The Burden of YA Relationships.
As a kid, I read a lot of romance novels. Loved them. Occasionally still indulge, really, and probably always will. There’s something lovely about two people falling in love despite great odds that tickles my sweet spot. The good news is, newer romance slants more towards dashing heroines and rakish men without a staple you see in books about twenty years ago–that whole RAPEY thing.
When I was a teenager, one of my favorite books was WHITNEY, MY LOVE and if I’m recalling the book correctly, at one point the “hero” rapes the heroine because he’s “so in love with her.” Young Hillary didn’t see the problem then because rape culture wasn’t part of her vocabulary. Now, if I read it for the first time, I’d throw the book across the room. McNaught sold young me on the notion that Clayton NEEDED AND WANTED WHITNEY SO MUCH, RAPING HER AND THREATENING HER WHEN SHE DIDN’T ABIDE BY WHAT HE SAID WAS AWESOME.
Let’s examine that mindset for a second, shall we? He loved her so much, was so consumed with her, he violated her body and physically abused her. As a gesture of love. He brutalized her until she fell in love with him. And the worst part? I thought that was great because I hadn’t experienced enough Real Love to know how screwed up it was to enjoy the story.
That book sold A LOT of copies, folks. A lot. Many women were swooning that Clayton “adored” Whitney so much that he refused to take no for an answer. Want and need blurred in a horrible, power-hungry way. And we bought into it, thinking that being overpowered physically and emotionally was palatable (even enviable) when unquenchable love was at stake.
Bullshit. Utter bullshit.
And don’t get me wrong. This whole “men’s wants usurping women’s wants” in fiction is not a new phenomenon. Hell, another great example of “things that were romanticized that probably shouldn’t have been?”
Yeah. That happened. In what we consider one of our most romantic classics.
As time went on and society progressed in terms of awareness, we have seen less of this whole “desire trumping equal partnership” thing in the media. And that is good. But every once in a while you do see problematic glimmers pop up. TWILIGHT, for example, is a disaster in terms of representing functional relationships. The guy stalks Bella and watches her sleep, for Christ’s sake. That book sold a billion zillion copies. Teenaged girls are reading it thinking it’s the most romantic thing they’ve ever read meanwhile Bella’s attempting to KILL HERSELF to see her one true love because apparently her life means less than some dude. That’s the message that’s translating. Sure, SM didn’t set out to write a guideline for romance in the current day and age, but she sure set one hell of a distorted precedent anyway, didn’t she?
This is why it is so crucially important that writers—YA writers in particular—are careful with how they portray young adult romance. If there’s a thirteen or fourteen year old girl that cleaves to our words and characters, if she hasn’t experienced being in a relationship before and she’s absorbing our stories as some guiding beacon of How Life Works, do you want her to be a Whitney, a Scarlett, a Bella? Or do you want her to know her worth? Know that she is equal to her partner? To know that putting someone else’s wants above her own is not required as a life staple? That a guy that can’t (and won’t) live without her isn’t romantic but a burden and often dangerous? That threatening her, controlling her, manipulating her isn’t SWELL BECAUSE HE WANTS ME THAT MUCH but is evident of some seriously distorted brain meats?
I’m the first person to admit that I’m not writing books to soapbox at teens. My books are for entertainment. Jokes, a few laughs, a few tender moments, sure. But if I’m going to put a relationship in between those covers, you better believe it’s going to be functional and if it ISN’T, it’s because it’s a plot point that it isn’t, that it’s something to be examined by the characters and worked through. I’m not going to arbitrarily throw some power-skewed emotional/physical abuse at a reader and wrap it up in silk and call it romantic. And any writers out there that find themselves slanting toward that should really stop and think what they’re communicating to their young reader audience.
Words have power. Use them wisely.
