes. Censorship is based on the idea that there are some people – read educated white men – who are able to “handle” material they consider dangerous to others.

The darkest side of book banning is, of course, its relationship to racist, fascist and authoritarian political movements. We have had a history of importing the US culture wars to Australia, where they get reheated in the bain-marie of conservative politics. Right now, the US culture wars – or the “war on woke”, to use a more contemporary term – focus on ensuring children don’t know about diverse sexuality and gender identities and are kept ignorant about their own bodies.

In response, let me simply quote the amazing US comedian Wanda Sykes: “Until a drag queen walks into a school and beats eight kids to death with a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, I think you’re focusing on the wrong shit.”

Catharine Lumby is a professor of media and communications at the University of Sydney. She was interviewed about her research for Melissa Kang and Yumi Styne’s book, Welcome to Consent. Lumby’s latest book is a biography of the writer Frank Moorhouse, who was a lifelong opponent of censorship.