“I know it when I see it” is a famous quote from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s judicial decision in 1964 on Pope v. Illinois. The first amendment (Freedom of Speech) came into question on the French Movie, “The Lovers” (very raunchy at the time) to determine if this movie met the definition of “obscenity” and “hard core pornography”. When pressed to define exactly what hard core pornography meant, Justice Stewart didn’t want to define it with words, but he certainly knows it when he sees it.
“I have reached the conclusion . . . that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” -Court Justice Potter Stewart
By 2022, we have become so desensitized to sex acts being displayed on TV and magazines that now the schools decided that it is OK for the 7th and 8th grade public school libraries in New Jersey.
I’m not sure why the principal at Hillsborough Middle school decided that its appropriate to supply kids with a book describing blowjobs (blowies) and anal sex (Bumming) and telling kids about the Grindr app. This is a “how to” book on sex… It tells you what to do and how to find people to do it with. Is this hardcore pornography? mmmmm no. Its this safe or appropriate for 12 year old’s to read? No way. Grindr is for adults reading Pink News, not middle schoolers.
And just like Justice Potter Stewart, I also know pornography when I see it, and that’s what I see when I open the pages of Gender Queer, a book in many public schools throughout New Jersey.
Parents from districts like Wayne, Ramsey and North Hunterdon Voorhees tried to remove the book Gender Queer from their school library. When the parents failed to get it out of the school, the New Jersey Association of School Libraries considered it a “Win against censorship” when the BOE of North Hunterdon Voorhees voted for it to stay in the library.
I’m not sure what these librarians are cheering about, but this book is straight up cartoon Hustler for babies.
Apparently Substack also knows porn when they see it. When I was writing this news letter with the uncensored picture from Gender Queer, I got an e-mail from Substack saying that they REMOVED my publication Chaos and Control BECAUSE of this picture.
I basically freaked out for about an hour and psycho called Kristen (business partner and lawyer) because I thought I lost this entire publication with our 5000+ subscribers, but now that I see that Violet and I are on the same page with defining pornography (Sorry Violet, I’ll know better next time), I feel pretty comfortable that I won’t make that mistake again because I CAN identify pornography… unlike the NJEA, the librarians and the schools that they run.
I challenge you to share the full uncensored image on ANY social media without catching a ban… but your teen can check this book out at some of New Jersey’s finest school libraries.
Besides just being inappropriate and gross for kids, here’s the real problem with porn… Its addictive. Its harmful. And its associated with violent behaviors.
We don’t supply public school kids with addictive drugs in the library or supply kids with a bookie and a horse race so they can start on their early addiction to gambling during school… so why in the world would supply kids with porn?
This is just insane to me.
The NJEA, believes its insane that you would limit kids from seeing these LGBTQIA+ books on how to have sex. They claim that “Book Bans Hurt Students”. OH come on… give me a break. This organization is over the top with their rhetoric, I don’t know why teachers aren’t embarrassed to be apart of this union. The NJEA even actually compared teaching LGBTQIA+ to teaching the Holocaust. I can’t even believe they put those 2 topics in the same paragraph.
Let me just put it this way… I have yet to hear of anyone addicted to the Holocaust but I AM aware that there are plenty therapy groups for sex addition and porn addiction. LGBTQIA+ isn’t just a topic about people anymore, its a topic about raw, unadulterated sex. The NJ schools made THAT it clear when they allowed activists to put anal sex in 8th grade Sex Ed and pornography in the school library. Don’t even get me started on some of the district’s choice to use the explicate content of AMAZE.org to teach sex to kids. NJ Legislature fed us a lie in 2020, they told us that when they passed their inclusion bill that it was just to teach about Alan Turing and the Stonewall riots. Neither of those topics I find offensive, they are not sexual in nature, they certainly aren’t Grindr. What is this push to introduce sex to our minor kids in the name of inclusion and equity?
They’re not just grooming kids in schools, they’re supplying our kids to feed the sex market on Grindr and other adult apps. They’re creating willful youth participants. The next step will be to lower the age of consent. They’re also teaching our kids to lie to us and creating barriers between kids and their families by teaching children not only that there are genders, but how to choose a gender, and how to hide it. It becomes a secret between the school and the child. When the parent finds out, they are flagged as a possible harm to their own child, and they will be referred for therapy.
Parents need to ask themselves: are schools safe for our children? Do we need to worry about what’s being shown to young children? We used to tell our kids to watch our for strangers who might hurt them. People our kids trust are poised to hurt them. Parents need to wake up fast.
If I sent my kid to my church, or any church, and a staff member showed my (minor) kid this stuff, they’d be arrested. Why is porn okay when teachers introduce it to our kids? Why are teachers instructing children about preferred sexual positions and best ways to masturbate? Why are teachers happy to teach it? Why are teachers adamant about I teaching it? Why are teachers defending teaching it?
Now is the time for the big questions.
Great piece! This is exactly why I’m not signing the “book contract” sent home from the high school yesterday. They want parents to sign off on potentially “mature content” availability in the school and public library.
A. Dear school - define “mature content”.
B. Dear school - are you saying you know there’s inappropriate content for all the minors in school in your very own library?
Hmmmm.
I hope the town library doesn’t have such things and the school should NOT have any, at all.
Thank you for this article. Clearly my instinct is correct and the school are doing a CYA!!