After a sometimes graphic debate, Texas House advances bill limiting kids’ access to sexually explicit books in libraries

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A debate in the Texas House over whether to limit children's access to books with sexually explicit material in libraries turned heated and philosophical Friday: What's the definition of sexual conduct? How should teens learn about sex? Are classics like The Bluest Eye and Madame Bovary explicit?

“This is a simple bill intended to protect our Texas kids,” Rep. Daniel Alders, R-Tyler and author of House Bill 3225, said on Friday. “This bill addresses a real issue that we have seen in our public libraries across the state, and it does so in a way that is reasonable as well as effective. It’s not a complicated bill. It shouldn’t be controversial.”

Nearly two hours of debate following the bill’s layout stood to differ.

Democrats lined up one after another, offering numerous amendments and rebuttals to argue that the bill was too sweeping and would restrict teenagers from accessing books that could help them make sense of typical teenage tribulations — from puberty and relationships to sex and masturbation.

“You are conflating sexually explicit or dangerous conduct with basic health information for puberty, which hits people in their early teen years,” Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, said in opposition to the proposal.

House Bill 3225 would require public libraries to require parental consent for anyone under 18 to check out books deemed to contain “sexually explicit” material. The bill defines such material as depicting “sexual conduct,” which includes “actual or simulated sexual intercourse,” “masturbation,” and “sado-masochistic abuse.”

The bill allows for a civil penalty up to $10,000 to be imposed on libraries that do not comply, and it tasks the Texas State Library and Archives Commission with establishing guidelines for libraries to annually review their collections.

The House preliminarily passed the bill, 82 to 53, on a largely party line vote. The measure is part of a broader effort by state leaders to more tightly control the books put in public libraries and remove sexually explicit literature. Critics have argued the efforts target books that explore themes of gender and sexuality, and that center LGBTQ characters and people of color.

After one more vote in the House, usually a formality, the bill will move on to the Senate.

Books that could fall under the bill’s definition of “sexually explicit” include classics and common high school reading including Wuthering Heights, The Lord of the Rings, As I Lay Dying and Catch-22, Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, said. (The bill maintains an exception for “religious materials.”)

She emphasized the value of teens reading and engaging with stories that covered topics like puberty and sex, and argued that public libraries were a preferable site to social media for teens to learn about those topics.

“It is actually incredibly valuable for our young people to have the opportunity to enter the lives and experiences of others, to figure out how they feel about some of these things,” Zwiener said. “Reading a book about another 16-year-old who is making a decision about whether or not to have sex helps that minor who’s reading that book make a good decision.”

She offered an amendment to lower the bill’s age restrictions to apply only to those under 13 years old. Lawmakers rejected the amendment, 86 to 58.

“We all know that the five-year-old and the 17-year-old are very different,” Zwiener said. “Teenagers have a different experience. They need access to different information. Being minors does not prevent them from potentially ending up in a sexual situation.”

Republicans said that the bill would not regulate the kinds of information young people could access, and simply seeks to give that ability to parents. More importantly, they argued, the bill would protect children from unwittingly encountering explicit material.

“It’s important that we protect our kids in the state of Texas and ensure that they can access the books in their public library for their benefit, for their good,” Alders said, “and are not confronted unknowingly with material that is going to potentially traumatize them for the rest of their life.”

Democrats said they agreed that children should be protected from pornographic material, and noted that it is already illegal to share pornography with minors.

But the bill, they argued, was misguided and overly broad. And they worried it could functionally lead public libraries to deny teens access to any book outside the children’s section.

“The over sexualization of children is a problem — but it ain’t happening in your public libraries,” Johnson said, adding that she felt like she was in the movie, “Footloose.”

Libraries are “a healthy place of education,” she said. “And for all these parents that always say, ‘I don’t want my kid to get access to this information,’ — I promise you, they are getting access to the information. And the ones you should not be afraid of are the books that are in your public library.”

The debate itself grew personal and graphic at times, with Johnson pressing Alders on the definitions of “sexual bestiality” and “sado-masochistic abuse,” and on when he, as a teenage boy decades ago, first learned about masturbation.

“Masturbation. Do we know about it?” Johnson said. Alders denied that it was a tenant of standard health education.

“Masturbation is not basic teenage health? Do you really, as a young man, want to describe to me when you had to learn about that?” Johnson said. “I would bet, at some point, you as a young man needed to have the discussion with somebody about what masturbation meant.”

“That’s not a question I expected to be asked on the House floor,” Alders said.

Zwiener, advocating for her amendment lowering the age restriction to those under 13, shared that she was sexually assaulted at 17 years old — and reflected on the difference a book mirroring her experience could have made.

“The right book might have helped me figure out that I didn't make a mistake — that somebody wronged me — much earlier,” she said. She highlighted a scene in The Perks of Being A Wallflower, a young adult novel, in which a young man witnesses a sexual assault at a party and understands that something wrong is happening.

“That’s a scene that encourages our teenagers to intervene if they see sexual assault occurring,” she said. “It is a scene that encourages teenagers to be mindful of consent when they’re in situations with each other, and it’s a scene that helps victims of sexual assault understand it’s not their fault. Our teenagers should have access to books that help them learn those lessons, regardless of whether or not their parent will sign a permission slip.”

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