Thinking on Thursday: Sex in YA Novels

Steph Bowe's got a great discusion going on over on her blog, go check it out!

I commented too, but there was quite a few so here's what I had to say on the subject:

"I've actually thought about this too as far as my own writing goes, and how much I'm willing to put "onto paper", but like Sarah Laurence (Other commenter) said in reference to Forever by Judy Blume, I think at the time the book came out that was such a shocking thing to see sex written about for teens in such a detailed way especially, but to me it's like isn't it better to have it written because, "Hello, it's out there...", then to have no discussion about it at all and leave us teens with more questions then we already have? Understating it by not showing it at all doesn't exactly open up the discussion about it either, and that probably does more harm then good, especially these days, because if we don't talk about it it puts us at risk because we wont have all the information.

I think as long as it's not like, "Let's hook up with random strangers unsafely!" A la Gossip Girl (Which, in all honesty, I'm in love with that show, but also I think a lot of the time it depends on the person. I don't want to go out there and say, "All teens are picking up on the messages and getting the wrong ideas about sex!" because I don't think that's necessarily true, though I think probably a lot of kids are doing this, there are some kids who are merely looking to shows like Gossip Girl for harmless, silly, (WONDERFUL) entertainment, and aren't picking up anything worse then their parents are picking up from Desperate Housewives.)

If it deals with the situation as the meaningful thing that it is, or can be, with the right person then that's good because sometimes teens might jump into something like that just because it's new to them and kind of scary but like a roller coaster where, though it's scary, it feels exciting to be doing something that feels like something you shouldn't be doing (If that makes sense. >_<). Like they should have examples of it, good ones, so that they understand that it's something that needs to happen at the right time, and with the right person, and I think the stories and shows where it does get rushed are good too though because it gives you a chance to experience that without having to really go through it you know? And then it's like, "Whoa, that's terrible that it had to happen that way for ___," and then it can give you perspective as to how you want to handle that situation in the future so you can say, "Eek, that was bad, I don't want that to happen to me.", where as if it's not brought up at all you can't learn from other peoples mistakes."

Go add the post with your opinion, and send me a link? I'd love to discuss with you too, but I don't want to take away from Steph's thing so comment there first! ;P

xoxoxo and thanks to Steph for opening up the topic! ^^