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Title: Deenie
Author: Judy Blume
Publication Info: Atheneum Books Jan 2003 (reissue)
ISBN: 0689866100
Genre: Top 100 Banned Books
Submitted by Smart Bitch Sarah
The reason the book is so often challenged is due to the scenes in which Deenie talks about massaging a “special spot,†and when her life gets stressful, she ends up rubbing that spot every night so she can get to sleep. Add to that a scene with a gym teacher giving very straight facts about periods, jilling off, and other touchy stuff and you have a book that gets a lot of knickers in a twist. And it’s a shame because the realism and thoughtfulness of Deenie is a potentially comforting read for many young women.
Deenie is not just about masturbation and menstruation, however, and sadly that’s lost in the protests. Deenie, whose mother wants to engineer a modeling career for her whether she likes it or not, is diagnosed with scoliosis and has to wear a Milwaukee brace to treat her spine. Deenie’s mother also lays the pressure on Deenie’s sister Helen, who, while not as stunning and beautiful as Deenie, is wicked smart, and of course should be a doctor or a lawyer.
Deenie is not a story about stoking your own fires at an early age. It’s a story about a girl whose defining characteristic, her beauty and physical perfection, is compromised by scoliosis and by having to wear a back brace, and who therefore has to figure out who she is and who she wants to be.
The masturbation scenes are a fraction of the story, and serve a logical purpose: to develop Deenie’s growing awareness of her own body, both in a sexual sense and a medical sense. She’s not in control of how her spine grows, but she is in control of her own self-pleasure and satisfaction. The scenes aren’t gratuitous in the least, and if the reader didn’t really know what masturbation was in the first place, it wouldn’t necessarily be obvious from the descriptions, either. I know whereof I speak: I read this book at an age when masturbation was unknown to me and I had no idea what Deenie was doing with that washcloth. I thought it was some sort of back rub.
The idea that this book is challenged so frequently makes me profoundly sad, because I never thought of it as “the masturbation book.†I thought of it as “the scoliosis book,†and it was certainly the only one I read that dealt with the subject. Isolating a book from a readership of women who already feel isolated because of a scene that comprises a tiny, tiny part of the entire narrative strikes me as unbelievably short-sighted, because I’d bet every last dollar I can tuck in a stripper’s g-string that those who protest are regular wankers themselves.
When I saw the title I though, “Deenie? The back brace book?” I couldn’t imagine why it was banned. I have minor scolios and had to wear a lift my whole life. I was always warned about what would happen if I didn’t…(ie I’d be Deenie.) Frankly, I don’t even remember the other parts. It’s crazy when a book gets banned for something so inconsequential.
All I remember about this book (and I could be remembering wrong) is that she was pissed that the brace got in the way of some guy feeling her up. Am I remembering that right? LOL
Apparently, when I read this I had no understanding of masturbation b/c I do not remember that at all.
*blink*
I remember that book. I remember the scoliosis. I don’t remember anything about masturbation.
Huh.
I have absolutely no recollection of mentions of masturbation, either—I thought of it as the back-brace book. Just goes to show how touchy some people can be, huh?
I do remember Forever—that was the book where—gasp!—they actually had sex. I remember my brother had a copy and he wouldn’t let me read it because he thought I was too young, so I nicked it when he wasn’t there, ha. Also, Tiger Eyes, which is apparently also on the list. I think I might have been thinking of that as the masturbation book. I know I was reading it when I was about ten or eleven and I took it to school for the morning reading period…and got asked to read it to my teacher. Thank God I read one of the acting scenes, because I know there was something I came across later that made me really glad I hadn’t been reading that bit when my teacher called me over.
And, OMG, I’ve just glanced at the list and Roald Dahl’s The Witches is on there? WTF? Who the hell challenged THAT?
Holy cow. I don’t remember the masturbation thing in this book at all. Just the back brace and the friend with the creeping crud.
That’s funny.
Another data point in the “I don’t remember the masturbation at all; to me it was the book about the girl dealing with scoliosis” column.
I know this is a review for Deenie which I read when I was really young and all I remember about it was being able to relate to Deenie in the sense of being forced or guided in a career direction I really didn’t want to go into.
Cat,
I think kafuffle about The Witches is more about Christianity vs. Paganism and as for James and the Giant Peach I think it had to do with the visual of the peach and the images that good bring up of female genitalia.
Masturbation, no way dude, I never knew. Loved this book. It rocked because she realized that her mother was more than a mom, she was a crazy lady who was in denial.
Since The Witches and James and the Giant Peach weren’t on “the short list” this year, I can’t say for certain, but most Dahl challenges seem to relate to encouraging children to defy authority figures.
Deenie is the one Judy Blume book I haven’t read. I’ll have to go check it out.
The only reason I knew there was masturbation was because my mom was reading it to me and she explained it to me. For me it was “the back brace book” too. 😀
those who protest are regular wankers themselves.
Ain’t that the truth!
I remember the masturbation part, but I know I read the book a number of times (I had a small permanent collection of books at home as a child, so I re-read books a lot when when I couldn’t get to a real library), so I may have noticed it in a later read.
I was mostly just horrified by the concept of that brace!
I remember the masturbation part, but I know I read the book a number of times (I had a small permanent collection of books at home as a child, so I re-read books a lot when when I couldn’t get to a real library), so I may have noticed it in a later read.
I was mostly just horrified by the concept of that brace!
add me to the “There Was More Than Scoliosis in Deenie?” group.
I need to go back and read this because I, too, thought of it as “the scoliosis book” and completely missed the masturbation element in it. The whole idea of banning books is crazy anyway, but for something as under the radar (to those of a certain age) as this? Ridiculous.
Interesting post. I will never forget “Deenie” and it has nothing to do with the masterbation scenes…in fact, I’d forgotten all about them. I read this book right at the time I was diagnosed with Scoliosis. And while mine wasn’t severe enough to put me in a brace, I could uniquely identify with Deenie and all that she had to go through.
And, yes, at the end there was a scene where she was at a party and the guy asked her to take the brace off so that he could feel her up.
It’s a damn good book!
I do remember the masturbation bit, but mostly because I didn’t get it at first either… I kept thinking “What special place is she talking about?”
But it really was a tiny part of the book. I can’t understand why anyone would have a problem with it.
most Dahl challenges seem to relate to encouraging children to defy authority figures.
But what else is the point of being a small child? Well, we know they’re all a wunch of bankers.
As for Deenie, you know what? My best friend has reasonably severe scoliosis, partly corrected by surgery as a young teen but still in evidence today. And when I connected her scoliosis with the Judy Blume book I read as a kid, I remember thinking, “Whoa. I can’t see anyone at my crappy-ass school taking her aside and being concerned about her spine.” If not for her long surgery absence, I doubt they’d even have noticed.
I remember this book, too. And I do remember the masturbation part and tried to figure out what she could be talking about by her special place. I probably should have asked my parents, but it never occurred to me to do so at the time.
I remember the book, but don’t remember the masturbation. I didn’t even know there was any in until I read the book Dear Judy and even then I still didn’t know what it was about so I asked my mom. She said it was playing with yourself and said it such a way that I knew it had to be something bad.
I’m over that now.
For all the guilt my mother gave me, we should have been Catholic or Jewish.
I’m another really didn’t pick up on the masturbation in Deenie. The scenes that I remember most are the one where she has to wear two body stockings when they take a cast of her body, and the one where she gets her period after she has the brace – and she has to get her sister to help her (that, to me, was about the most embarrassing thing imaginable at that point in time).
Heheheh. That went completely over my head, too. Amazing. It’s like when I reread “Anne of Ingleside” as an adult, and realised that she goes into labor at the dinner table. When I was a kid it was just “oh, Anne’s sick. Kids are sent to friends house. Oops, new baby”.
BTW, I DO remember Blume’s “Forever” fondly – although I’ve never been able to meet anyone called “Ralph” without thinking “Penis”!
I remember the masturbaton, but mainly because I didn’t get it either, and I remember being really irritated that Deenie was yammering on about this special place of hers without being specific. Like, why bother telling us if you’re going to be vague? “Until I got that good feeling”? What does that mean? Am I supposed to know?
I did eventually catch on. 🙂
BTW, I found a bunch of pictures here, because this post reminded me how curious I always was as to what that brace actually looked like when someone was wearing it and just how much it might have gotten in Deenie’s way.
I devoured every Judy Blume book I could find. Obviously, I’m one of those who read this one before masturbation or “special places” had any meaning because any reference went straight over my head. I’m going to have to take another look. I did, however, live in fear of scoliosis based on this book!