Last year, a 1992 book about sex for kids, written by Narelle Wickham, was re-released with little notice.
That's all changed now that Focus on the Family has found out it contains positive messages about same sex marriage, artificial insemination, and a whole host of other "adult" issues. Oh, and it's being marketed for toddlers...
One ad for the book describes it this way:
It includes simple age appropriate descriptions of sexual intercourse, donor insemination, In Vitro Fertilisation and Gamete Intra Fallopian Transfer, as well as pregnancy, birth, adoption, surrogacy, and same-sex parented families. A pioneering book when first published to wide acclaim in 1992, this new edition is now printed in full colour and includes updated content.
That's not how Focus on the Family, America's greatest source of disturbing press releases, sees it:
The controversial publication, Where Did I Really Come From?, also features a drawing of two gay men holding a baby, in a chapter about surrogacy.
The publisher's marketing spruiks the book, which includes in-depth descriptions of sexual intercourse, as suitable to be read to two-year-old children.
"It devalues the traditional family unit and at the very least desensitises us," Focus On The Family spokeswoman Deb Sorensen said.
In a chapter on assisted conception, the book tells children: "Sometimes, a woman really wants to have a baby but she doesn't want to have intercourse with a man. Some women want to bring up a baby by themselves, or with another woman, so the baby gets two mums.
"A woman may go to a doctor who will arrange to get some sperm for her, or a special man she knows may agree to give her some of his sperm."
The book was... relaunched by Learn to Include [publisher of books with positive gay characters and messages.]
Learn to Include's website says the book's "simple, non-judgmental explanations of sexual intercourse, assisted conception, pregnancy, birth, adoption and surrogacy are "suitable for 2-12 year olds". [News.com.au]
The best part of this entire book are these lines:
A woman and a man hug and caress each other, and the woman accepts the man's penis into her vagina. After a while lots of sperm come out of his penis and into her vagina.
Of course, the book does not get into what happens when the man cannot make sperm come out of his penis. Because that would be too much for a two-year-old's brain to process.
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