YA LGBT Books discussion
Book Related Banter
>
Explicit content in YA books - how much is TMI?
date
newest »
newest »
Hafsa wrote: "There are Prude teenagers out there too. people who rely on YA authors to produce clean books. not everyone is comfortable with sex. Too much explicit scenes would be a turn off. Kissing is Okay. a..."This is very true, although I wouldn't use the term "prude" because it has negative connotations - there are definitely readers, and not just teens, who don't want explicit sexual content in books. My own kids didn't want on-page sex in books until later in their teens, and one will still put aside a book that gets too raunchy. Part of the division between Young Adult and New Adult is to separate out the books with explicit scenes from those without.
There are also differences between sex-content that informs, and sex-content that arouses (although admittedly there's an overlap.) Some would argue that arousal is easy to come by these days (porn is everywhere) but that books that put LGBTQ content in a social and plot context are what we need in YA.
Michael wrote: "When I was younger, around the age of 10-13, I began searching for information online because I couldn’t find anything publicly to answer my questions. "
This is a real problem - we don't give pre-teens and teens, particularly LGBTQ teens, good sex-education information, especially as early as they have questions. While I adore the fact that fiction can educate and inform, it's wrong for teen readers to have to look to fiction to get facts important to their lives.
It's totally wrong that the young have to resort to fiction for crucial information. I hope they don't. Fiction for many of us forms our worlds as we grow up. I like the idea of YA, as with all the other books we grow up with, providing a bit of help here and there.
I like what tamora pierce did in her lioness books. Sex and contraception were present, as was menstruation, but not the big story.
I saw a conservative group here urging a boycott of the Girl Scouts, because they were advocating "complete, fact-based sex education" for girls... we still have a strong abstinence-only movement here in the US, who are willing to have pregnancies, disease and death rather than admit teens will have sex, regardless. And sadly the situation is far worse for LGBTQ sex ed - the fact that a big online porn site has added sex-education content to their website says a lot.But I do believe still that YA books are not the place to move into erotic content. I agree with that approach of Pierce's - have sex as plot, when it is natural to the situation, but without stylistic choices intended to make it sound erotic. The choice of how much detail to include is not an easy one ever. Her readership does run toward the younger teens, I think, and I've felt that her judgment fit mine pretty well.
Denying people health information is immoral. I am thus unsurprised that the abstinence only people do not have any sense of responsibility for the results of unwanted pregnancy. We had a politician in canberra who was vociferously pro life, but he and his wife were also fantastic foster parents. I worked in family services for a while and dealt with him in that capacity. at least he was walking the walk.
The whole reading/writing for arousal and and at what age etc etc flies right over and past my head. I'm asexual. Always have been.I just know sex permeates life for most people, and very much so for most teens, so lets be free with information, education (I'm thinking here of the complexity of relationships and the breadth of differences in us all) and proving a safe haven for readers.
It really depends on two things for me: the story, and my mood.If the sexual content is in-context, in-character, not just there to be sexy, well-written, and not seedy. cool. Likewise, sometimes I'm not in the mood for sex in a story--sometimes I just want romance, and for the bits where they do the sideways tango to be "fade-to-black".
However, I dislike when authors will put something risque in their stories and then not commit to it. If you're going that direction, go full steam, I say.
Regardless of whether or not it is appropriate, any sex or explicit content needs to be disclosed upfront so the reader can make an informed decision. Some teens are not comfortable reading about sex (even just the mention of it), some just don't want to. The same is true for adults and adult fiction. Content warnings allow readers to consent to the reading experience they want.
theStorykeeper wrote: "Regardless of whether or not it is appropriate, any sex or explicit content needs to be disclosed upfront so the reader can make an informed decision. Some teens are not comfortable reading about s..."I support this type of content disclosure. I'd consider explicit content in the "inappropriate" context an assault to me, the reader.
theStorykeeper wrote: "Regardless of whether or not it is appropriate, any sex or explicit content needs to be disclosed upfront so the reader can make an informed decision. Some teens are not comfortable reading about s..."Definitely we need warnings for erotic sex content, and for some less explicit content, but clear and complete info that satisfies readers is easier said than done. There is no detailed scale or standard for rating sexual content for books. The YA genre is supposed to be a guarantee of no 18+ content, but even what is considered "18+" is a very fluid level (as you can see from reading all the posts above, where people discuss what is or is not OK in YA.)
You talk about some being uncomfortable with just the mention of sex. Teens and adults who don't want to read about any sex may stop reading with a simple kiss, or with sexual thoughts on the part of the main character even if nothing actually happens. Those kinds of content are seldom going to be revealed in any content warning. There is currently no good concise way to get nuanced information about what is in the books to readers up front.
The issue of content warnings - what needs to be mentioned, how clearly, where (blurb, front page, a link) and how to avoid spoilers - is a very thorny problem. It would be handy to have a heat scale for books (eg. a kiss= 1 point, frotting = 25 points, a blow job = 50 points) but it would be tedious to score the books. As we move to more and more book access online, links to detailed content info become a possibility. Or sites that score books might be developed, possibly with a search for keywords? I think we could use some innovative ideas for how to get info to the readers who want it in the most effective and least-spoilery way.
Kaje wrote: "theStorykeeper wrote: "Regardless of whether or not it is appropriate, any sex or explicit content needs to be disclosed upfront so the reader can make an informed decision. Some teens are not comf..."I agree it would be difficult - but all important things are. I, personally, am not asking for as detailed a scale as you describe - something simple like mention of sex, sexual language, some sexual content, explicit content, etc. (similar to what they do for movies) would suffice.
As to your suggestion to "just stop reading" - it's a lot of annoying work to be constantly starting books, potentially enjoying them, only to have to toss them when sexual content comes out of nowhere. I don't even know what you mean by stop reading after a simple kiss. Are you saying I should always assume kissing might lead to sex? What if I want kissing but no sex? That's not exactly fair.
The reader is the consumer. The consumer should not have to do all the work and suffering. It is the producer's job to provide enough information so the consumer can make an informed decision on whether the product is right for them.
P.S. Fanfiction authors do this (disclose) all the time. It's not hard to slap a "lemon" label onto the end of a description.
Hoong wrote: "I support this type of content disclosure. I'd consider explicit content in the 'inappropriate' context an assault to me, the reader."Exactly. Thank you. <3
I feel like this just circles back to the fact that YA as a genre is a flaming disaster since it can be middle school- college ages. It's also a problem that most libraries/bookstores just lump it all together in the same corner. Online its all lumped together into one messy grab bag. If you don't research a book before reading, you could be in for a nasty surprise if you don't want explicit content. New Adult needs to be more widely used.
I live in a city with a well funded library system and it's just sorted "childrens" "teen" "adult fiction" and all the lines are heavily blurred.
I don't think we need censorship. we just need things to be properly labeled. Even just do it like CDs, slap a parental advisory explicit content on the spine and still throw it in the YA section. its better than what we have.
Riley wrote: "I feel like this just circles back to the fact that YA as a genre is a flaming disaster since it can be middle school- college ages. It's also a problem that most libraries/bookstores just lump it ..."100% agree. My library also has only a "teen" section in which they throw all the YA books.
I do occasionally choose to read books with sex in them. But I know going into the book that there is sex, and I am empowered in making that choice. I also want to be empowered to make the choice to read a clean book.
I think the general rule of thumb is..., there is no written rule. The explicitness of fiction a 'young adult' reads or tolerates is as varied as that in the adult world. I know some adults that would read a Radclyffe novel without batting an eye, and others that would be offended by references made in something as mild as a Malinda Lo novel. I do agree that things tend to be lumped together as either teen, young adult or adult, with very little attention paid to the tweens or new adult readers. And one can't really assume that just because you wouldn't read something aloud to your seventeen year old daughter, that she would be uncomfortable reading it to herself. For anything that I have written for YA, I keep explicit sex out of it. Nudity is fine as long as it doesn't lead to the above (at least in print, inferred is usually okay), and language, well, with the FCC making new rules about the words you can and cannot say on television, probably almost anything in moderation. Violence is a touchy subject. If it is an integral part of the plot, then it is acceptable only to a point. Violence for the sake of violence is never okay.Just my two cents.
Brooklyn
theStorykeeper wrote: "Kaje wrote: "theStorykeeper wrote: "Regardless of whether or not it is appropriate, any sex or explicit content needs to be disclosed upfront so the reader can make an informed decision. Some teens..."I didn't mean "just stop reading" as a suggestion, I said they "may stop reading" as an example of how a small thing can derail a book for the wrong person.
We really need a rating system, and urgently need to include violence as well as sex in it - as a teen I could have cared less about sex content (I was writing it) but some kinds of violence could ruin my day (and sleep) and yet were considered less offensive. Also for mature themes like suicide, self harm, abuse, although there, trigger warning labels can be more specific and therefore are more effective.
Riley is right that "YA" covers far too big a range to be useful, but IMO using "NA" more is not helpful for that, because NA (New Adult) now is a pretty well-established label for young characters 18-23 but full-on explicit sex. (Books that would never be YA-appropriate.) We don't want to push the upper end of YA into the NA category. We need additional discrimination between the lower levels in YA.
And "teen" is not a commonly used discriminator, although it would be one option to push harder for the YA books with PG content to be put there; the other problem with that is that the connotation also currently implies younger stories vis plot, not just less mature-content. So older teens may not want to read a book labelled for younger teen readers.
Possibly a rating scheme for "Sex content = PG; Violence content = R; trigger warnings for suicidal ideation, history of abuse."
Thing is, movie ratings are not universal (eg. Australia has MA 15+ etc. For fun, you can check out the comparison table for different countries in Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_...)
So although they are intuitive to those who use one particular scheme, a new system for books would be useful. But only if it could then be applied widely (which sadly means unless Amazon required it, it's not likely to happen any time soon.)
If someone wanted to work on such a scheme here, and invite people to rate books (on a separate thread), we can do that, as an experiment in how such a system might be generated.
theStorykeeper wrote: "Riley wrote: "I feel like this just circles back to the fact that YA as a genre is a flaming disaster since it can be middle school- college ages. It's also a problem that most libraries/bookstores..."I understand your point and totally agree, but want to make an appeal not to use the word "clean" for books without sex in them. Sex is not dirty, and IMO it is vital not to imply that it is with the label "clean" for "closed-door" or "fade-to-black" or "no-sex" books. We don't have a single alternate term in universal use, but we should work for that too and make sure "clean" dies out. (It is a strong relic of the religious right, that needs to go away.)
(Just as I also feel very strongly that we need to not use the word "clean" for negative STI results, especially for HIV-neg results, as in "I'm clean" or "all my tests came back clean." . People with an STI are not dirty either.)
Kaje wrote: "I didn't mean "just stop reading" as a suggestion, I said they "may stop reading" as an example of how a small thing can derail a book for the wrong person."I see what you meant; I'm sorry for misinterpreting.
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ has a start on content warnings and age ratings, for those who are interested.
@thestorykeeper, thank you for the useful link for teachers' resources.
@Kaje, I enjoy hearing that comment. Sexuality is not inherently good or bad! I'd like to point out from the perspective of a reader that sexuality in M/M romance-focused fiction is totally different from gay fiction. They are marketed and targeted to different groups of readers. I'd love it if book publishers label it on their publications so we can choose the right type of book to buy or borrow.
Let's not conflate opinions on whether sex is appropriate in YA books with whether or not it is moral in general - those are two completely different topics, only one of which is in this thread!Last I checked, the generally accepted use of the term "clean" in reference to media is free of questionable content, family-friendly, etc. Things with violence, drugs, excessive swearing, etc. are also not clean.
I would still prefer to work to use a different term, particularly because the use of "clean" lumps sex in with drug use, but in fact is rarely used when just violence is the issue. (eg. we don't talk about "clean" mysteries, but "cosy" mysteries.)But yes, the issue of sex in books in general is not the point here, but of how to set both limits and designations appropriately for under 18 readership.
"Cozy mystery" is a subgenre, not a content rating.
theStorykeeper wrote: ""Cozy mystery" is a subgenre, not a content rating."It's a subgenre, yes, but it comes with certain reader/viewer expectations of possible content due to something being labelled as being part of that subgenre. Going into a cosy mystery, you don't expect the level of violence, sex, language and drugs you'd get from a Nordic noir series, for example. Both those subgenres fit under crime/mystery, but as a general rule they have vastly different tones and contents. You're always going to get outlier books and authors that don't fit neatly in categories, but when you say the words 'cosy mystery', people who've read at least one book (or seen an episode of tv or a film) that fits that category to a tee, they have a general idea what to expect, and that tends to be something more akin to Miss Marple than Lisbeth Salander. Midsomer Murders is absolutely a cosy mystery series. And it isn't that people don't take drugs or get horribly killed in Midsomer (in fact, Midsomer has some of the more grisly deaths I've seen), it's about the tone and just how much they actually show rather than imply (ie. fade to black). There'll be a horrible murder, but it's shown with a level of jocularity and delicious gossip or scandal, rather than with a grim, torturous heightened sense of fear. The level of gore shown is an obvious difference, but a lot of people wouldn't realise how much the musical score plays a massive role in this, in telling you that's all okay, just make-believe, rather like Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
TL;DR, you can have whatever 'content' you like, but certain subgenres generally have higher levels of certain content, and if it's heavy content in a cosy mystery, you have to take the horror away by making it a bit of a joke.
theStorykeeper wrote: ""Cozy mystery" is a subgenre, not a content rating."Sure, but the term is used as a designator of low-violence, low-drugs, low-abuse and a style that does not push people's boundaries, and is the only such designator in mystery genre. The same kind of thing that we are looking for with "clean" romance, and I repeat there is no such thing as a "clean" designation for mystery to designate low violence or, I might add, low drugs/abuse content.
We treat sex as dirty, but not violence, and the term "clean" is really only used in the romance genre or YA with a romance focus. We need to replace it, and to expand such categorization equally to violence as to sex.
I consider well-written sex scenes as part of the story. If they don't further the story, it's gratuitous. Two of my (Young Adult/New Adult) gay novels, Every Time I Think of You and the sequel Message of Love, include multiple sex/love scenes, because the two main characters have to navigate their relationship before and after one becomes a paraplegic.
My research talks with several para and quad/wheelchair-using friends included explicit discussions, and they encouraged me to explore this thoroughly over the five years of the MCs' relationship. The scenes are funny, awkward, passionate and most important, develop character relationships. If they don't, it's just erotica (not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just not the same genre).
I've written about these interwoven topics several times at http://jimprovenzano.blogspot.com
(P.S. The term "clean" is offensive in the context of online hookups, where it's implied that a person is STD/HIV-free if they're "clean" (meaning HIV-positive people are 'dirty'?). This is one of many gay male contexts that are wrongly portrayed in many bad M/M romances, that magical world where the AIDS epidemic never happened. But don't get me started on that.)
Jim wrote: "I consider well-written sex scenes as part of the story. If they don't further the story, it's gratuitous. Two of my (Young Adult/New Adult) gay novels, Every Time I Think of You ..."
Absolutely true.
From the way you write that, is the first book YA and the second NA?
Well, a published review added the New Adult description to the sequel. In the first one, they're both 18ish. In the sequel, they are 18-22-ish.They were both also both categorized as Romance, although they don't follow any of the standard tropes.
New Adult usually means that there's more explicit sex (either more detailed physical descriptiveness, or an attention on page to the sensations and desire, rather than just emotions and ideas.) It's really a category developed to place stories with 18-23 year old characters where the sex (or occasionally violence) moves beyond the acceptable limits for YA. It sounds like maybe yours straddles the line, but that reviewer felt it crossed over. There are other great YA series and stories that have NA sequels, as the author decided to put more on the page.
A lot of people put the tag for Romance on any story where a relationship develops and has a significant share of the plot time, which does sound like it's important in your story.
Kaje wrote: "We treat sex as dirty, but not violence, and the term "clean" is really only used in the romance genre or YA with a romance focus. We need to replace it, and to expand such categorization equally to violence as to sex."lol what? Since when? Who is this "we"? Everywhere I've seen, sex and violence are treated the same. Movie ratings certainly use both. We must exist in different worlds. I'm so confused; what you're telling me doesn't even compute.
By the way, I had a long talk with my therapist about this and she was also surprised that sex is so prevalent in teen books given that general conclusions like "teens have sex" cannot be made with the wide variety of teen experiences. And she's not some fuddy-duddy, she is not that much older than me and very sex-positive (when it comes to adults). For all those giving examples of how when they were a teen, sex was prevalent, I will give you my exact opposite experience: No one in my high school was having sex, as far as I knew. Neither were my three older siblings. These experiences exist too, and deserve to be represented in books. We don't want teens who are not interested in sex being exposed to book after book with teens who are and concluding from that that there is something wrong with them and/or going out and having sex when they don't actually want to.
Let's not forget that YA, regardless of what it is called, is being marketed towards teens - all teens. What is appropriate for 17-year-olds may not be appropriate for 13-year-olds. YA needs to use the latter guidelines if it wants to maintain that it's directed to teens in general.
Perhaps I'm biased being in America - here it is far more acceptable for a show or movie or book for teens to have stabbing or beheading or other on-page or on-screen violence than it is to have on-page or on-screen sex. Just like it's okay for pre-teen kids to learn to use guns, but not to practice applying condoms on an inanimate object.
This might go hand-in-hand, but the three recent LGBT YA books I've read recently, but had instances of sex, but also alcohol usage. The first book, I found horrifying to read, but I think in part because the author writes fanfiction & it ultimately was really, really easy to tell what sort of fanfic (re: Teen Wolf). She used a lot of terms that are born from fanwriting and it ultimately felt very fetishistic--as the book is about queer boys (teens)--it was just... Not great? The book is How Not to Ask a Boy to Prom. However, there was also combined usage at times of alcohol use at parties, and sure, as teens, I definitely had the odd contact to alcohol, but growing up in the 90's, we got a lot of that "teen parties = drunk keg fratbro big house party" feel.
The second was Gilded Wolves, which was meant to be, I think "slightly older" YA fiction (closer to 18 years of age than 13), and historical-magical (set in alternate France), but there are teen characters that drink, have sex, and one is a dancer (I forget if burlesque is directly mentioned, but that was the feel it had; especially that this teen dancer had various rumors of lover-affairs, etc--primarily faked, but still). I found it very strange, since some of the scenes, you're meant to somewhat "feel" what the character is feeling. I think its the second comment? That mentions: what is the purpose of the sexual teen scenes?
I feel like a lot of American writing tends to produce sex scenes wherein you, the audience, should "feel" aroused, which is the problem. (Same for other emotions: like you're supposed to feel scared or aggressive, etc. Our writing is very emotional-based.) This had that sense to me? And that really made me uncomfortable to read.
The third book, These Witches Don't Burn, has sex scenes, but I felt less "You need to feel this, reader!" I didn't like the other books, but I did like this one (barring the alcohol parties -- seriously though!? The LGBT community has enough issues with alcoholism & substance abuse, writing scenes that make being drunk neutral or idealized is really not a great idea; I had a friend recently admit to me that they struggled to realize they had alcohol issues because of this exact reason! All the media they consumed for teens & twenty-somethings was all about substance abuse -- sometimes/often glorified--and sex--more on that in a minute). When describing the sexual aspects, characters are having sex but it's not particularly graphic; you're aware teens are doing it. The main character does feel attraction & describes it, but it felt organic & I didn't feel like the author was trying to arouse her audience? There's a split between "the character is aroused" or attracted to another character, and "you are meant to feel this way as the reader" & I'm not sure how to quantify that line.
The other aspect to this, I think, is what about those on the asexuality scale? My friend who came to realization that media left them with the sense that substance abuse is normal & just a simple part of life also struggled to realize that rampant sex wasn't something healthy for them. They're grey-ace & have a lower sex drive (I'm the same) & we both had to grow up with "teen? in your twenties? you want sex sex sex sex". It really messes up your ability to realize that it may not be healthy to do. (Or if it's written without protection/proper discussion: you may do things without quite realizing the dangers at play; I grew up in a rural town with no sex ed, let alone the concept of LGBT+ discussion.) A lot of folks I know on the ace spectrum say how hard it is to realize they're ace / feel really awkward or ostracized by how a lot of stories push for sex being the key motivator.
I'm surprised I haven't commented on this. I'm demisexual (part of the asexual spectrum) so I have a mixed relationship with sex content in books. Personally, I wouldn't have read it even if I had access to it when I was a teen; I just wasn't there emotionally and it was kind of frustrating being told I should want a relationship and want to have sex. I found myself in plenty of sexually-charged situations (skinny-dipping, streaking etc.) which might have resonated with me if I had found them in a book, but I nearly died of embarrassment at the time (almost literally, one situation traumatized me to the point where I can't remember significant portions of that night and I'm pretty sure the trigger happened while I was in a swimming pool). I would have read books with those, but as soon as sex would have come up, I probably would have been repulsed and quit. That said, books with sexual relationships that are portrayed in a factual/relatable way are important. Part of building and growing acceptance is to normalize queer behaviour, and that does involve sexual relationships. It's also important for them to be portrayed realistically in ways/situations that teens might encounter them. Not every book needs one, but they do need to exist. And it would be really nice if we could get some diversity on ace-spectrum relationships.
extralizard13 wrote: "This might go hand-in-hand, but the three recent LGBT YA books I've read recently, but had instances of sex, but also alcohol usage. The first book, I found horrifying to read, but I think in par..."
I hadn't associated American writing with being more emotion-based, but that's not implausible. I admit, I want that emotional engagement with my books. But not an erotic engagement in YA. This for me is the (difficult to define) dividing line for sex in YA books - IMO it's fine as plot, and even on page in a fade-to-black way. But as soon as it becomes about eliciting arousal from the reader (as opposed to other emotions that are universal and not age-bounded, like affection or embarrassment) then it moves into adult book territory for me. I consider YA as intended to be a haven from explicit sex for readers, whether they are too young, asexual, uninterested, triggered, whatever.
And we surely need more LGBTQ YA that is not relationship-based for the plot.
Alcohol is ubiquitous in our culture and sadly, it's still more common than we'd like although not as much as these books suggest. A couple of recent surveys of teens showed that of seniors (12th grade) about 20% said they'd been drunk in the last month at least once, 15% had been binge drinking (>5 drinks in a row) in the last 2 weeks. Those numbers are actually going down a bit in the last 10 years, but still show a problem.
Of course that means 4 out of 5 teens got drunk rarely or never. So it's not as universal as the books like to suggest. It is perhaps over-used in books. Some of that may be because it's a convenient plot driver for (lazy) writers - get a character drunk, or around other drunk teens, and you can liberate behavior you might not otherwise show on page.
Someone once said that in a "just say no" culture, alcohol is the thing people face the most pressure for actually saying no to, whether as teens or as adults. It is also the true gateway drug to other drug use for teens. And while books may have content warnings for "drug use" they usually don't for alcohol. In particular, the way our American society often equates drinking beer/getting drunk with friends and being a man is concerning.
YA LGBT Books
Books mentioned in this topic
Every Time I Think of You (other topics)Message of Love (other topics)
Every Time I Think of You (other topics)
Amy & Roger's Epic Detour (other topics)
The Boy Who Lost His Face (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
David Lubar (other topics)Laurell K. Hamilton (other topics)
Josh Lanyon (other topics)
Jordan Castillo Price (other topics)
Robin Reardon (other topics)
More...
A..."
yeah they have Na for that