The Most Ridiculous Book Ban Yet

"Anal plugs!” thunders North Dakota Republican Rep. Bernie Satrom. “Anal sex. Mutual masturbation. Rimming!” He’s just issued a rare warning in the North Dakota House chamber: “To anyone listening at home with children, you might want to turn off the sound.” A small child is sitting in spitting distance, and a group of high school students (who are, predictably, losing their shit at all this) are seated a few rows behind me in the House balcony. Satrom is reading from Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human, a work of graphic nonfiction for teens. He’s making the case that this sex-ed book and others like it aren’t educational but pornographic and should therefore be banned from public libraries. It’s easy to imagine an irate group of parents, backed by Moms for Liberty or one of many similar organizations, discovering that an objectionable book exists in their community. Then they storm a school-board meeting or a children’s story hour at a public library and demand its removal. That’s not what happened in North Dakota. [View in Browser]( [Esquire]( [SHOP]( EXCLUSIVE [SUBSCRIBE]( [Inside The Battle For North Dakota’s Bookshelves]( [Inside The Battle For North Dakota’s Bookshelves]( "Anal plugs!” thunders North Dakota Republican Rep. Bernie Satrom. “Anal sex. Mutual masturbation. Rimming!” He’s just issued a rare warning in the North Dakota House chamber: “To anyone listening at home with children, you might want to turn off the sound.” A small child is sitting in spitting distance, and a group of high school students (who are, predictably, losing their shit at all this) are seated a few rows behind me in the House balcony. Satrom is reading from Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human, a work of graphic nonfiction for teens. He’s making the case that this sex-ed book and others like it aren’t educational but pornographic and should therefore be banned from public libraries. It’s easy to imagine an irate group of parents, backed by Moms for Liberty or one of many similar organizations, discovering that an objectionable book exists in their community. Then they storm a school-board meeting or a children’s story hour at a public library and demand its removal. That’s not what happened in North Dakota. [Read More](   [24 Deals You Can Already Shop at Wayfair's Way Day Sale]( [24 Deals You Can Already Shop at Wayfair's Way Day Sale]( Score before everyone else. [Read More]( [Fear of God's Jerry Lorenzo Has So Much More Up His Sleeve]( [Fear of God's Jerry Lorenzo Has So Much More Up His Sleeve]( Not long after his first fashion show in L.A., the designer offers a glimpse of what's next—including that Adidas collab. [Read More](     [Bob Parsons Knows What You're Thinking—and Actually...]( [Bob Parsons Knows What You're Thinking—and Actually...]( A few months ago, I took a trip to Los Angeles to play as much golf as I could squeeze into a week. Then it hailed. And then it rained—a lot. I traded a few tee times for reservations and used the time to ask a bunch of golf buddies what they thought about the brand PXG, one that most know from its big ads and bigger claims. I remember the early ads for PXG (which stands for Parsons Xtreme Golf) irons. It felt like they came out of nowhere, and I was conditioned to think anything that didn’t come from a golf brand of my dad’s era was some kind of scam. But they looked rich as hell, made to play in space. Bolder and more confident than the clubs’ aesthetic was founder Bob Parsons’ raspy, now-unmistakable voice. At the end of every spot, he grunts, “Nobody makes golf clubs the way we do. Period.” It's why earlier this year at Scottsdale National, while the brand unveiled its Gen6 family of clubs and SS23 apparel, I was so eager to ask Parsons about golf's politically charged civil war, what he thinks playing PXG says about someone, and why he actually traded Trump for a straight Democrat ticket in the last midterms. [Read More](   [Lucinda Williams Has Another Story to Tell: Her Own]( [Lucinda Williams Has Another Story to Tell: Her Own]( “I've always been a proponent of dealing with stuff that's taboo, to talk about what nobody wants to discuss,” the singer and songwriter tells Esquire. [Read More]( [J. Crew Just Slashed Its Sale Section an Extra 60%]( [J. Crew Just Slashed Its Sale Section an Extra 60%]( Oxfords, rugby shirts, and sweaters, oh my. [Read More](     [The Last Campaign of Joe Biden's Life Has Begun]( [The Last Campaign of Joe Biden's Life Has Begun]( So the president's re-election campaign began on Tuesday with the dawn. He released a video, which is the way you do things these days, I guess. It restates the themes from his 2020 campaign — "fighting for the soul of America" and all that. The video begins with scenes of the Capitol riot — which, it should be recalled, happened after the 2020 fight for America's soul allegedly was over. [Read More](   [ESQ 1933 Jewelry]( Follow Us [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Notice/Notice at Collection]( esquire.com ©2023 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019