The grave-sounding Ken filled me in: a supervisor at St. Mary’s Heritage Pediatrics in Grand Rapids had requested several copes of my book from First Book, a D.C.-based nonprofit that distributes free books to low-income children. The supervisor, one Paula Pennington, read only the first line of my book – “Seduction Tip Number 1 – an exercise to help pleasure a woman” -- and, appalled, promptly sent all 204 copies of the book to the local NBC affiliate.
Enter Maranda, a local TV personality. Thinking my book might be perfect for one of her city-wide family-themed Park Parties she hosts, gave a copy of it to her 19-year-old daughter for her opinion.
Enter Maranda, a local TV personality. Thinking my book might be perfect for one of her city-wide family-themed Park Parties she hosts, gave a copy of it to her 19-year-old daughter for her opinion.
"This is disgusting,” daughter tells mother. “You are not handing these things out.”
Maranda, equally disgusted by my prose, launches a cause célèbre to keep my book out of adolescent hands.
“How do you feel about all this, Mr. Uhlig?” the reporter asked, sounding like a doctor who had just delivered me a grim diagnosis.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
Boy Minus Girl, which is loosely based on my ill-fated attempts at dating in junior high, was published two years ago. Despite favorable reviews, the book was hardly a best seller. Until now, I had resigned myself to the world’s indifference toward my little tale of pubescent angst.
“I find it really perplexing a pediatrician’s office can’t deal with the fact that boys have sexual urges,” I said.
“Well,” the reporter said, “each chapter of your book does start off with sex tips for young boys.”
Those ‘sex tips’ were me spoofing the 1971 book, The Sensuous Man by M. which a lot of boys read and passed around when I was in eighth grade. Clearly the concerned citizens of Grand Rapids didn’t share my humor.
“Has the supervisor and Maranda read my book all the way through?” I asked. “Because if they did, I think they would see it’s about a boy who starts out objectifying women, and by the end sees females as three-dimensional human beings, not just sex objects. In fact, the last ‘sex tip’ of the book is, ‘The truly seductive man never views women as a conquest.’”
“What do you suggest we do with all 207 copies of your book?”
“Send them to Syria,” I said. “They censor anything that has any sexual innuendo, so they can burn them there.”
“You’re just full of sound bytes, aren't you Mr. Uhlig?”
Hey, this stuff writes itself.
When I watched the news report about my book on the TV station’s website, I was struck by how dated it felt. Even though it was produced only hours ago, it seemed thirty-years old. Banning books in the age of the internet seemed so, well, Twentieth Century. The TV announcer stated my book for kids was “full of graphic, explicit sex tips.” “SOFT PORN” was bannered across a shot of my book’s cover. Maranda, looking almost exactly as I envisioned the priggish mother of the novel’s protagonist, told the camera she was “shocked and saddened that this material was deemed worthy for kids over the age of 13.”
The sensationalistic report made no mention of the book’s greater messages: the importance of personal responsibility, self-control, and tolerance. What’s more, there were logic gaps in their story. For example, if Maranda knew my book had been banned at the pediatrician’s office, what would make her think it would be right for her wholesome Park Parties? And, if she knew Ms. Pennington was appalled by my book, why would she ask her teenage daughter to screen it?
After the airing, dozens of shame-on-you-Richard Uhlig emails started filling my inbox from people I didn’t know, people with names like Beth and Gary. Then I received even more emails from individuals containing a lengthy form letter stating, among other things, that my book “exposes vulnerable children to sexually explicit material that is completely inappropriate and destructive to their physical and emotional well being.”
Inappropriate? Destructive? Had these people never heard junior high age boys talk to each other? My “sex tips” were downright Disney-like compared to the raunchy advice swapped daily in my eighth grade locker room. I suppose if I had written the book in a Hard Boys’ style, as opposed to how I remember boys actually talking and joking then no one would be offended. But good writing, to me, is about getting at the truth, even if it’s at the cost of shattering some folks’ world view.
First Book, the nonprofit distributor, contacted me to say they too were inundated with emails, and that the right-wing group American Decency had targeted both my book and their agency. I apologized for the controversy, but they said they stood behind the book.
Then I received an email marked from “The Medical Profession”. After a rambling, self-important preamble about how this “medical professional and parent” knew first-hand about inner-city youth who had been “sexually assaulted and even forced into prostitution”, he threatened to use his political and professional clout to see that First Book’s IRS tax-exempt status be revoked until he, “The Medical Profession," "received clear, verifiable confirmation that your organization does not support this type of literature.”
How could my goofy seduction tips possibly harm a child who was already a prostitute?
These well-intentioned crusaders reminded me of so many adults – church leaders, teachers, parents -- from when I was young, adults who didn’t want to talk honestly with teenagers about sex because the topic embarrassed them. It was easier to denounce sex altogether, to prohibit its practice in any form until heterosexual marriage, or to pretend it didn’t exist, than to help a hormone-raging teenager understand best how to deal with this most constant of cravings.
Will this unfolding controversy help Boy Minus Girl sales? Who knows. It would be nice. But I have learned one thing from all this: as a writer, being hated beats being ignored.
