from: http://www.cwfa.org/articles/477/CFI/cfreport/index.htm [removed as of 2016, perhaps earlier] Key Source in Levine Book Arrested on Child Porn Charge 7/25/2002 By Robert H. Knight Key Source in Levine Book Arrested on Child Porn Charge Lawrence Stanley: 'Harmful to Minors' in Brazil By Robert H. Knight A key source concerning child pornography in Judith Levine's controversial book Harmful to Minors has been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography in Brazil. Lawrence Stanley, 47, described by Levine as the author "of the most thorough research of child pornography in the 1980s," is in jail awaiting trial. He was also convicted in absentia by a Dutch court in 1998 for sexual abuse of three 7—to 10-year-old girls, according to a July 24 article by Robert Stacy McCain in The Washington Times. Stanley faces a three-year prison sentence if he returns to the Netherlands. Stanley is also wanted in Canada on charges of sexually assaulting a girl "under the age of 14," according to a wire services report in The Miami Herald. In Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (University of Minnesota Press, 2002), author Levine quotes Stanley several times, mostly to make the case that the threat of child pornography has been exaggerated. Levine cites Stanley's article in the September 1988 Playboy magazine titled "The Child-Porn Myth." She also cites a more detailed article by the same name that was published in the Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal in 1989. The book became controversial because it argues that sex does not harm children as long as the children consent, and contains numerous pedophile sources that are not identified as such. Rep. Tim Pawlenty (R), a Minnesota legislator who is now running for governor, called on the University of Minnesota to withdraw the book. The University appointed an "external review"committee to study the issue, but has not yet released a report, said Kathryn Grimes, spokeswoman for the University of Minnesota Press, in a voicemail message left for Culture & Family Report. As for the news about Stanley's arrest, she said, "We will bring the article in The Washington Times to Judith Levine's attention. That is our standard policy when we have any sort of question about an author's scholarship, that is something that we pass along to them. So we would not have any comment at this time." Meanwhile, the University Press has upped the press run to 10,000 to take advantage of the publicity. Levine and her supporters have fired back at critics, charging them with "censorship." Dr. Judith Reisman, who has tracked the pro-pedophile movement through her books on sex researcher Alfred C. Kinsey, said, "Stanley is a distinguished lecturer at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, the institution that claims to have trained roughly 100,000 persons including 'clergy' and other mental health professionals. The Institute also designed the pornographic SAR (Sexual Attitude Restructuring) curriculum adapted by some religious denominations as sex education and described by author Michael Rose as used to 'educate' Catholic clergy." Brazilian police arrested Stanley on June 8 at his home in Salvador, 750 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro. Shortly before the arrest, the Brazilian magazine Epocha had reported that Stanley had been photographing young girls in Brazil in provocative poses and marketing the pictures internationally. Police said many of the pictures wound up on Web sites that feature child pornography. Stanley, who defended the North American Man-Boy Love Association in a New York case, is publisher of Uncommon Desires, a newsletter with nude photos of underage girls. He also owns Alessandra's Smile, a company that sells "erotic material about girls," according to The Washington Times. Stanley was the lawyer in the 1991 child pornography case involving Stephen A. Knox in which the U.S. Justice Department under Janet Reno later attempted to narrow the definition of child pornography to nudity and lascivious poses. (Knox had been marketing up-close photos of clothed genital areas of girls unbeknownst to the girls.) The U.S. Senate voted unanimously to condemn the Justice Department's interpretation. Stanley criticized the "political imperatives" surrounding the case in a January 30, 1994, column in The Washington Post, and blamed "right-wing religious and anti-pornography activists" for "confusing libidinous thoughts with harmful acts of actual child abuse." In Harmful to Minors, Levine also cites numerous other pro-pedophile sources without identifying their background, such as Theo Sandfort, who has written on "intergenerational sex" for the Journal of Homosexuality and for Paidika: The Journal of Paeodophilia, published in the Netherlands. Sandfort is identified only as a "sociologist" and a "psychologist." The University of Minnesota Press, which has come under fire for publishing the Levine book, did not return phone calls before press time. The Press' mission statement says: "The University of Minnesota Press is a nonprofit scholarly publisher whose primary mission is to disseminate through book publication work of exceptional scholarly quality and originality." The Levine book jacket is featured on the Press' home page, along with an audio clip of Judith Levine addressing the topic of "censorship," and a Q&A with the author. Here are a couple of excerpts from the Q&A: "In our country, there are people pushing a conservative religious agenda that would deny minors all sexual information and sexual expression. They're the people behind abstinence-only education, the child-pornography laws that get people arrested for taking pictures of their babies in the bathtub, or laws that make abortion risky and traumatic for young women. These so-called protections are more harmful to minors than sex itself." "Should people be punished for molesting children? Absolutely. Anyone who forces sex on any person of any age should be punished. But we have moved beyond appropriate responses to serious offenses to hyperbolic responses to offenses with unproven harms, such as the assumed harm to a child of involuntarily glimpsing a penis, or reading sexy language online." "The fact is, most kids will say yes to sexuality at some point during their childhood or teenage years. Our choice as adults is whether or not we will help make those experiences safe, consensual, and happy." (Editor's note: On page 89, Levine endorses Holland's lowering of the age of consent to 12.) Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806