Published in September 2022 and sold in two hundred copies, the book way too smallsigned by Manu Causse and published, in the “L’ardeur” collection, by Editions Thierry Magnier (a subsidiary of Actes Sud), was banned from sale to minors on July 17, by an order from the Ministry of the Interior, revealed the online review ActuaLitté.
Thierry Magnier specified to the World : “Like all the titles in this collection, way too small explores questions of the body and sexuality. Since it presents explicit scenes, we took care to include on the back cover a mention addressing this book to an informed readership, from 15 years old. »
In this novel, the hero of the story, Grégoire, realizes, after disparaging comments from his comrades, at the swimming pool, that the size of his sex is hardly to his advantage. He is convinced that his love and sex life is aborted before it even begins. To overcome his frustration, he writes a fiction, the adventures of the brave Max
Egrogire and the beautiful Chloé Rembrandt. And writes several passages of consented love scenes.
Two weights, two measures
“At a time when the consumption of violent and sexist pornographic images
is exploding among the youngest, at a time when sexuality education is struggling to exist, it seems to us, on the contrary, essential to dare to offer our readers literary works dealing with care and conviction with these crucial subjects, says the publisher. Unlike what is freely available on the Internet or certain genres, such as “dark romance”, which present clichés about sexuality that are both macho and violent”, he adds. The author, Manu Causse, gets annoyed in Weekly Book, friday july 21of the fact that there are two weights and two measures and does not include only one manga for 6 to 14 year olds, [Goblin slayer de Kumo Kagyu, a-til précisé au Monde] describing a rape on ten pages in a complacent way” is widely accessible. “And he’s not banned!” »
The law of 16 July 1949 applies to publications intended for young people and, according to article 2, they “must not contain any pornographic content”. Contrary to the cinema where the films must first be targeted by a censorship commission before their projection in the room, in publishing, censorship can be exercised a posteriori, once the work has been published. Usually alerted by associations of parents of pupils – who apparently do not read “dark romance” or manga –, the commission for the monitoring and control of publications intended for children and adolescents was therefore seized. She reported to Thierry Magnier on January 30, before adversarial proceedings in mid-April, that way too smallwhich is aimed at young people, “contains, through the story of a fictional work imagined by the main character – notably on pages 61 and 62, 85 and 86, 90 to 94, 105 to 108, and 158 to 160 – the complacent description of numerous very explicit sex scenes”. And present “therefore a danger for minors who could acquire it or consult it”. It is therefore on this ground that Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories, signed the order prohibiting “to offer, give or sell” this book “to minors”. For the author, “this retrograde censorship shows the commission’s ignorance of Thierry Magnier’s work”.
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