S-E-X in YA

Writing hot scenes in YA is difficult. Even though I have some intense scenes in my WIP’s I always find myself restraining myself from being too graphic. Then again, “too graphic” is always so friggin’ subjective. I’ve read the way some YA writes up sex scenes, and most of it’s handled with a “the less you talk about the better” fashion, or with fades to black, which is what I tend to do. But there’s always still the question of “how hot is too hot”.

One thing I find a do is that when I’m writing a male protagonist (either in third-person limited or first person), things tend to be more graphic. Not too graphic, but it’s a little bit more about what the character does, where as when I’m doing things from the female prospective, it’s a little bit more about what’s happening and how it feels. It’s a weird switch, but I do think that’s how guys and girls talk in general.

Ask any guy who has had sex which it’s like to have sex and they’ll tell you what they did, or what  a girl did to them. But as someone who spent most of his junior and senior high school years sitting with a group of highly sexually active teenage girls, I find that girls are for more apt to talk about the sex actually feels. I’d also like to take the opportunity to clear up the rumor that girls do not talk about sex, because they do, ALL THE TIME. They’re just more adept at waiting for guys to not be around before they talk about it, but they definately do talk about it.

I’ve also realized that even though most of the novels I’ve written have some kind of sexual content, in most of those situations, the sex itself isn’t particularly spectacular, which I think is a HUGE difference between YA books and TV aimed at teens. You’d think a show like The Secret Life Of The American Teenager would be a cautionary tale, since the main character get pregnant in the first season on the show. But everyone, EVERYONE on that show has sex, which I find kind of odd. I mean the main character on the show had a kid. Obviously they showed what one of the consequences of sex when you’re a teenager can be, but it’s almost completely negated by the fact that everyone on that show is having sex all willy-nilly with little to no consequence.

Meanwhile most of the scenes I’ve seen in YA books are tame and a good portion of them are awkward and/or bad. It’s why it’s so funny when people trying to get books like “The Bermudez Triangle” by Maureen Johnson banned when it contains absolutely no sex scenes. None. Of read it, twice. The closest it comes to one is two girls kissing, but the only kiss, and that’s that. Or even funnier still is the difference between “Gossip Girl” the book, which is relatively tame when it comes to sex if nothing else, and Gossip Girl the TV show, in which Blair’s sole goal in life comes for Chuck to pork her. (Which flies in the face of the books, but I try and not be a “THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN IN THE BOOKS!” fanboy too often). If you watch pretty much any show that’s not Degrassi: The Next Generation that’s geared towards teenagers, sex is treated like this mystical, magical thing. And don’t get me wrong, it is awesome, but it seems like the thought process sometimes it’s that it’s much more detrimental for a fourteen-year-old girl to read about sex than it is for her to watch it on TV.

Most of the first times and sex scenes I’ve read in YA books are clumsy, awkward affairs, and when you think about it, sex really is  clumsy, awkward affair anyway. In general writing is more honest than TV in that we delve into ourselves somewhat and remember this awkward first times and experiences and place them on the page, rather than presenting a super idealized version of something. My characters are but an extension of me; maybe a slightly younger version of me, but me none the less. Some ultimately do get down to the business of sexing, but I like to think that I don’t write them fooling around for the sake of them fooling around.

I mean if it was up to TV execs they’d just flash boobs cross a screen for thirty minutes.

So I work in the vain of trying to present sex in it’s actual state rather than the lofty dreams and fuzzy lighted glory you might seen on the television. But it’s tough, balancing that line between the ideal and actuality, between what’s cheesy and what’s clinical, between choosing to describe what’s happening or just describing how it feels, and if I do either of those how do I avoid going into purple prose mode without being so crude I’ll turn people off? Is the word “straddled” way to sexy for YA or is it just a normal adjective?

My goal is to be realistic without being graphically so, which is a lot harder than it sounds. What words are off limits? Can I say “dick”? I mean he said “dick” without it actually meaning penis. How far is too far? SOMEONE TELL ME!

*sigh* I guess the general rule of thumb to follow is that “if you think it’s going to far, it probably is”. I like to think that’s worked pretty well for me thus far, so I should stick with that.. Almost every thing I’ve read has been very tasteful in handling it, so I should take a cue from them.

Or, I could just fade to black, like “Breaking Dawn.” Because no one was actually WAITING for Bella and Edward to go at it, and no one actually wanted to read that. Right? RIGHT?

Does anyone have in general rules of thumb when it comes to writing sex in YA? Do you avoid it altogether? What’s the protocol, hmm?

KC

(Not) Doing It

Me and my best friend E. Lynn are not doing it.

Yes, I understand why you may not want to hear about the act that I’m not having sex with some one. At least if I was having sex with someone you would be somewhat entertained as I regailed you with tales of my raccous lovemaking. That or you’d find the quickest way to leave my blog and you’d do it rather effing quickly, but I promise I will keep you somewhat invested in this endeavor.

Me and my best friend E. Lynn have known each other for about ten years now, but only in the last couple years have we actually become best friends in the entire universe. That’s right, THE WHOLE UNIVERSE. We lost touch in high school because she was being chatised and ridiculed for being “different” (read: not a bitch, not concerned with popularity, well read and well spoken and creative, which we knows is pretty much the curse of death in the realm of politics) and I was too busy being getting my self-esteem beaten into a bloody pulp by a series of increasingly insane girls.

Let it also be known that I have loved this girl since our eighth grade field trip to New York, at which point I stood out in the rain with her for the entirety of a ferry ride because I didn’t want her to be lonely, and because I had spent the better part of two days trying to stare at her ass and it give me a rather good opportunity to do so. Over the years this unrequited love has grown from middle school crush to high school crush to me being so hopeless that I would literally beg her, BEG her to date me in college. Said conversations went something like this;

KC: DATE ME PLEASE!

E.Lynn: No.

KC: WHY NOT!?

E. Lynn: Because I think of you as a friend.

KC: You know, you’re only saying that because <insert psychobabble bullshit here, usually revolving around her parents>, you really do like me!

And so on and so forth. Over the last couple years I’ve finally calmed down and while I still love her dearly and would date her the second she asked me to because she’s that fucking awesome, it’s starting to become that more friendshipy “we can flirt while not wanting to date each other” kind of love, and that’s not a terrible place to be. But with that being said, I must say this.

Me and my best friend E. Lynn are not doing it.

It’s not for lack of trying. We hang out every couple of weeks. Every couple weeks she totally winds me up and test my will. Every couple weeks I try and vain to turn her on. As of yet, in one hundred or so attempts I’ve succeeded maybe ONCE. For the most part it’s harmless fun though, and since we both have buckets of pent up sexual tension it serves as a nice outlet to work some of those things out without burning out wires or having our hands cramp.

That being said, we are NOT doing it.

No one believes us when we say we aren’t doing it. Her parents, my parents, her brother, my aunt, my cousin, our friends. Everyone either thinks we are or should be shagging (mostly the former).

We are not. We are not doing it.

An argument can be made that we should be, but we are not. And we can’t convince anyone we’re not. Neither of us understand why–we are not outwardly affectionate with each other when we’re in public or in the company of others. We are not boyfriend and girlfriend. We share the occasional cuddle and the occasional grope, but we are not dating.

And we are certainly not doing it.

I would tell people if we were doing it. I would shout it from the heavens. You do not hide the fact that you’re sleeping with a person this beautiful from the world.

WOULD YOU DENY DOING IT WITH HER!?

But we are not doing it.

We may have touched each others unmentionables exactly once, but we are not doing it.

So this post has some kind of point (mostly it’s just a rant because people automatically assume we do it), one of the characters in my novel Fiona has kind of the same problem–she is constantly told that she likes one boy, when she doesn’t like one boy.

She just wants to do it with him.

She doesn’t want a relationship or some long-term fling. She fancies a shag and then wants to get on with her life. All around her, her friends tell her that she wants something more from this guy, but she doesn’t. The boy is a jerk who’s only redeeming quality is that he’s attractive and may be in good in bed.

She does not want to date him. She just wants to do it.

It’s even something that might be lost on my readers, hich I have to work on. I don’t think it’s ever happened that way, that a main character only wants to hop in the sack with another. Maybe I’m being original!

I mean, probably not, but maybe.

I love E. Lynn dearly. I don’t know what I’d do without her in my life, besides being miserable. I can talk to her and she can talk to me. We call each other on our bullshit. I still hold out the vague hope that one day we “can be”, whatever that means, but I’m getting better. I’d rather have her be a friend today than an ex-girlfriend sometime down the line–I don’t know what I’d do if that happened.

But, we are not doing it. Seriously. To anyone of my friends who might be reading it, WE ARE NOT DOING IT. I have me it perfectly clear that if I even get close, I will be the first one on my roof screaming “I FUCKED E. LYNN! I HAVE WALKED THE PATH TO EL DORADO, THE CITY OF GOLD, AND I HAVE DRANK AND BATHED IN IT’S FOUNTAINS!”. This is no lie. The police will have to be called. I will have to be carted away in the back of a police car, and the whole time I will be going “I have lived a good life, I have gotten into those knickers with the skull and the crossbones, lock me away forever, I can die happy, even though I’m terrified of dying”. I would say that, but I never will.

Because me and my best friend E. Lynn are not doing it. And as long as it keeps our friendship the way it is, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Awwwwwwwwww....

At least until we are doing it. Then I’d prefer to get it whenever I can.

KC

P.S. What the hell was this post about? There goes the goodwill I built with the whitewashing and Twilight posts…