Sex, Violence, and YA?

OKay, so I am not an expert on his genre (but I have rad it, due to vetting what my son read etc He says be more surprising please, he can guess the ending 9 times out of ten from the first 3 chapters, sometimes from the blurb) and I kind of happened on this thread

So....gory violence is okay, but sex (consensual?) isn't?

I'm not saying this as a moral pearl clutching, but..have you thought about that? Obviously it depends on what you call graphic violence. But most teens know what sex is. A lot of YA kids will have at least tried a few things out, sex wise or at least know what's going on. If your protagonist is YA age, it would be odd if they didn't mention it (at least in passing , or as part of who they are) Sex is not bad. Violence tends to be.

PS: I'm not really having a go at you here, because this seems very socially acceptable (violence is fine, sex isn't 0.o) but you don't need to perpetuate it (or address it either if you don't want)

Oy vey ...

It's not like we have a sticky for this or anything.

Or like this question comes up every other week.

CarysDovahkiin said:

This is probably subjective

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No probably about it. It all comes down to an author's personal taste and what suits the story.

Just because a character in YA doesn't have sex doesn't make them more or less genuine than a character who does. Sex simply doesn't fit in some stories, and trying to shoehorn it in will likely catapult the reader out of the story because it's so obvious it doesn't belong there.

If sex is necessary, put it in. If it's just to have it be in there as a realistic part of life, leave it out. You don't write every time a character goes to the bathroom, right? Maybe not the best example, but...no, I'll stick with it. The only thing that should be in a story--whether sex or violence or drugs or swearing or etc ad nauseum--is what's needed to move the story or the characters along. The rest is fluff.

I would say it all depends on your character. I've read a few ya books that fell short because it seemed like the author wasn't truly representing what her character would do; but instead what the author felt was appropriate for the genre. If the actions match the personality and behaviors of your character in whatever situation, then write it that way. Stay true to who your mc is.

KateSmash said:

No probably about it. It all comes down to an author's personal taste and what suits the story.

Just because a character in YA doesn't have sex doesn't make them more or less genuine than a character who does. Sex simply doesn't fit in some stories, and trying to shoehorn it in will likely catapult the reader out of the story because it's so obvious it doesn't belong there.

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This. Some of my characters are virgins, some aren't. No one gets to have sex because everyone is busy running for their lives.

Also, I don't think a character who doesn't have sex is any less genuine than one who does.

As to whether or not you can have both violence and sex, I'd write the story as you feel it should be told. An agent or an editor might ask you to tone down one or the other, but, really, it's completely subjective. One editor or imprint might be fine with it, another might not. Ditto for agents. You might not know until it's out there.

It's not a trade-off. Write what you think works for the story. No agent or editor is going to tell you to tone down one because you have too much of the other. XD

They're independent factors.

You also shouldn't add sex "just because" it's part of an average 16 year olds life. You aren't writing an average 16 year old. You're writing a single character who either is or isn't sexually active and either will or won't desire to have sex in the given circumstances.


As for the trade off, no of course not. At least not at this stage. Your agent and editor may eventually ask you to tone down one or the other. But there is no magical ratio of objectionable material. That's just silly. Write what's necessary and most reasonable people will understand the point.

If there's a reason for it to be there, put it in. Both can co-exist just fine.

I think I get what the question is really about:

Is having both graphic violence and sex going to push the book so far to the adult end of the YA spectrum that it might scare off agents/editors?

And I think it comes down to how you pull it off. If the story calls for graphic violence and sex, and doesn't feel complete without it, then no, it's not too much.

Graphic details come across as gratuitous when they don't serve a substantial narrative purpose.

You know, I knew a lot of people who didn't lose their virginity till college. The notion that sex is always an important part of a teen's life is just as absurd as saying no teens ever think about sex. Write what works for the character.

The MC of my WIP is a 17-year-old girl, and sex is definitely not an integral part of her life. My WIP is packed full of violence and gore, but I don't plan on adding sex, even though my MC has a love-interest. Why? Because she doesn't have time.

It's not that I think that the violence and sex don't mix for YA, it's just that my MC is too damn busy to be thinking about her hormones.

Do what your MC wants to do.

Toothpaste said:

You know, I knew a lot of people who didn't lose their virginity till college. The notion that sex is always an important part of a teen's life is just as absurd as saying no teens ever think about sex. Write what works for the character.

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QFT.

Last evening I had one of the most impactful film experiences for the last decade, well ever since I went to see Schindler’s List. The film I saw was one my teen nephew gave to me, and it was called “Graveyard of the Fireflies”.

It’s Japanese anime, and the style of the film is what you can expect of the genre. Very stylised, very childish, and I doubt many adults have seen it that didn’t hear about it through word of mouth and knew what to expect. I certainly did not expect to see a “ya film” move me, a grown and jaded man, nearly to tears.

I know Robert Ebert calls the movie one of the best war movies ever made. He doesn’t qualify it as the best *anime* or *animated* war movie. He calls it one of the best war movies ever made, up there with Band of Brothers and Schindler’s List. What is it about?

It is about the death of starvation of one child (a girl of five) and her teen brother in the aftermath of the American fire-bombings of Kobe in Japan. No, it’s not that kind of film. It’s all about the downward spiral of the child and the teen, and it is one of the absolutely bleakest and saddest stories you can imagine.

And it’s one that is spread, mainly, among teens. Adults overlook it totally. The style does it. They expect it to be teen- or child-oriented since it’s animated. The point of this long explanation is… write the story that you must write.

If that doesn’t convice you to do that, Melvin Burgess wrote about fourteen year old heroin prostitutes twenty years ago, so the idea that YA is some kind of moralistic haven is simply wrong.