How to Save Money

Don't buy Judith Levine's new book, My Year Without Shopping. That's how to save money.

I saw Ms. Levine and her "domestic partner" (sounds like a title for a housecat, not a man, but that's another topic) on Oprah today. They were talking rapturously about how they got out of the consumer rat race by pledging not to spend a dime on non-necessities for a whole year (buying fresh instead of prepared foods, not going to movies, etc.). They did it. Richard was quite taken with this, since he has a definite Adbusters streak and sometimes thinks we should live beneath a rock somewhere in Saskatchewan, wearing clothes made out of discarded Bandaids and eating roots boiled in somebody's old workboots. But I digress. Levine and her domestic partner were very pleased with themselves, so much so that Ms. Levine wrote a book about the whole experience. Her twee little glasses and mannish 'do were a little offputting to me, but she seemed like a harmless enough uber-urban dingbat. Some of her ideas are even quite valuable.

But when I Googled her tonight, I realized Ms. Levine is the same person who wrote Harmful to Minors (University of Minnesota Press, 2001), a book about how we should all stop squawking at children about silly things like abstinence and molestation and just let them be the naturally sexual creatures there are. Again, there's some value to this. My objection to Ms. Levine lies in the chapter about the "pedophile panic". Ms. Levine is positive there's no need to fret about pedophiles. They make up a teeny proportion of the population, and molestation by strangers is so rare it barely ever happens. Note she says molestation by strangers, as if this is should be differentiated from molestation by acquaintances or relatives. Abuse is abuse, who cares if the pedophile is someone you know or someone you've just met?! Ms. Levine doesn't take into account the fact that many - if not most - child sexual abuse goes unreported. She's a bit more worried about the pervs than about the children affected by the pervs. She flips her hand at the idea that online predation is a growing problem. In an interview with forward.com she said, "I think that the pedophile panic operates exactly the way McCarthyism operated. It is McCarthyism. That anyone who defends anyone who has this reputation of being a part of this so-called 'pro-pedophile lobby' — which is a ludicrous idea to begin with — is smeared with the same brush.... So everybody's afraid to stand up to it. And nobody's going to stand up for sex, just like they wouldn't stand up for feminism." She makes equally strange statements in Harmful to Minors, like saying parents really aren't the best people to educate their children about sex, and consensual sex between minors (as young as 12) and adults should be perfectly acceptable. The book's intro was written by Jocelyn Elders, who supported Levine's conclusions, but other sex educators and healthcare professionals have pointed out that both women downplayed the very real dangers of teen sex and the invaluable role that parents can play in educating their children. I believe it is possible to raise healthy, sex-positive kids while still remaining realistic about the dangerous aspects of sex, and you don't have to adopt Ms. Levine's ostrich approach in order to do that.
Levine stands by everything in Harmful to Minors and flat-out refuses to admit that pedophilia/molestation are serious problems in the world today. She also doesn't believe there's a pro-pedophile lobby. Hmm. I think the lobbyists themselves would disagree with her there. The global child sex trade/slave trafficking, online predation, incest, and other crimes against children just aren't as important to Judith Levine as not buying lattes.

So, Ms. Levine, I won't buy your book. That's $40 in my pocket.