Young adult! Many of us positively associate this genre with nostalgic tales of teenage angst, glittery vampires, and boy wizards. But hearing “young adult” can 
also send heads shaking. “Oh no! No thanks. Not for me!” I don’t understand what these readers are rejecting – probably because I’m not quite sure what “young adult” is supposed to mean. A more simplistic style? Adult bestsellers like Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist couldn’t feature simpler prose. Length isn’t it either, as J.K. Rowling has proven. So if size isn’t everything, and it’s not what you do with it, what shoves a book onto the YA shelf?
I know what you’re thinking: Young adult novels either feature young protagonists or are aimed toward a younger audience. But what qualifies as young? The United Nations says a young adult is someone between the ages of fifteen and twenty. The World Health Organization is much more generous, extending the range up to thirty-four. And in modern psychology, Erik Erikson cuts out the teen years altogether, claiming a young adult is someone from twenty to forty. So does that mean most of the M/M Romance we enjoy features young adult characters? Depends who is asked, apparently.
So perhaps the YA genre isn’t defined by the age of the characters, but by the intended audience. But why the need for a distinction? Is there content that younger people can’t handle? Violence, maybe, but if someone who is eighteen is old enough to die in a war, surely that person can handle fictional bloodshed. If there’s one thing young adult literature has never shied away from, it’s brutality. Lord of the Flies set the precedence, and the currently popular Hunger Games trilogy continues that tradition. While reading The Hunger Games I noticed that, against the backdrop of abhorrent violence is a scene where the main character turns around so her dying friend can remove his underwear. In the middle of a battlefield and in the midst of trying to save his life, she takes extra care not to catch a glimpse of his sausage. For real. I’m not trying to knock The Hunger Games, because I love that series, but this scene gave me pause. A story that puts human vulgarity on parade also avoids one of our most natural impulses.
Is sex what draws the line between young and standard adult fiction? Can it be as simple as that? Young adult literature covers the full scope of human experience, but does seem to shy away from this subject. Harry Potter graduated from Hogwarts without losing his virgin wings, and while Bella from Twilight finally got Edward to put out, the scene was anything but erotic. Or as detailed as the gory birth that followed. When sex does show up in YA novels, it’s often as a hardship, such as those depicted in Sapphire’s Push (AKA the film, Precious). While surely some YA books freely depict sex as something positive, I somehow made it through my life without reading any of them. Those that came close never went into detail. And why not? Why is graphic violence acceptable while graphic sex isn’t?
This troubles me most when it comes to gay youth. Sex is confusing enough when first starting out, but gay people have less points of reference than straight people do. When I was sixteen, most of what I knew about gay sex came from slurs and jokes, like the use of Crisco or Richard Gere and his gerbils. At the time, I truly was naïve. I’m old enough that the Internet wasn’t a resource for me then. Young people today can at least discover the mechanics without much effort, but I hate the idea of cold pornography being the cornerstone of sex education. Gay sex isn’t always a blow job followed by anal sex and a facial. That’s what porn usually depicts, when the truth is more playfully, varied, and hopefully, much more loving.
The average age of consent on this planet is sixteen. I think this clears a fifteen-year-old—already considered an adult by many definitions—to read about sex. The onset of sexual maturity should allow access to accurate information, not vague hints or clumsy metaphors. Personally, I’m fine with anyone twelve and older reading stories that depict graphic sex. To an adult, twelve seems incredibly young, but I was raiding my parents’ porn stash at that age, and some of my schoolmates were already sexually active with each other. Sexual capability precedes mental maturity by many years. The best way to narrow that gap is education, and storytelling is one of the most effective tools in teaching.
So maybe graphic sex is lacking from YA stories, even if it probably shouldn’t be. Luckily, gay fiction can be very progressive in this regard. While homosexuality is much more than a physical expression of love and lust, most of us recognize that sex is an inseparable part of the experience. A gay YA novel is much more likely to include those sex scenes, to describe what’s happening and how it feels, rather than fading to black. Maybe the absence of sex is a defining trait of mainstream YA fiction, but not so much in our cozy little subgenre.
Considering this advantage, I’m surprised gay YA novels are often dismissed outright. Young adult characters have a lot to offer. They’re usually not locked into nine-to-five jobs, and that lack of responsibility leaves them freer to get into trouble or find adventure. Emotionally they are a lot less predictable. Adults are limited to a few acceptable reactions, or else they appear stunted or downright foolish. Younger characters get more leeway because of their age, and all bets are off as to how they’ll deal with conflict. The world is transformed through the eyes of a younger character, the most mundane adult experiences made fresh and exciting again. I understand why people like mature characters, how they are more immediately relatable, but reading only those stories is like swearing off chocolate because you prefer vanilla. Every once in a while, it’s good to get lost in a time when everything was new, an age when nothing felt certain.
If you’re looking for the fountain of youth, you won’t find a better way of turning back the clock than YA fiction. As many of the recent bestsellers have proven, YA fiction can still be awash in high stakes, romance, intriguing characters, and breathtaking plots. Hopefully YA authors and publishers won’t shy away from 
sex so much in the future. Young people and nostalgic old-timers need stories that focus not just on the hardships of youth, but the love that can be a part of those years as well.
Jay Bell is the author of Something Like Summer and Kamikaze Boys, both no-holds-barred young adult books. Occasionally, when he feels especially daring, he writes stories that feature adults as well.
Excellent post Jay. I really love YA literature, always did (hey harry Potter fanatic here :)). Although I have to say while I have read quite a few amazing YA novels and enjoyed them, I often wondered why some books oriented at ages 16 and up are so very simplistic, you know? I was reading very sophisticated books at that age and I just wish some writers respected their audience more and then maybe more adults would enjoy it. Although of course there are plenty of books which respect their audience already.
Thanks, Sirius. Sometimes I feel that young adult books, even when written simplistically, deal with deeper issues than other genres. Where adults books are so often about office romances or catching a serial killer, young adult stories seem to focus on the human experience and what makes us tick. Maybe that’s another reason I’m so drawn to them.
Very well put, Jay.
Several years ago, Laurie Halse Anderson said she hopes her readers “will find a mirror into his or her own experiences, written in a way that helps them make sense of what they’re going through during adolescence.”
Your work provides that mirror.
Great quote, Joel! Thanks for sharing that. Writing such a book also helps the author to make sense of their own past, believe you me! 🙂
I really enjoyed your thought provoking post, Jay. I noticed the same thing in the Hunger Games, though a good film, and thought it absurd amidst all that blood and pain.
I thought the way you wrote about the guy’s sexual experiences in Kamikaze Boys, worked extremely well. I so enjoyed the book and absolutely loved the ending. 😀 Thank you.
Thanks, Raine! Very kind of you. With Kamikaze Boys, I was happiest about putting some awkwardness into the initial sex scene. I still remember clearly how confusing (but exciting) my own first time was. I definitely didn’t know what I was doing! LOL
I just wrote a long comment but every time I tried to post it, I got an error message saying “Hmmm, your comment seems a bit spammy. We’re not real big on spam around here.” :wallbash:
Sorry, Enny! I’m sure it was an awesome comment regardless! Unless you were disagreeing with me. 😉
Enny
If you send me your comment I’ll post it for you. The spam filter is sometimes over zealous and thinks it’s human. 🙂
Wave saved your original comment from the void (posted below) so now I can give a proper response. I have indeed noticed how different the German attitude toward sex is. On one of my earliest trips to Germany, I was stunned to see an adult magazine low on the shelf, the nude woman on the cover completely exposed. Near it stood two little boys giggling, but they had their noses buried in a video game magazine, completely ignoring the adult magazine. I’ve seen many similar examples since. Without the taboo, kids just aren’t as interested until they reach a certain age. I think that’s so cool. I’ve seen statistics that suggest countries with these attitudes have less sex crime. Violence in Germany, as you know, is more strictly regulated. This makes perfect sense to me. If only it were possible to export common sense! 😀
Hi Jay
Here’s Enny’s comment. Damn that filter!!
That was a fantastic post! Your attitude about sex in YA books is one of the many reasons why I like your books so much.
I like reading YA because the teenage years are such an important and formative part in our lives and because I have a son who been a teenager in a couple of months. Discovering who you are, no matter what your family is like and how they want you to be is fascinating. I also read YA when I need something to recover from books that are filled with one completely gratuitous sex scene after another.
When you discover that you are interested in having sex with another human being, you also want to know how it works and it’s not like they teach anything about gay sex in school. When it comes to anal sex, it’s especially important that you know what you’re doing or you’re in for a major disaster.
Teenagers (especially male ones) are a horny lot. They want to have sex and if they can’t they will watch porn. It’s not like it’s hard to find on the internet.
In my opinion, explicit romance books would be a much better choice than porn since it almost always is within a loving relationship, although sadly in almost all those books, the gay sex is of the oral-1-2-3 finger-anal sex variety too. Ok, they mostly leave out the facial and at least in romance books, the top doesn’t have to pull out before coming but they nevertheless don’t show the full variety of gay sex. For instance, some gay men simply do not do anal sex.
I read Fanny Hill when I was 13. I found the book in my parent’s bookshelf and it was very interesting. Although I definitely won’t be giving the book
to my son on his birthday, it didn’t do much harm either as far as I can see. Another fount of knowledge were the German teen magazines which have no qualms whatever when it comes to explaining anything sexual to their readers.
That “Oh no, mustn’t have anything sexual in the books our kids read” attitude is a very American thing. As you no doubt know, for example in Germany, things are handled quite differently. For example, here you can watch the movie Latter Days when you’re 12 years old but you must be 16 for
Band of Brothers.
In my opinion, violence is much more harmful to teenagers than a little sex, especially when it comes with a whole lot of loving.
Hi Jay, :wave:
I love reading Young Adult fiction…I loved loved being a young adult, it was some of the best times in my life.
I remember being 13, 14, 15 and my mother was always reading…so I was always asking if I could read what she was reading and the answer was always NO and she started buying me YA books…I would read them and go where is the sex, it’s what most teenager do and if they’re not doing it they’re thinking about it, so I was pissed that there was no sex in my books! Needles to say I started sneaking my mothers books(I know I’m bad)and I was in my glory.
I have a 12 year old daughter, who has read The Hunger Games and The Twilight Series and has never yet asked to read any of my books, she knows about sex, her and I have a great relationship we talk about everything….so if she did ask to read my books I would probably let her. I didn’t have such an open relationship with my mother, we didn’t talk about sex I had to get my information from friends, books, tv(no internet when I was a YA)and so I did learn a lot of stuff from reading.
“The best way to narrow that gap is education, and storytelling is one of the most effective tools in teaching.”
This was a great statement Jay, and I totally agree.
Great post Jay :bravo:
Hey Jamie!
That’s so funny about you sneaking your mother’s books. I did the same thing with my sister! She’s five years older than me, so I was always reading her stuff. When my mom (also very open) bought her a book about the birds and the bees, I snuck downstairs the very same night and read the whole thing. I used to read some of my mom’s books too, but she read some scary stuff that left me way more traumatized than anything concerning sex did. 😆
my comment was too spammy for the filter too (maybe it wants “explicit sex” filtered too 😉 I’ll email it.
Here’s your comment Kaje. I swear they don’t pay me for this. 😀
Great post. I never tried to censor what my teen girls read, and I would much prefer to have them reading graphic sex than graphic violence. However I know that both were a little uncomfortable with
non-fade-to-black sex in books when they were younger, and chose to read YA romance rather than adult at least partly because they could be certain the sex would be non-explicit. I also know an adult who reads
mainly YA because she prefers to have her language, sex and violence somewhat toned down and feels safer in that genre.
One downside to having YA-designated books be as explicit as adult material is that it causes the genre to lose some of its individuality. It also makes it hard to discuss the books in schools because although teens may want to read explicit sex they do NOT want to discuss it in
front of an adult. And I’d love to see books with a gay romance in them on school reading lists, just as YA books with straight romances are.
Personally I prefer teen books to avoid erotic descriptions of the sex. Not to avoid sex content as a story component, because as we all know that’s part of being a teen (they’re all thinking about it and some are doing it.) But I think there is value in having YA books be distinct from adult books in this regard.
At the same time, I think young adults who are so inclined should read any adult material that catches their fancy. I’m all in favor of learning from your reading material, and for seeing sex as part of life and romance, and not just cold porn. But I think a lot of the emotional side of YA sex can be present in a YA novel without being explicitly erotic.
Some great points, Kaje!
All of my experiences obviously come from a male perspective. I didn’t consider what young women might be comfortable with. I suppose that varies from person to person, no matter their gender or age. Having young adult books be the safe zone (for sex at least) is an interesting idea. The only problem I see with young people turning to adult books if they want something more risque, is that they probably won’t relate to the characters and their situations as much. Do many adult romances feature male virgins? I haven’t read enough to know, but I’m guessing there aren’t many. The young adult perspective on sex is unique because of a lack of experience, or expectations.
If adult books can feature young adult characters, then it’s the best of both worlds. People uncomfortable with graphic sex can avoid those while reading traditional young adult. I’d suggest books have rating systems so that the consumer knows what they’re getting into, but like movies, these ratings would probably restrict readers by age, which in my opinion would defeat the point.
This is one confusing issue! You’ve given me some food for thought, that’s for sure!
Hi Kaje
I guess I never understood whether there was an unwritten rule or demarcation line about YA books not containing explicit sex but excessive and brutal, gory violence is okay. I find some of the violence in these books to be grossly over the top yet publishers accept them but not the sex which is a part of teens’ RL. I read a lot of YA books because I like stories about teens making their way in the world, emotionally AND sexually, and being sexual is a huge part of their life experiences even in their very early teens, especially for teen boys whose sexual development proceeds at a much faster pace than that of girls. I had both genders (teen daughter and teen son) and they were completely different in the way they approached sex. Male gay teens are even more adventurous about sex and today they can find a lot of information on the Internet where it’s all laid out in detail and in living colour.
I agree that not all teens are the same in terms of their emotional and sexual development as well as what they read, just like adults, but I feel that YA books are unrealistic in the way they portray teen sexual mores. I’m not advocating porn in these books by any means, but I think that the yardstick for violence and sex in YA novels is so different that it begs the question – Why?
Wave I totally agree with you about YA books being unrealistic when it comes to the sex in them! I don’t think they should be porny either but letting YA’s read a sex scene is not going to kill them, if any thing they might learn something 🙂
Hi Jaime
I think it’s much better for young adults (which icludes teens) to get their information about sex from authors who care about what they provide in their books. I’m not talking about page after page of sex with no story which is what I get in some M/M romances, but YA stories that have sex between teens that is part of the romance and is believable. Isn’t that preferable than having them resort to gay porn sites for information which are incredibly easy to access?
I think YA books can contain sex as part of the plot, and present the emotional side of it, without getting into the mechanics and definitely without being intentionally erotic. (See David Levithan’s Wide Awake, Robin Reardon’s Thinking Straight, Alex Sanchez’s Rainbow High, Steve Berman’s Vintage etc.) To me that’s one of the justifications for the genre, the idea that the reader will not come across material that will make them really uncomfortable in its graphic quality. Of course I think that should be true for the violent content too – a traumatic amputation might be a plot element, but descriptions of gushing blood and raw human meat shouldn’t be graphic.
There are a lot of adult books with first-time/virgin/teen characters out there. If you look on the shelves for the Goodreads adult M/M group there are 214 books with profession-highschool, and 803 with sex-content-first-time. I don’t think there is any lack of available explicit presentations of these factors that would necessitate having them be explicit in YA books.
Great post Jay.
I have two boys 11 and 9, and I have to say the older one has been picking up quite a bit of sexual slang and “stories” at elementary school. Most of them quite misinformed.
As for his book choices, action/adventure young adult seem to be still his go to books.
As a parent I definitely would prefer he gets some of his sexual education from well written YA books instead of porn websites, no need to see a fisting scene at his age …
Growing up in Germany I have to agree that sexual education and resources for teenagers are much better there. I remember getting most of my sex ed from teen magazines like Bravo. Those kind of magazines are non-existing here in the US (at least I have not found any).
I don’t think Bravo or something similar would go over well in the States, no. I first discovered that magazine at the dentist office, and couldn’t believe they had nude photos and such. The advice articles are much more forthcoming too, which allows them to give useful advice. I bought a few copies and had tons of fun translating them when I was first learning German. I would have loved a magazine like that when I was a teen. 😀
Is there an English version of Bravo with an iPad app Jay? It sounds like something I would enjoy. 🙂
I don’t think so, Wave. If we ever meet in person, I’ll bring a copy along and read/translate the juicy bits for you! 😀
Great post, Jay!
I’m finishing up a YA novel with two teenage gay characters who fall in love. They discuss sex, experiment with each other, and eventually lose their virginity to each other. I didn’t want to depict consensual sex as something “bad”, as some YA novels are wont to do.
I didn’t get graphic in the scenes, however, as I wanted to concentrate on the emotions of the acts rather than the physical sensations. Plus I felt like it wouldn’t really fit the rest of the story.
What better way to show young gay/lesbian/bi/transgender kids that they’re not alone than to showcase healthy sexual relationships in YA fiction? Let’s hope more writers take the reins on this one.
I think it’s great you went with your instincts about how graphic the sex should be. Some books, even those for adults, just aren’t meant to get explicit. And personally, I find very few sex scenes erotic unless the emotional component is there. If you have to have only one of the two, I’d go with emotion every time.
I recently came across your post referencing this post in a Goodreads thread. This is an excellent articel, Jay, along with excellent comments. I was recently asked in an interview whether my gay YA novella was “too racy” for young adults. Here is my :my2cents:
This is billed as being for young adults, and some might say the content is perhaps a little too sexually explicit for the intended audience. How would you respond?
Thank you for raising this question, Jamie. It is an important one. The answer is that the sexual content contained in Safe is not too explicit for young adults. Sexual reference is everywhere in society and is obvious, and young adults will practice sexual exploration irrespective of age, law, and popular opinion. To avoid writing “things as they are” or “life as it is” in a contemporary novel is disingenuous. I would feel like the naked emperor in the fable The Emperor’s New Clothes if I ignored the reality of society as I penned stories.
Sadly, no sexuality education exists in our school systems for GLBTQ young adults. They are left to gather and process information from a range of unsanctioned and potentially unreliable sources. Writing about normal, healthy sexual exploration in teen same-sex relationships is propaedeutic in that it provides introductory information to young adults that they may not otherwise find or have access to. It also goes without saying that a young adult is always far better prepared for the outside world if armed with knowledge.
Lastly, censoring and withholding vital information from young adults in the name of protecting them from themselves is often applied inappropriately and to extremes; and speaks to a lack of confidence in them. Young people can read and think for themselves and I wholly support their right to do so.
http://www.blog.boysonthebrink.com/qa-with-c-kennedy-author-of-safe.html