Today is the day when I offend everyone. I’m answering the
following Truth,
Be honest: have you read
Fifty Shades of Grey? (and thoughts on New Adult/sexy YA/or whatever)
Short answer: yes, I have read Fifty Shades of Grey. Sort of. I mean, I read the first three
chapters and skimmed the rest. That counts as reading, right?
Let's rewind about thirteen months. Late last summer, the director of the public library where I work asked my boss to read Fifty Shades to help decide whether we should carry it in the library. There weren't a lot of critical reviews available at that point, which is one of the main ways we decide which books to carry, but we were getting flooded with requests for "that sex book. You know the one." *significant look*
After about ten minutes of skimming, I found my boss sitting
in the workroom with this look on her face. . . .
She looked up at me. “I can’t do this. Will you read it?”
How could I resist? Clearly, from her expression, there was
something magnificently horrifying happening between the pages. I had to know what had brought that look to her face. I took the book home and managed to stop giggling like a 12-year-old long enough to crack open the cover.
In the end, I couldn't do it either. I stopped reading and
started skimming around the time Bella and Edw. . . I mean, Anastasia and
Christian have an extraordinarily awkward conversation (that was maybe supposed
to be sexy?) at a hardware store. To me, the steamy scenes were just. . . kind of squicky.* It was not my cup of tea.
This Truth has me thinking about how we
write about sex in Young Adult literature versus how it’s portrayed in New Adult like
Fifty Shades. Granted, not all New Adult is straight-up erotica. Take the insanely talented Gayle Forman's novels, for example, or
Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell, which I am dying to read. But
Fifty Shades has brought erotica to the forefront of New Adult, and because of that, people are starting to think of N.A. as fundamentally characterized by cover-to-cover graphic sex.
In Y.A., however, sex is an incredibly
touchy subject. If you don’t believe me, read
this wonderful blog post by Beth Revis on a librarian’s response to learning one of her books
contained sex, or take a look at the ALA’s yearly list of
banned books. "Sexually explicit material" is the number one reason why books are banned or libraries are challenged for stocking them.
 |
| Source: American Library Association |
On one hand, I get it. Adults want to protect children from
situations and ideas they’re not ready to handle. I struggled with how to
portray sex in Salvage, which deals
in part with sexual relationships and pregnancy. As a librarian, would I feel
comfortable recommending my own book to teen readers and their parents? Would I
be okay with my fifteen year-old sister reading this? On the other hand, teenagers
are surrounded by sexual content in daily life. It’s on TV and in movies. It’s
in advertisements. It’s in music. It’s a topic of discussion on the school bus.
It’s everywhere.
Sometimes we adults also forget that our teenage years were
the time when we first fell in love, started dating, and became curious about
sex and sexuality. Some of us even began having sex when we were in high
school. If we’re writing honestly about teenage life and the process of
becoming an adult, sex is a legitimate subject. For those teens who are
sexually active, portraying sex in Y.A. accurately reflects their experience
and gives adults a way to talk with teens about how to protect their hearts and
their bodies. For those who aren’t, books are a safe place where teens can
explore the idea of sex without becoming sexually active. It’s an opportunity
to start a conversation about what is and what isn’t healthy in a relationship.
My personal philosophy about writing sex in Y.A. is that
above all, it should be realistic. By that, I don’t mean I think everyone should
be writing really extensive, detailed sex scenes. I mean that when it comes to
talking about sex for a teenage audience, I don’t want to write the kind of
unrealistic fantasy sex I’ve seen in Fifty
Shades and other New Adult erotica. If I’m going to write about sex, I want
to convey the combination of love, lust, confusion, anxiety, pleasure, and discomfort
that go along with a real person’s first sexual experiences. I want to look at the
dangers and the joys. I want to give
teens the information they need to take care of themselves.
I think we owe teens honesty about this experience that’s
looming large in their futures and imaginations. We owe it to them not to add
to the misinformation they’re likely getting from locker room gossip and rumors
on the bus. (Just to refute a few things I heard when I was fifteen - Yes, you
can get pregnant the first time! No, taking
monthly oral contraceptives is not the same as getting an abortion. Yes, sex can be
great, but it doesn’t guarantee true love.) Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying
every Y.A. book should deal with sex. Sometimes I just want to read about slaying
dragons and things blowing up without the complication of a romantic
relationship. But when we Y.A. writers do tackle this difficult subject, we
need to do it with maturity, care, and awareness of our audience.
*One word: tampons
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Alexandra Duncan is a writer and librarian (plus amateur photographer, crochet
enthusiast, cinemaphile, and, or course, book fiend). She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from the
University of North Carolina at Asheville, and has been a frequent
contributor to
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. She loves
anything that gets her hands dirty – pie-baking, leatherworking,
gardening, drawing, and rolling sushi, to name a few.Her first novel,
Salvage, is due to be released by Greenwillow Books/Harper Collins April 1, 2014. You can find her online at
Twitter,
Goodreads, and her
web site.
