In Parts I and II of this series, I discuss how age and law and minors’ rights can impact writing content for young adults. In today’s post, I discuss popular opinion.
Let’s face it. Popular opinion does sway how we write and even more so when it comes to writing violence and sexual content for youth. What is popular opinion? Scholars don’t agree on what it is but they do agree that, at its most basic level, it represents people’s collective preferences on a matter. Is it a majority? Not always and it isn’t static. It is an ever-evolving phenomenon.
What is important when writing for youth, particularly GLBTQIA youth, is to be aware and respectful to readers. That said, discrepancies and inequities do exist. For instance, it is disrespectful to GLBTQIA youth to omit, soften, or alter content that would otherwise be present in heterosexual stories. It is also disrespectful not to address violence and sexual content in a fashion that meets with present-day exposure, impositions, and the demands of society. One of the most glaring inequities that exists is that GLBTQIA literature for youth must be reviewed and pre-approved before being added to school and local libraries, whereas the same process is not always applied to heterosexual literature for youth.
Sexual knowledge, interpretation, exploration, and activity are incredibly large parts of a hormonally-challenged young adult’s existence and it is crucial that we write sexual content in such a way as to promote sound and responsible behavior. We certainly don’t want teens learning how to have sex from a gratuitous sex scene. The context in which we write for young adults is essential and reading responsibly written sexual content in the context of a close friendship or romance is appropriate for young adults.
What I, and nearly one hundred percent of the authors I know, won’t do is cater to prurient interest and exploit the nascent, developing minds of young adults to sell more books. In this vein, we are careful never to write gratuitous or graphic sex, and not to write sex so “explicitly” that it borders on gratuitous or graphic. So, what constitutes “explicit?” As mentioned in Part I of this series, that definition is in the eye of the beholder.
An essential portion of writing for young adults isn’t only education. It’s to encourage discussion about difficult issues that our youth face today such as sexual violence and consent. Check out what the Teen Librarian’s Toolbox has to say. I don’t subscribe to the notion that youth should be sheltered from the darker sides of life. They don’t live in a vacuum. They live in the same world that we do. I talk more about Writing Sex and Violence in Young Adult Works on Boys on the Brink.
We live in a time of change; not only one of change in perspective but also one of behavior and the law. Now, more than ever before. I am proud to be an author of GLBTQIA literature and hope to bring youth works that inspire them, give them strength and, above all, give them hope. Puritanical isn’t my gig. Writing fades to black or wholly off-screen sex and violence when writing for youth, particularly GLBTQIA youth who have limited resources, is not germane writing. Yet, context is essential.
Check out Part IV of Youth Should Read About Life as it is Lived: Authorship and Publishers.
“[I]t’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.” ― Judy Blume
