The Alabama Public Library Service board voted 3-2 Thursday that the Fairhope Public Library remains noncompliant with state code, finding that several books in its youth sections contain “sexually explicit” content.
The vote is the latest salvo in a months-long battle between the state agency and the library board. The APLS board first voted to cut the library’s funding in March after some Fairhope residents complained of sexually explicit materials in the teen section.
That sparked a re-review of the challenged books by the Fairhope Public Library board to determine the proper placement of the books. The board ultimately decided that 10 of the challenged books were properly shelved in the young adult section and moved others.
APLS Board Chair John Wahl, who is also chair of the Alabama Republican Party, reviewed those 10 books over the holidays and pulled excerpts that he found most concerning.
Board member Ron Snider, immediate past APLS chair and representative of Fairhope’s district, called the move an “ambush,” noting that Wahl had not shared the excerpts with the board members or Fairhope ahead of the meeting.
Wahl said he found it proper to share them for the first time in the public meeting.
Read Freely Alabama, an anti-censorship group formed in response to Alabama’s library challenges, echoed Snider’s sentiments that the excerpts were an ambush.
“Using the legally meaningless term ‘sexually explicit,’ Wahl ambushed the Fairhope director and board chair with cherry-picked passages—stripped of context and purpose—in an attempt to justify overriding the judgment of a local board and trained professionals,” RFA leadership said in a statement. “Wahl doesn’t understand a crucial tenet of constitutional librarianship—that content in books must be taken as a whole. Instead, he ambushed the Fairhope public library with a list of individual words, which will not pass muster in the Miller for Minors test nor meet the legal definition of obscenity. If he does not grasp those basics, he should not be making these decisions to override trained librarians and local boards.”
Wahl continued to push his long-running argument that he is listening to both sides and believes parents should have the ability to let their kids read any book in the library, but that by default, children should be protected from reading sexually explicit content.
Although the question before the board dealt with whether the books were sexually explicit, Wahl also highlighted instances of profanity in the books. He said the profanity provides context for the maturity of the books, although the inclusion of profanity itself is not violative of the code.
Excerpts
Wahl provided excerpts from each of the 10 books, although some discussion hinted that at least one of the 10 books, Beyond Magenta, did not contain sexually explicit content. That book will become violative regardless in February when the new state code takes effect, banning “transgenderism” from Alabama youth sections.
Although the Fairhope library board had already reviewed the books and found them to be appropriate for their age groups, Wahl challenged the representatives present to defend that decision before the board.
Wahl read a portion from The Perks of Being a Wallflower as an example of how sexually explicit the books are.
“Pretty soon, he took off her bra and started to kiss her breasts,” Wahl read. “And then he put his hand down her pants and started moaning. I think they were both very drunk. He reached to take off her pants, but she started crying really hard, so he reached for his own. He pulled his pants and underwear down to his knees. ‘Please. Dave. No.’ But the boy just talked soft to her about how good she looked and things like that, and she grabbed his penis with her hands and started moving it. I wish I could describe this a little more nicely without using words like penis, but that was the way it was. After a few minutes, the boy pushed the girl’s head down, and she started to kiss his penis.”
An individual who supports the book’s placement in the young adult section chided Wahl for not providing a trigger warning, which Wahl took as supporting his stance that the book is inappropriate for minors.
“The idea that it needs a trigger warning for adults in an official public hearing shows it needs a trigger warning for our kids,” Wahl said.
The individual clarified that they requested a trigger warning because the passage depicted sexual assault, not for the sexual language itself, and argued that an individual selecting the book would likely have been privy to the book’s subject matter beforehand, as opposed to being exposed to it in a public meeting.
Every excerpt pulled that described a sexual act depicted rape, sexual assault or abuse, except for an excerpt from Doing It, a sex education book.
Wahl also read an excerpt from Beyond Magenta, although it does not violate the state code on sexually explicit language. “She prances around the train, singing: ‘I fucked a man up. Go get your pussy the fuck off the train,'” Wahl read aloud.
Along with the excerpts, Wahl reasserted a claim that the press would not print the excerpts in their own news reports due to the nature of the language.
Another of the excerpts highlighted by Wahl came from the classic dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale:
“Serena Joy grips my hands as if it she, not I, who’s being fucked, as if she finds it either pleasurable or painful, and the Commander fucks, with a regular two-four marching stroke, on and on like a tap dripping. He is preoccupied, like a man humming to himself in the shower without knowing he’s humming; like a man who has other things on his mind. It’s as if he’s somewhere else, waiting for himself to come, drumming his fingers on the table while he waits. There’s an impatience in his rhythm now. But isn’t this everyone’s wet dream, two women at once? … He comes at least with a stifled groan as of relief. Serena Joy, who has been holding her breath, expels it … I untangle myself from her body, stand up; the juice of the Commander runs down my legs.”
The following excerpt comes from the book Identical:
“I want you to see something, something that proves how much I love you. This is only for you, Kaeleigh girl. He lifted her gently, sat her down on the bed beside him. Then he opened the snaps on the fly of his flannel pajamas. It stood up, stiff as a stalagmite. See how much Daddy loves you? Show me you love me, too. Touch it. He closed her hand around it. I know it sounds bad, but I wanted to touch it too. I didn’t know what it meant, only that it made Daddy happy. That’s right. That’s right. His voice rocked in rhythm with his body. Oh, yes, my Kaeleigh loves me. My little flower … when Daddy finished, he burrowed his face into Kaeleigh’s hair and wept. Confused at his tears, and at the sticky stuff icing her hands, still Kaeleigh pleaded, ‘Don’t cry, Daddy. What’s the matter? Didn’t I love you good enough?'”
The next excerpt is taken from the book Crank:
“My brand new Victoria’s Secret shredded, and I felt the worst of Brendan. He paused, savoring my terror. They all love it. Had he done it a different way, I might have responded with excitement. Instead, I froze as he pushed inside. There it is. Oh, God. There it goes. It went, all right, with an audible tear. Pain mushroomed into agony and all I could do was go stiff. You weren’t lying, you bitch! I laid there sobbing as he worked and sweated over me. Stoked by the monster, it took him a long time to finish. Give me a line, I’ll give you an encore. He pulled away sticky and bloody.”
