''Show Me!'' is a

sex education Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, Human sexual activity, sexual activity, sexual reproduction, safe sex, birth ...

book by photographer Will McBride. It appeared in 1974 in German under the title ''Zeig Mal!'', written with

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

Helga Fleischhauer-Hardt for children and their parents. It was translated into English a year later and was widely available in bookstores on both sides of the Atlantic for many years, but later became subject to expanded

child pornography Child pornography (also abbreviated as CP, also called child porn or kiddie porn, and child sexual abuse material, known by the acronym CSAM (underscoring that children can not be deemed willing participants under law)), is Eroticism, erotic ma ...

laws in jurisdictions including the United States. In Germany, the book was followed in 1990 by a second edition that included, among other additions, a discussion of the

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

epidemic.

Publication history

While many parents appreciated ''Show Me!'' for its frank depiction of pre-adolescents discovering and exploring their

sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...

, others called it

. In 1975 and 1976,

obscenity An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin , , "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Generally, the term can be used to indicate strong moral ...

charges were brought against the publisher or booksellers by prosecutors in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

, and

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, Canada. In all four cases, the judges ruled as a matter of law that the title was not

obscene An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin , , "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Generally, the term can be used to indicate strong moral ...

. However, starting in 1977, some states began to criminalize the distribution of even ''non-obscene'' so-called "child pornography," or "images of abuse," which arguably is not protected by the First Amendment.

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

State, home of the publisher,

St. Martin's Press St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan in New York City. It is headquartered in the Equitable Building (New York City), Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishe ...

, criminalized the distribution of non-obscene "child pornography" in 1977, but the publisher promptly went to court and obtained an

injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable rem ...

against the State. The court granted the injunction because the

First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

was interpreted to permit the banning of only obscene material. In 1982, the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

issued a decision, '' New York v. Ferber'', which allowed the government to constitutionally ban the knowing distribution of even non-obscene "child pornography". Citing a

chilling effect In a legal context, a chilling effect is the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights by the threat of legal sanction. A chilling effect may be caused by legal actions such as the passing of a law, th ...

, St. Martin's Press then pulled the book, stating that though they believed ''Show Me!'' was not

pornographic Pornography (colloquially called porn or porno) is sexually suggestive material, such as a picture, video, text, or audio, intended for sexual arousal. Made for consumption by adults, pornographic depictions have evolved from cave paintings ...

, they could no longer afford the legal expenses to defend it, and they did not want to risk criminal prosecutions of their own personnel and/or vendors who sold the book. The Court overruled a decision of the

New York Court of Appeals The New York Court of Appeals is the supreme court, highest court in the Judiciary of New York (state), Unified Court System of the New York (state), State of New York. It consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeal ...

, ''The People v. Paul Ira Ferber

which held that First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the First Amendment protected the dissemination of non-obscene sexual depictions. ''Show Me!'' was not the direct subject of the ''Ferber'' case, but the book was prominently featured by both sides in the litigation, and it played a significant role in the

oral argument Oral arguments are spoken presentations to a judge or appellate court by a lawyer (or parties when representing themselves) of the legal reasons why they should prevail. Oral argument at the appellate level accompanies written briefs, which also ...

before the

. In its country of origin, Germany, the book first won several awards, even from church organisations, but due to rising pressure from a newly arising "moral majority" the publishers and McBride decided to take it off the market in 1996. By then over one million copies in seven languages had been sold. It was never officially banned in Germany. Public libraries there keep it on hand and out of print copies are openly sold at collectors' premium prices. In New Zealand the book was banned by the

Indecent Publications Tribunal The Indecent Publications Tribunal was a government censorship organisation that operated in New Zealand from 1964 until 1993. It was established under the Indecent Publications Act 1963 and consisted of five members, with one a High Court barris ...

in 1976. The ban was upheld in 1996.

Critical reception

''Show Me!'' received mixed reviews from the mass media when it was first published. The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' called the photographs "beautiful...graceful, charming, and elegant," yet accurately predicted, in a severe understatement of what actually happened, that the book "may start (an) uproar." The ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', on the other hand, described the photographs as "beautiful, assaultive, grotesque, and seductive," and concluded that ''Show Me!'' was only suited for "avant garde" parents. Reviewer Linda Wolfe was more hostile in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', calling the book a "child-abusive joke". The 13-year-old daughter of ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

'' reviewer Carol Kleiman stated: "I'm too old for it myself. The last part, though, with no pictures, looks interesting to read. The book is good for little kids because they don't know what society terms 'dirty' yet. You know, Mom, it's PARENTS I'm worried about. ''They're'' not ready yet."

Recent reviews

A 2005 Amazon review by Dr. Russell A. Rohde claims that the book, "appropriately delves into the issues of breast feeding, adolescence, pubertal changes, menses, sexual anatomies, pregnancy, masturbation, contraception, sexual behavioral disturbances and venereal disease. ..I am not aware of any book comparable to this illustrated primer that fills the needs of sexual education so well." D. F. Janssen places it at the one extreme of a late 20th-century visual and textual revolution that enabled parents to illustrate information that up to that time had been transmitted orally. He sees the work as subversive not for its "too frank" portrayal of childhood sexuality, but instead for the primacy that the image takes over the text. In his eyes, the work "comes out of a culture with a long history of pathologising so-addressed '

primal scene In psychoanalysis, the primal scene () is the theory of the initial unconscious fantasy of a child of a sex act, between the parents, that organises the psychosexual development of that child. The expression "primal scene" refers to the sight of ...

s,'" a history that became manifest in particular with regard to the works of Will McBride. The book is analyzed in an article on "Picturing Sex Education" (Discourse Volume 27, Number 4 / December 2006). In 2016,

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

PhD. Brett L. Lunceford, an independent researcher in the field of

Rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...

Sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...

and

Gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

, wrote an article ''«Mommy and Daddy Were Married, and Other Creation Myths in Children’s Books About Sex»'', published in ''«The Rhetorical Power of Children's Literature»'', with a review of few children's books about sex. Among them,

Peter Mayle Peter Mayle ( "mail"; 14 June 1939 – 18 January 2018) was a British businessman turned author who moved to France in the 1980s. He wrote a series of bestselling memoirs of his life there, beginning with '' A Year in Provence'' (1989). Early l ...

's ' compared versus Will McBride's ''«Show Me!»'', highlighting issues and good sides of each book in textual part and in visual illustration. Lunceford resumed his article stating that ''“the children's books that children read help to shape the world in which they eventually live”''.

Bibliographic details

# 1974: ''Zeig mal. Ein Bilderbuch für Kinder und Eltern'' Foreword by Helmut Kentler. Wuppertal: Jugenddienst. # 1975: ''Show Me!: A Picture Book of Sex for Children and Parents'' St. Martin's Press. # 1975: ''Laat 's zien!: een fotoboek over sex voor kinderen en ouders'' Amsterdam: Kosmos. # 1978: ''Fais voir ! Un livre illustré sur la sexualité'' Montreal: Quinze. # 1979: ''Fammi Vedere! un libro fotografico di educazione sessuale non conformista per bambini e grandi'' Perugia: Savelli # 1979: ''¡A ver!: un libro de imágenes para niños y padres'' Salamanca: Lóguez Ediciones. # 1981: ''Få se: seksualopplysning i tekst og bilder for barn og foreldre'' Oslo: Aschehoug i samarbeid med Hverdag. # 1990: ''Zeig mal. Ein Bilderbuch für Kinder und Eltern'' (2nd. ed.) 195 p. Wuppertal: Hammer. # 1990: ''Ukaž mi to! : Mezinárodní osvětová obrázková kniha pro děti a rodiče s informací o AIDS'', translated by Jiří Kostelecký, Czech introduction by Jiří Raboch, 1st. ed., 199 p., Praha : Kredit ; Wuppertal : Peter Hammer, 1990, , 20.000 copies # 1995: ''Zeig Mal Mehr'' (5 ed.). 176 p. Beltz.

References

External links

Show Me!
(book reader's reviews) on

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