Smut

Smut!

Give me smut and nothing but

A dirty novel I can't shut

If it's uncut

And unsubt-

le

I thrill

To any book like "Fanny Hill"

And I suppose I always will

If it is swill

And really fil-

thy

Oh, smut!

I'm a market they can't glut

I don't know what

Compares with smut

Hip-hip-hooray

Don't let them take it away.

That's a bit of a sarcastic song by Tom Lehrer, written about forty years ago. I recalled it last night as I was making the last sweep of the evening through the library where I work, and spied a novel called "Italian Stallions" on our new releases shelf. Curiously, I opened it to a random page and read two sentences, in which a young woman was inviting a man to "pop her cherry."

I was frankly embarrassed and put it back on the shelf. 

I don't think of myself as a  prude, and I am fervently against censorship. There is a place for such books, and I've read some of them during my life. I agree with the psychologists and sociologists who say that pornography can actually prevent sex crimes by providing a kind of pressure release valve for potential rapists and molesters. Also, some books that look at sex graphically have important literary value. Another verse of the Tom Lehrer song I quoted at the beginning of this post refers to "Lady Chatterley's Lover," by D.H. Lawrence, one of the more important writers of the twentieth century.

But in the public library, accessible to children and adolescents? I really have a problem with that. Library policy, by the way, is that we don't evaluate or censor what patrons want to borrow. When I issue a library card to a child, I often mention that it's up to the parent to monitor what the young person checks out, not up to the librarians.

Currently, the "Fifty Shades. . ." trilogy has been at the top of the best seller lists and our  library stocks all three volumes. Strictly to stay au courant, I read most of the first book, and found it just awful. The writing was a cut above romance novels and most dirty books, but the subject matter - sadism and masochism - left me disgusted. 

In a country of over 300 million people, there's probably nothing that doesn't happen from time to time. I'm sure there are hugely rich young men who have such psychological problems that they derive pleasure from inflicting pain on women, and women who are willing to take the pain to be close to their abusers. Some people, both male and female, get pleasure from pain. What troubles me so much about these books is that it suggests such things are the normal activities of the sexual world. Impressionable young people might get the idea that women generally take gratification from pain, and that the only  way a woman can attract or keep the interest of a man is to accept his abuse.  

My point here, and I do have one,  is that what for years was considered smut has gone mainstream. I don't mind that, in fact think that there's an important place for sexually explicit writing, but that the public library isn't it.