Guest Writer // Tessa Donohue
In the rise of popularity in reading, specifically within the YA genre, it has become evident that romance sells. Or, more specifically: smut sells. In the books a person will see while scrolling through “most popular” or “must read” listicles within the last five or so years, a large majority of the books contain sexual content. While sexual content itself isn’t new, the amount of “smut,” as it is commonly referred to, and how graphic it is has increased. In keeping a foot in the YA world as someone who grew up reading 2010s YA books (that would I guess now be referred to as classics in the genre) the change in what is acceptable in sexual material is surprising, and I think needs to be addressed.
This debate is not about is whether it is okay to have sexual material in these books. That is not up to me to decide. Sexual material, when properly handled, is completely valid to have in books that are about teenagers who are growing up and learning about themselves. This is merely an exploration of the change in material. So, how has sexual material changed in the YA canon to be more willing to be upfront instead of fading to black? It helps to look back first.
The most popular YA books I read in the 2010s were the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. The series had a romance between the two main characters that made twelve-year-old me blush. But, the two of them never have sex on the page. It is alluded to in wording, but never brought up directly. Contrastingly, in the 2014 Goodreads Choice Awards for “Best Young Adult Fantasy” went to City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare.
The series was the talk of town before BookTok was a thought in anyone’s mind. The book also had the most sexual material out of anything I was reading at the time. Black leather-clad, demon-fighting teenagers were making out all over the page. If I was reading it in class, I’d check over my shoulder to see if anyone could see what was happening on the page. But in each of the books, when anything major happened, it focused on the feelings and emotions rather than the physical material. It also walked around the actual wording to a point where sensory details skirted around the act happening on the page. Then, a few paragraphs later, the scene would “fade to black.” The writing is more ambiguous as to what is going on, but the actions are still occurring. The material was different from what took up page space, but the writing was still ambiguous as to the actual actions taking place. Most scenes still didn’t progress very far.
Jump forward to the Goodreads Choice Awards 2015 through 2019, and Sarah J. Maas books dominate the “Young Adult Fantasy” section. The books, notably and notoriously, portray much more sexual material than the other two authors’ series. They do not cut away and do not mince words. In the book that won the award in 2016, A Court of Mist and Fury, readers on TikTok have the exact chapter that the two characters sleep together memorized. The sexual material is not just an afterthought of the series, but an integral part that makes them as popular as they are.
In fiction YA books, the romantic material has changed as well. The most popular 2010s YA romance fiction authors I can remember were Sarah Dessen or Jenny Han. Neither of whom had obvious explicit material in their books for more than what was regular for the time (fade to black and the like). But popular fiction romance now that is being read by teen audiences from authors such as Colleen Hoover—a name nobody can stop talking about, both good or bad—is much more obvious and upfront about sex between the love interests. There is a question of whether certain books—such as Colleen Hoover, who was not initially marketed as YA—belong in the YA category because of their material. It is relevant that most people now agree that Sarah J. Maas’ previously mentioned books should have been released as “New Adult” instead.
I think it is besides the point. Whether these books change marketing now, they have already been made popular by a large majority of a female teen audience. A female teen audience that publishers know have buying power and are, according to readers on TikTok, more than okay with the material. Sexual material in the YA genre and it’s growing nature, isn’t necessarily good or bad. It all depends, in my opinion, on the way such material is being presented to an intensely impressionable audience.
In the International Journal of Young Adult Literature, authors Nic Hilton and Gabriel Duckels explain that “YA literature’s engagement with the topic of sexuality and sexual experience corresponds to broader histories of representation in texts for young people, which in turn frame real lives.” The material is changing. That is okay. However, the people responsible for said material need to be sure that it is handled correctly to ensure that a new generation of young adult readers can enjoy stories in the same vein as the past.
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