Virginia Beach City Middle Schools Keep Book Teaching Masturbation in Library

"Sex Is a Funny Word" in the juvenile section of Patrick Henry Library, a Fairfax County Public Library, in Vienna, Va., on Oct. 4, 2022. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va.—Virginia Beach City Public Schools have decided to keep a book teaching masturbation and gender identity in its middle school libraries. While the book was in two middle school libraries when it was challenged in July, a third middle school has acquired it and featured it in the recently added books collection.

The book “Sex Is a Funny Word: A Book About Bodies, Feelings, and You,” written by Cory Silverberg and illustrated by Fiona Smyth, includes images of a child touching herself in the bathtub.

“You may have discovered that touching some parts of your body, especially in the middle parts, can make you feel warm and tingly. Grown-ups call this kind of touch masturbation,” says the book. It also mentions specific body parts for the performance of masturbation.

The author offers virtual and in-person book talks and school visits for children of primary and middle school ages, according to his website. He is also a founding member of a sex shop co-operative in Toronto. The shop’s website stated it has a “fundamentally anti-capitalist and feminist approach to sexual pleasure, health, and education.” The Epoch Times has reached out to Silverberg for comment.

The book also encourages children to explore their gender identity, saying that sex at birth doesn’t address the “whole body.”

A page about gender identity in "Sex Is a Funny Word." Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

Book Challenge

Virginia Beach City school board member Victoria Manning submitted a challenge in July, asking the school district to reevaluate “Sex Is a Funny Word” due to its masturbation and sexuality content.

Kipp Rogers, chief academic officer at Virginia Beach City Public Schools, informed Manning on Sept. 21 that the school district decided to keep the book in middle school libraries. Rogers said the book was an optional choice for students and won national awards. The book was among the American Library Association’s top ten choices in 2016 and won an LGBTQ book award in the same year.

Further, he said the book was “inclusive.” “For example, drawings include children with disabilities and children with different body types,” he wrote.

The letter also said that the parent reviewer on the committee thought the book was “informative” and “liked the questions at the end of each chapter as they provide topics for students to discuss with their parents or guardians.”

According to Rogers’s letter, the committee was composed of a student, parent, school-based staff, and central support staff.

Bayside and Corporate Landing Middle Schools had the book when Manning submitted her challenge in July. Now a third school, Larkspur Middle School, has acquired the same book. Lisa Castellano, library media specialist at the school, didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

Victoria Manning, at-large board member of the Virginia Beach City Public Schools, in Virginia Beach, Va., on Aug. 30, 2022. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

Manning told The Epoch Times her reason for filing the challenge: “I want reasonable restrictions that provide age-appropriate materials in our schools. Sexually explicit content should not be recommended or provided to minors, at least not without parental consent.”

“There are restrictions on what types of movies can be shown to minors. Yet children are provided with these extremely explicit and pornographic materials without their parent’s permission,” she added.

The Epoch Times has contacted the Virginia Beach City Public Schools for comment. As the fourth-largest school district in the state and the largest outside northern Virginia, Virginia Beach City lists 63,675 students and over 80 schools, including 15 middle schools.

‘Teach My Kid the Basics,’ Not Masturbation

Lindsey has three children studying in the Virginia Beach City school district. Her son, the middle of the three, is a middle schooler. She doesn’t want to disclose her last name for fear of being doxed.

“Teach my kid English, math, science, the basics. I don’t need you to teach my kid how to masturbate or how to have anal sex,” she said about the school. “That’s not something I send my kid to school for.”

According to Lindsey, parents who want to teach moral values to their children are already battling with social media and other influences their children are exposed to. And to walk into a middle school library and find sexually explicit books is deeply disturbing to her.

“We have a right to know what is going to be shaping the minds of our kids,” she told The Epoch Times. She emphasized that she wasn’t a book banner; she didn’t believe the book was appropriate for public schools.

A middle school teacher who has taught for 30 years, 22 of which have been in the Virginia Beach City Public Schools, echoed Lindsey’s sentiment. This year, she teaches 120 students social studies and English, two subjects “hit hard by inappropriate materials or subject matters,” according to her.

“Parents should feel confident that when they send their children to school, it is a safe place. As teachers and as adults in the lives of children, we all have a responsibility to be a gatekeeper preventing harm,” she commented on the condition of anonymity, for fear of losing her job.

“Unfortunately, many administrative officials and school board members are allowing adult materials into the schools, which is why school board elections are more important now than ever,” she told The Epoch Times.

A 2017 study by researchers at the Pennsylvania State University discovered negative outcomes associated with early sex initiation, defined as having sex at age 14 or younger. These outcomes included a two to three times higher chance of getting sexually transmitted diseases and experiencing symptoms of depression in young adulthood.

And a 2020 study (pdf) by the Department of Health and Human Services identified exposure to sexually explicit media as a risk factor for early sex initiation. Protecting factors include connectedness to parents, parental monitoring, and parental values that disapprove of adolescent sex.

Virginia enacted a new law in April that requires public schools to notify parents if sexually explicit content is included in any instructional materials. School boards must adopt the state Department of Education’s model policies or a more extended version by Jan. 1, 2023.

However, library books are considered resources and not instructional materials unless used in school assignments or projects.

According to the Virginia code, “sexually explicit content” is any description or visual representation of “sexual excitement, sexual conduct or sadomasochistic abuse.”