FL: New Puritanism vs. An Old Puritan

The Orlando Sentinel took on the arduous task of rooting through the list of Naughty Books that Orange County Schools pulled from both libraries and classroom collections, in order to comply with new Florida laws HB 1069 and 1467) that seek to eradicate all books with "sexual conduct" and the list of 673 works is something else. 

The law requires media specialists to check every book and holds them responsible for every naughty book that gets past them. The state did offer some training, in which they reminded these specialists that they could face criminal penalties and loss of license if they approve an "inappropriate book."

As Florida has well-established, vague law + severe penalties = super-chilling effect. It is unsurprising that media specialists went hard against books that depict sexual conduct in any way shape and form. It has been the pattern across the state, like the district that yanked "In The Night Kitchen" because it has a picture of a little boy's bare butt (great book, in which Maurice Sendak pays homage to Winsor McKay's classic Little Nemo comic strip). Or the district that didn't even wait for books to be challenged, but just pulled them if they'd heard other districts had pulled them.

One of Orange County's board members is Alicia Farrant, who ran for office as an advocate for "medical choice, parental rights and restoring morality & standards." She's also a Moms For Liberty and Florida Freedom Keepers member, and she was on stage with Ron DeSantis when he signed HB 1467. On that occasion she spoke out fiercely against "pornographic and sexually explicit" books.

The problem, of course, is that Florida (and other states) have gone way beyond "pornographic and sexually explicit." Not only have they gone way beyond that, but they've done it in broad and vague terms then thrown in large penalties to encourage schools to pull a huge number of questionable choices.

Farrant herself criticized a school district's choice to yank "No, David!" by David Shannon.

“We can’t be living in a state of fear and removing every single book,” Farrant said. “I don’t like the book,” she said of “No, David!,” by David Shannon, “but a book like that shouldn’t be removed because a kid is running down the street with his butt showing.”

But that's pretty much what the law demands a school do. What does the law actually say? In 2023-105 we find that it's a school board's duty to provide every "parent or resident" the opportunity to "proffer evidence" that a work violates one of several strictures, including that it 

Depicts or describes sexual conduct as defined in s. 847.001(19),

 And 847.001(19) defines sexual conduct:

“Sexual conduct” means actual or simulated sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality, masturbation, or sadomasochistic abuse; actual or simulated lewd exhibition of the genitals; actual physical contact with a person’s clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if such person is a female, breast with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of either party; or any act or conduct which constitutes sexual battery or simulates that sexual battery is being or will be committed. 

You'd think that would rule out "No, David," but would you be willing to bet your career that no parent or resident will come after you over the book? 

The rule aims right at Gender Queer, the book conservatives want to get rid of with fire. And it aims at popular fiction like John Green and Stephen King books. But it also takes us into a dicey grey area. Yes, East of Eden by John Steinbeck and The World According to Garp by John Irving both definitely have some sex in them, but it exists in service of the characters and the story. Yes, Toni Morrison books include sex, but none of it is titillating and all of it serves the work of literature. 

Slaughterhouse Five keeps turning up on these lists, though all it includes is a crude drawing of breasts and some reference to sex without depiction. And then these lists just get nuts. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? Jude the Obscure? Brave New World? Ayn Rand's decidedly unappealing opaque depictions of hate sex? All on the list.

The fear-fueled vagaries of Florida law have taken us from "pornography" to "any depiction of sexual conduct" to "any book that depicts a world in which we are somehow led to believe that sex sometimes occurs."

But no book on this list better captures just how far off the deep end they've gone than John Milton's Paradise Lost. Milton was born at the beginning of the 17th century (just as Shakespeare was shuffling off this mortal coil), which put him in the right place and time to be part of the great revolution, that moment in which conservative Protestants overthrew the monarchy and replaced it, eventually, with Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. Milton was a big fan, and his religious writings were aimed at the newly purified protectorate.

Short form: John Milton was an actual Puritan. The modern fans of puritanical suppression have suppressed an actual Puritan.

Is there sexual conduct in Paradise Lost? Well, yes. Here are some hot Adam and Eve samples. First, before The Fall:

Handed they went; and eased the putting off
Those troublesome disguises which we wear,
Straight side by side were laid; nor turned, I ween,
Adam from his fair spouse, nor Eve the rites
Mysterious of connubial love refused

Then, after The Fall:

Carnal desire enflaming; he on Eve

Began to cast lascivious eyes, she him

As wantonly repaid; in lust they burn

Till Adam thus ‘gan Eve to dalliance move

Pretty hot stuff. There's some other stuff as well. Satan has sex with himself, giving birth to Sin, who is raped by her son, Death. All in prose nearly impenetrable to the average high school student and all with the intent of explaining the ways of God to humankind. And all contributing to a minor message in the work, which is that sex without God is Bad Stuff. 

We could argue the various merits of these works all day and then spend the night questioning the goals of these sorts of laws. But these growing lists, with their increasingly absurd reach, are a reminder of one important factor.

It's never enough.

There will never be a point where these modern puritans will say, "Yes, that's good enough. We can stop trying to root out Naughty Books because I think we've done enough." They will never stop on their own, never be satisfied, never stop searching for the next Most Dirty Book that might be out there. To expect that they will simply subside is a pipe dream. As long as nobody is standing up to them or stopping them, they will simply keep whittling away (or creating situations in which someone else is motivated to whittle for them) until there is nothing left.