[A local resident made the statement below at the SPLD board meeting on March 23, 2026. It has been edited for length and clarity.]
I’d like to suggest that explicit material should not be shelved in the children’s or YA sections of the library.
Children have a right to a childhood, and that right is more important than an adult’s desire to read sexually explicit material. An adult’s preference does not supersede a child’s right to safe, thoughtful, and valuable literature that is curated for them.
Data and studies provided to this board show how harmful explicit material is to the children in our community—and not just to those in our community, but to every child who reads it.
This is not a neutral decision. When you vote to keep or bring in these books, you are knowingly and willingly causing harm to the children in our community. This includes not only trustees who vote this way, but citizens on reconsideration committees too.
The argument that “these books are so much more than explicit content” doesn’t hold up when you look at how children actually process what they read. Research and real-life experience consistently show that young minds tend to fixate on the most shocking or provocative material—especially when it involves sexual content.
It’s a bit like serving healthy fruit juice with a small amount of poison mixed in. The nutrients may be there, but the harmful element contaminates the entire drink—and that’s the part that causes damage.
I’ve spoken with many parents who say their first exposure to pornography happened in a library. Decades later, they can still recall those explicit scenes in vivid detail, while remembering little to nothing about the rest of the book.
One friend shared that after reading Flowers in the Attic as a child, the only thing that stayed with him was the incestuous content, not the broader story. Another parent described finding a book with explicit images in the library as a child. What she remembers most isn’t the context—it’s the confusion, the shame, and the lasting impact of those moments.
These aren’t isolated stories—they’re common experiences.
So we have to ask ourselves: do we really want children’s first exposure to explicit sexual content to occur at the library?
Our children have a right not to be sexually groomed by materials in the library.
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