The Neighborhood Pornucopia

There was a man who confessed he had become a habitual consumer of Internet pornography in his early teens. With self-disgust and embarrassment, he spoke of his machinations to avoid detection by others, and how he would quickly conceal his activities when others wandered within eyesight of his computer monitor. Even by young adulthood he had not entirely kicked the vice.

This is a sadly common story in our time, but his account has a twist: His first Internet connection was supported by taxpayer money.

You see, the young man habituated himself to this vice courtesy of the computers at the public library.

This unsettling story came to mind when I discovered an internal staff newsletter for my county’s public library system, which included an uneasy plea from a librarian about patrons viewing pornographic material on the public computers. She reported increasing complaints about such behavior and expressed her discomfort about being around sexually aroused men. She asked, with good reason:

Why must staff and patrons (some young adults and preteens) be forced to accept in their midst sexually aroused individuals who come to the library specifically to attain that level of arousal via Internet porn? This behavior is not socially acceptable in any other public venue.

The poor librarian concluded: “This is not a question of censorship but one of patron and staff safety.”

Her superior’s response is an exemplar of consistency taken to an absurdity. The administrator, also a woman, reiterated library policy requiring “privacy screens” in the event of complaints. These screens conceal the monitor’s display to everyone but the user sitting directly in front.

The administrator urged the librarian to take a professional attitude toward disturbing patrons, quoting library policy word for word: “Because the library offers such a broad window on the world of ideas, it is almost inevitable that some of these ideas will be shocking, offensive, or disagreeable to both library staff and patrons.” The precise ideas at issue are unclear.

While acknowledging that library rules forbid overt sexual conduct from patrons, the administrator insisted sexual arousal does not violate regulations: “We offer lots of materials that patrons might use to arouse themselves; they range from romance novels to photographic works,” she writes. Even in context, this reads more like a recommendation than anything else.

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