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Library Pulls Free Monthly’s Erotica IssueThe San Luis Obispo City-County (Calif.) Public Library has removed the July/August 2006 issue of the free bimonthly magazine HopeDance from all its branches. In a July 13 staff memo, Library Director Brian Reynolds recommended recycling the copies, saying, “Take a look at it, as well, and you’ll see why I am concerned.”The cover of the sexuality-themed issue is a drawing called “Venus and the Burning Temples” by Mark Bryan, inspired by the Titian nude “Venus of Urbino.” The issue includes such features as “Holy Whore,” “Pornography: Beyond Right and Wrong,” and “Public Masturbators.” Characterizing the content as “fairly sexually explicit,” Acting Assistant Library Director Deborah Graf told the August 19 San Luis Obispo Tribune that the magazine issue ran counter to the library’s family-oriented mission. She was unsure how many of the system’s 15 branches actually discarded the magazine versus placing it out of public view. “What intrigues me is the use of children as a standard to censor ideas and images,” HopeDance Editor Bob Banner wrote in an August 24 Tribune guest editorial. “We drug them with sugared sodas and candies. But when it comes to sex we somehow muster all our parental muscle to make sure they are protected, to make sure they don’t see how people may celebrate and lovingly use their bodies.” Posted August 25, 2006. |
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