So Fox News ran a story about how they think libraries are turning into drug-infested sex dens and I am shocked, shocked that I was never offered any drugs during my 15+ years working in libraries.
Where do they think the sex is happening?? Every single aisle is lit in that horrible LED lighting. The teens don’t even make out here anymore.
As a state certified librarian I can assure you that you just have to go into your local library and ask if they’re participating in the new Fox News Hysteria program smh. If they’re not, you’ll just have to renew your library card and use the fun and valuable resources they’re offering right now, such as wifi hotspots, museum passes, dvd lending, mid level adult erotica, ebook lending, and printing! 😔
feels like we’re glossing over the WHY IS FOX NEWS TRYING TO GET LIBRARIES SHUT DOWN part, because this is step one of that playbook. these fucking ghouls
Okay, as a librarian in a major metropolitan area, I’ve seen this go around a bunch. I’ve had this sent to me several times as a fun joke. And while upstairs is DEFINITELY right that this is part of a massive ongoing anti-library smear campaign by the right (and if you just went, “wait, what,” well. Have I got news for you), I have something else to say that I kind of keep waiting for someone else to say for me, but this post keeps going around and no one says it.
Yes. Fuck’s sake. Yes. People are having sex and doing drugs at the library.
Ask any public librarian in, again, a major metropolitan area (possibly other areas, but I’m just not knowledgeable there), and they will go, “Yes, obviously. Yes, obviously, we do our best, but shit fucking sucks, please fund us better so we can better connect these people with helpful resources.”
Fucking—this isn’t really the point, but I have people at the library say things to me like, “You must have the easiest job in the world,” because they assume all I do is, like, read at work or something. And no. No, I fucking do not. You are wrong about what libraries are.
And you’re sort of wrong in a fun way, because libraries do a lot of incredible stuff you aren’t aware of, like events and concerts and interlibrary loan and expungement clinics and tech loaning and makerspaces and so just so much more. Check out your local library. I guarantee you they do things you never would’ve thought.
But you’re also wrong in a not-so-fun way, because being the third place that you don’t have to pay to be in isn’t always fuckingpretty, okay. Public service and community spaces aren’t the utopian bastions you imagine.
So, yes. People come in drunk off their asses. People do drugs in the bathrooms (so much that in some libraries, the librarians are getting Narcan training). People shit outside of the bathrooms, sometimes because they’re drunk or high, but not always. People are having sex. They masturbate in the study rooms or the stacks or just out in the open until someone stops them, they watch porn on the public computers.
And yes, the library workers get to deal with that. And it fucking sucks.
But also FUCK Fox News, because the answer is not “libraries have become a problem,” the question is when and why we became the only place everyone could go. Why we got stuck with all of it, becoming all things to all people. And the question isn’t how we can force people out of libraries or close libraries (because clearly we’re disgusting houses of iniquity, and if you remove the house, the iniquity evaporates with it), it’s how we can actually fucking connect people with services that libraries can’t (and shouldn’t have to!) provide. Like housing. Medical assistance. Mental health services. Career services. So much more.
But yes. For the love of god. Libraries are drug-infested sex dens. Yes, we’d like to do something about that.
If someone could help us instead of laughing at the thought, that would be fantastic, thanks.
amhrancas 