We live in a society where fear and ideology are the basis for many of the decisions made regarding children and sexuality, from the ever present panic about sexual abuse to the prevalence of abstinence only education despite the predominance of evidence that it does not work. This is underlying message Judith Levine describes in Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, a thought-provoking and intense work chronicling how we got to the place we are today and how these attitudes are dangerous and can damage our children. She discusses how both left-wing feminism and right-wing religious ideology created this environment and have helped it flourish. Thoroughly researched with extensive documentation, this is a work well worth reading attentively and carefully. Continue reading