S/O Teens and Sexuality: today's YA books are sexless

[vonfirmath]

I think it is only the Tortall ones that I've read (or tried to read); Alanna is a familiar name.

 

 

Yes, we won't be buying Clan of the Cave Bear.  I mean, most of what I oppose in modern YA lit is basically what I see as sexual revolution liberalism, and I'm a fan of more traditional/socially conservative structures and patterns of male/female interaction.

 

As a high schooler, most of my lit mag friends read Clan of the Cave Bear and just from their discussion I knew I wasn't interested. I did read V.C. Andrews (And regretted it as these books have stuck with me over the years) and the Pern series during this time.

 

[katilac]

I haven't read the link yet, but have YA books changed so much in the last few years? My kids are 19 & 17, and I always referred to the YA shelves as the soft porn section. 

 

And I would never have classified Judy Blume as a YA author. Her books were in our grade school library, and that's when we read them!  Pretty much as they were published, because I am old. Along with Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack and all of the other classics, lol. We would not have been caught dead reading her stuff in the teen years, they were kid books. 

 

[Crimson Wife]

I haven't read the link yet, but have YA books changed so much in the last few years? My kids are 19 & 17, and I always referred to the YA shelves as the soft porn section. 

 

And I would never have classified Judy Blume as a YA author. Her books were in our grade school library, and that's when we read them!  Pretty much as they were published, because I am old. Along with Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack and all of the other classics, lol. We would not have been caught dead reading her stuff in the teen years, they were kid books. 

 

Judy Blume wrote a lot of stuff for middle schoolers (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, etc.) but Forever was definitely YA. I was not allowed to read it because of the s*xual content and only some of my friends were permitted to read it. It was definitely controversial at the time and not standard for YA of the era.

[Crimson Wife]

And the completely ironic thing was that almost EVERYBODY was watching soap operas. Days of our Lives, General Hospital, Santa Barbara, etc. So our parents who were censoring books like Forever because of the content were fine with us watching all the bed-hopping that was shown on TV soaps. :confused1:

[katilac]

And the completely ironic thing was that almost EVERYBODY was watching soap operas. Days of our Lives, General Hospital, Santa Barbara, etc. So our parents who were censoring books like Forever because of the content were fine with us watching all the bed-hopping that was shown on TV soaps. :confused1:

 

My mom didn't watch soap operas, but I have definitely seen this in action, lol. 

[eternalsummer]

My mom watched Star Trek TNG and my dad watched Sanford and Son :)

 

Re: the idea that kids can recognize that authors are experimenting with ideas and not necessarily promoting the relationship paradigms they describe: this is true to some extent.  I didn't get the idea reading Clan of the Cave Bear (I must have just read the first one) that the social situation in those books was some sort of ideal.

 

But in a lot of current lit, the morals of the sexual liberation movement are presented as things to take for granted, as the natural and right way that men and women interact.I would be more okay with this if it weren't also the message presented in most other media and throughout the culture; it's clearly not a thought experiment for most writers but just a reflection of the current paradigm. 

 

Similarly, if you lived in a very repressive society compared to this one - say a very conservative religious community, like Saudi Arabia 5 years ago - and your daughters had to live in that paradigm, where women couldn't drive or have most jobs or walk around with their hair showing or etc., and also the vast majority of the books available to her had women in roles where they were perfectly obedient to men all the time, got beaten if they didn't obey, never wanted to drive or do whatever else isn't allowed of women there, never questioned their religion, etc., you might want to avoid the books just because they are so thoroughly a reflection of a social structure you don't want your kids to internalize any more than necessary.

 

I'm not saying that the conditions for women in Saudi Arabia are equivalent to conditions for women in the US - I'm just trying to find a situation that would be as alien to your own worldview as much of modern American sentiment is to mine, if that makes sense.

[Bluegoat]

Yeah, it's kind of the things that bother me about sit-coms.  They are generally innane to some extent, so the people hopping in and out of bed with each other has a kind of strange sense of something completely taken for granted.

 

However - I do think what kids mostly pick up on is what they learn from their parents.

 

In terms of books, I find myself in many ways more concerned about them reading something that is of good quality more than with a particular moral flavour.  I'm interested somewhat in the latter as well, but in a book that's well written, I don't seem to feel that same sense of it being random - the characters are more like real people.

 

Anyway - to me it's more about having them read some good books, rather than preventing them from reading the poor ones.  I don't think it's very worthwhile to keep dd13 from reading Twilight, much as it's not really very good.  But I want her to be able to compare it to other things.

Edited February 13, 2018 by Bluegoat

[Tanaqui]

Why some consider it a necessity for teens to read about sex it beyond me, though.

 

Well, most teens do think about sex and would like to read about it. I'd rather they read about it than do it!

 

[Farrar]

I haven't read the link yet, but have YA books changed so much in the last few years? My kids are 19 & 17, and I always referred to the YA shelves as the soft porn section. 

 

YA is always changing... it definitely has had a lot of romance, will they/won't they, romantic triangles, and "we're destined to be together" love relationships. But I'm not familiar with much YA in the last decade that has any sex. As the article points out, when characters even have sex, it's not expressed in any explicit terms at all. It's more like, "sex happened, and let's not talk about that..."

[LMD]

See I remember reading John Marsden and Melina Marchetta, both of which had some awkward teen sexuality scenes but nothing too explicit afai-recall.

Neither story was only about the sexual relationship but were about the growth of the characters and the experiences that contributed.

 

I'm actually not opposed to a well written exploration of budding sexual feelings in the context of a respectful, healthy relationship. I would be happy for my daughter to read it, I would much rather the boy-craziness be expressed through idealised literary situations!

[Crimson Wife]

My mom didn't watch soap operas, but I have definitely seen this in action, lol. 

 

Now the soap opera storylines of the era were totally outlandish (aliens! demonic possession!  all the bizarre evil plots that the Cassidines and Stefano DiMera attempted!) so maybe that was more clearly in the realm of "fantasy" than a teenager deciding to "go all the way" with her boyfriend in a YA novel. IDK

 

[eternalsummer]

See I remember reading John Marsden and Melina Marchetta, both of which had some awkward teen sexuality scenes but nothing too explicit afai-recall.

Neither story was only about the sexual relationship but were about the growth of the characters and the experiences that contributed.

 

I'm actually not opposed to a well written exploration of budding sexual feelings in the context of a respectful, healthy relationship. I would be happy for my daughter to read it, I would much rather the boy-craziness be expressed through idealised literary situations!

 

 

The bolded is also true for me.

 

And I don't mind characters that make bad decisions, or situations that are not ideal, as Bluegoat said - it's not that that bothers me.  It's setting such a thing in a context of "this is the ideal and normal way for these things to function" that upsets me.

 

It would be like if in Clan of the Cave Bear, instead of being horrified along with the main character at her rape and the structure of that society, she were happy about it and complacent and things went very well for the rapist - if it were clear the narrator approved of him and of the social structure, and promoted it as a superior social structure to one in which women are not routinely raped.

 

THAT is the kind of thing I want to avoid.

[Bluegoat]

I actually sigh with relief when I find a YA book that isn't about lurve, tbh. Between the blooming vampires and the girl meets boy thing, it got pretty tricky there for a while to buy a decent YA book. Especially if you are looking for contemporary, and no dead or mentally ill parents.

 

Holy moly, yes.

 

There is a book shop for kids up the road from me with a good sized contemporary YA section.  It sends me into a depressive spiral just to walk into that section, it's like everything is about some kid "dealing" with something.  Or, they are vampires.

[regentrude]

I was a voracious reader as a teen, but the one thing I could not stand were YA novels about contemporary teenagers and their problems and relationships. Most of them were poorly written compared to my usual fare of Great Books by authors whose work stood the test of time, and most story lines and conflicts were shallow and uninspiring. My kids also are not particularly interested in reading books about teenagers. 

People who think books for teens must contain sex are underestimating the wide interests teenagers can have . Just because teens may be interested in sex does not mean they all want to read about it. And, contrary to what YA authors seem to believe, teenagers are perfectly capable of relating to protagonists who are not teens.

My favorite book as a teen was the Count of Monte Christo. YA fiction did not measure up.

Edited February 14, 2018 by regentrude

[kiwik]

I read Clan of the Cave Bear as assigned reading in 7th grade.

 

The sequels were not out yet. If they had been I wonder if the first would still have been assigned.

OK. That I am not keen on. It is not literature of any great merit and it is a very odd choice for 7th graders as an assigned book.

[regentrude]

Since somebody mentioned "bad relationships": world literature thrives on "bad" relationships and is full of unhealthy models. A healthy relationship is devoid of drama and tension, and thus lends itself poorly to being written about. 

I do not expect my kids to learn about healthy relationships from literature; that would make for very boring fare. I see it as our task as parents to model healthy relationship; if we do that right, reading about dramatic dysfunctional relationships will not cause any harm. But it's way more fun than reading about a functional stable couple.

Edited February 14, 2018 by regentrude

[Bluegoat]

OK. That I am not keen on. It is not literature of any great merit and it is a very odd choice for 7th graders as an assigned book.

 

Maybe they thought it was educational.

[Crimson Wife]

I was a voracious reader as a teen, but the one thing I could not stand were YA novels about contemporary teenagers and their problems and relationships. Most of them were poorly written compared to my usual fare of Great Books by authors whose work stood the test of time, and most story lines and conflicts were shallow and uninspiring. My kids also are not particularly interested in reading books about teenagers. 

People who think books for teens must contain sex are underestimating the wide interests teenagers can have . Just because teens may be interested in sex does not mean they all want to read about it. And, contrary to what YA authors seem to believe, teenagers are perfectly capable of relating to protagonists who are not teens.

My favorite book as a teen was the Count of Monte Christo. YA fiction did not measure up.

 

Re-reading Wuthering Heights as an adult made me realize just how awful Heathcliff is in a way that I somehow completely misread as a teen. At 15 I would've called him "brooding" and "passionate". :banghead:

 

Just because a book is a literary classic does NOT mean it's good fare for impressionable young teens.

[regentrude]

Re-reading Wuthering Heights as an adult made me realize just how awful Heathcliff is in a way that I somehow completely misread as a teen. At 15 I would've called him "brooding" and "passionate". :banghead:

 

Just because a book is a literary classic does NOT mean it's good fare for impressionable young teens.

 

Oh sure. But as I explained in my other post, I think most good books have awful relationship models, because good relationships are not sufficiently dramatic to write a novel about them.

And language wise, Bronte is way above teh YA authors.

 

I teach my kids about relationships by modeling, and they can read all the books about dysfunctional people. I do not believe books have as much power as a parental model. It worked out fine for me. 

 

Edited February 14, 2018 by regentrude

[Bluegoat]

Re-reading Wuthering Heights as an adult made me realize just how awful Heathcliff is in a way that I somehow completely misread as a teen. At 15 I would've called him "brooding" and "passionate". :banghead:

 

Just because a book is a literary classic does NOT mean it's good fare for impressionable young teens.

 

I read Wuthering Heights at that age.  I thought Heathcliff was a dork.  I probably would have been more sympathetic to him had I been older, and enjoyed the book more.

 

But really, if you thought he was romantic, that was in your head, the book didn't put that there.  Books that are written to give good examples of everything are dead boring.

Edited February 14, 2018 by Bluegoat

[Lady Florida.]

Those books and authors didn't come out until I was too old for them - older teen to college student to legal adult. There weren't really any YA books for my generation (grew up in the 1960s) other than some classics like Little Women if you count those kinds of books. What little there was that was supposedly aimed at my age group was drivel, so I would sneak my mother's books after school while she was at work. I wrote down the page numbers where I left off, the would put the book back on her bedside table, being careful to leave it just as I found it.

 

Unfortunately my mother didn't read literature. She read the trashy stuff of her day as a way to unwind after work. :lol:  Some of the books I sneaked from her bedside:

 

Rosemary's Baby

Peyton Place

Airport

The Godfather

Valley of the Dolls

 

 

Meanwhile, Judy Blume herself weighs in: Parents worry too much about what children read

 

She is not wrong!

 

No, she's not wrong. My own experience matches what she said. Much of the content in the above named books went right over my head, so I just glossed over it. I did exactly what the Blume says kids do in the quotes below.

 

She argued that they will simply "self-censor" by getting bored of anything they do not understand.

Blume, the bestselling author of Forever, Blubber and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, said people should not be unduly concerned about their children's reading material.

If the content was unsuitable, she argued, children would simply tire of it or let it wash over their heads without understanding.

 

[poppy]

Clan of the Cave Bear was one of the books we all passed around as  a "dirty" book around that age.

 

I'm also embarrassed to admit this but a classmate showed me pages from The Color Purple, giggling because of the language.  I think the term 'peepee' was used in a 'sex' scene. But it was a scene about a man raping his very young daughter.   That was 30 years ago, but I still remember not knowing how to respond. I think I said "oh that's weird" , inwardly recoiling. It was a girl in honors English with me.  Things like that are why I think there DOES need to be these kinds of books.  Teenagers are drawn to sex.  Lit is a safe outlet.

 

I went through my mom's pirate-theme bodice rippers at that age myself. And honestly, am none the worse for wear. Even though they were mostly rape fantasies.  I dunno. Maybe the subversive aspect makes it more appealing than healthy sex relationships.  But a middle ground would be nice.

[Wishes]

I don't remember sex in Judy Bloom, but I may not have read much of her.

 

At any rate, I have to filter very heavily for sex and sexual relationships in YA novels for my 12 year old.  The stuff I read as a kid -  L'Engle, UK Le Guin, Lois Lowry, etc. - was less sex-focused (if it was there at all) and most relationships were primary, that is to say there wasn't a lot of sleeping around.

 

My mom keeps trying to buy DD12 books by Tamora Pierce, which is about as far, morally, from what I consider an acceptable portrayal of ideal sexuality as possible in YA.  Stephanie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, Leigh Bardugo, etc. are not a hell of a lot better, although at least in those the characters are somewhat conflicted about their bad relationship decisions.

 

I've actually skipped a fair amount of current YA for DD12 in favor of works written for adults, which seem to have less of the "girl is in a quasi-relationship with two (or more!) guys, which one will she choose?  and btw it's totally not a problem for her to have sexual contact with both of them concurrently, and the only concern about having sex without being married is whether she's got some sort of birth control because babies are the WORST, etc."

 

Connie Willis in particular is generally speaking pretty sexless, even when there are romantic relationships - they're rarely the dramatic focus or the essential conflict.

I don't know so much about Meyer's since I stopped reading after the first page, but I think that Collins is being short-shrifted here. For one, the Gregor the Overlander books, also written by Collins, have no love triangle. 

In The Hunger Games trilogy, it is made abundantly clear that while Katniss loves both boys, she has romantic feelings for Peeta (when kissed this is the only time she "feels something"). There is only one point where her feelings are questionable but the other character, Gale, points out that she only had those reactions and thoughts (but not real feelings) because she can't bear seeing people in pain.

The reason Katniss's feelings are so conflicted in general is because her relationship with Peeta is manipulated over and over again through governmental forces. She fights this manipulation so hard that she doesn't allow herself to really understand her emotions. In addition, she watched her mother go into a deep depressive (nearly catatonic) state after her father died and relates that to romantic love. When you add into that that Katniss feels a great responsibility for Peeta's life and well-being because of the tortures and exploitation they've been put through, her feelings are even more convoluted. Maybe teens only see a love triangle but by showing them the deeper manipulations of corrupt power-mongering despots, they can learn more.