Massachusetts school district promotes book telling students how to use gay sex apps
WARNING: The following article contains sexually explicit content
A book available to students of a public school district in Massachusetts includes instructions on how to use online sex apps, drawing the ire of online critics as debate about the content accessible to students in public schools continues to loom large in American politics.
The Twitter account LibsofTikTok published a tweet Monday reporting that the book titled This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson is "proudly displayed" at a school within the Newburyport Public School District in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
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The Christian Post reached out to Newburyport Public Schools for comment. A response was not received by press time.
A photograph posted with the tweet showed This Book is Gay on a bookshelf at an undisclosed location underneath a poster advertising "Banned Books Week." The initiative is backed by the American Library Association in response to an increase in attempts to ban books from schools that critics contend are sexually explicit.
The pornographic book “This Book is Gay” is proudly displayed in @NBPTDistrict. The book teaches kids how to have sex and use sex apps. pic.twitter.com/CFBJ68lTlo
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 19, 2022
A screenshot of the book accompanying the tweet shows a section titled "How sex apps work."
The book informs readers that after they "upload a tiny pic of [themselves] to the app," the app "works out your location" and "tells you who the nearest homosexuals are." From there, users can "chat to them," with the book stressing that "because they are near, it's easy to meet up with them."
LibsofTikTok's Twitter thread about the book includes a screenshot from Chapter 9, "The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex." The first page of the chapter notes that "this chapter is about sex" and urges those who "aren't ready for the finer details of same-sex pairings" to skip the chapter.
The book laments that schools "taught you all about straight sex when you were TEN YEARS OLD" and maintains "the fact that they didn't also teach you what same-sex couples do is nothing less than institutionalised homophobia."
"Straight sex was presented as the norm to make five per cent of the population feel abnormal," the book states. "This chapter is simply all the stuff teachers SHOULD be saying if they want to be inclusive of people with same-sex" attraction.
An additional page of the book shared by LibsofTikTok showed the author telling readers not to use vaseline and baby oil in conjunction with condoms during gay sex and referring to anal sex as "bum fun." The book contends that some gay men don't like the sexual act because "it's the hole poo comes out of."
The page transitions from talking about sex between men to "girl-on-girl sex," detailing how "two women can pleasure each other in a variety of fun ways" and suggesting that "a hand can do the job of five penises in one."
LibsofTikTok provided a link to the entire text of the book, warning that "it gets much worse."
While the school district didn't respond to CP's request for comment, Newburyport School Superintendent Sean Gallagher confirmed to The Newburyport Daily News that the book is available in a school library. In an earlier interview with The Daily News, Gallagher said that parents have the right to petition for a book to be removed from circulation and need to submit the proper paperwork.
The inclusion of This Book Is Gay has drawn the ire of the Newburyport-based grassroots coalition Citizens for Responsible Education, which warns that the book is also available for download on an ebook app that allows kids access using their school computer logins without parental knowledge or permission.
"Page 156 of 'This Book is Gay' gives your teenager instructions on how to use sex apps," the organization wrote in a Facebook post. "
A story published on the website Mass Resistance last year contains additional snapshots of the book, which includes a claim that homosexual men have bigger genitalia than their heterosexual counterparts.
In addition to including graphic pictures of male and female anatomy illustrating which parts "FEEL NICE" when touched, the book provides instructions on how to engage in anal and oral sex and give "handies."
A summary compiled by Amazon characterizes This Book is Gay as an "instruction manual" for LGBT people to read after they "come out."
It explicitly highlights the presence of a section dedicated to "the ins and outs of gay sex." LibsofTikTok's post about the presence of This Book is Gay in Newburyport Public Schools came on the second day of Banned Books Week, which organizers describe as "an annual event celebrating the freedom to read."
Characterizing itself as a "response to the sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries," Banned Books Week serves as a collaboration of "the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular."
This Book is Gay is one of the top 10 challenged books of 2021, as identified by Banned Books Week. Two of the other books on the list, Gender Queer and Lawn Boy, have also garnered national attention not only for their graphic depictions of sex but for the promotion of sex between men and boys.
The Banned Books Week website asserted that both books were "banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content" and because they were "considered to have sexually explicit images," not mentioning the concerns about pedophilia.
Last year, Stacy Langton, whose son attends Fairfax High School just outside Washington, D.C., appeared at a Fairfax County School Board meeting to express outrage over the presence of the two books in high school libraries throughout the largest school district in Virginia. She noted, "One book describes a fourth-grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male," while "the other book has detailed illustrations of a man having sex with a boy."
"The illustrations include fellatio, sex toys, masturbation and violent nudity," she added. "Pornography is offensive to all people; it is offensive to common decency."
Concerns about sexually explicit material in school libraries and curricula, as well as some schools embracing elements of critical race theory, have led to the creation of several advocacy groups.
Such organizations include Parents Defending Education, a "national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists promoting harmful agendas," and the 1776 Project PAC, which supports "school board candidates that vow to overturn any teaching of the 1619 Project or critical race theory in their school districts."
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
