Sexual Politics in YA

I've read a few YA novels recently that deal with sexual issues in a rather problematic manner. There are always those novels that are going to be pro-sexy-times, anti-sexy-times, and they're going to be blatant about it. But I'm talking about the sort of middle of the spectrum. A book that's about other things but includes sex inside those things and uses it as a sort of point to drive home a Big Idea or Message.

I recently read Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan, and something that really bothered me there was the depiction of sexual assault against women. [spoiler warning, k] It was treated in some places as an almost aside, like, "Oh, that happened, shame, meep de meep OOO LAZRS!" Which is like, no. In other places, it was used as a justification for horrible acts of violence and craziness. We were supposed to feel bad for and identify with and have a little sympathy towards the main villain lady after we learned she was probably raped multiple times by the rival captain.

Here's the thing: that absolutely makes the rival captain a rapist. But using rape as a justification for slaughtering an entire ship's crew of adults? How is this not problematic?

The other thing about this is that - okay, the only interesting thing we can do with this main villain to make her slightly less villain-y and slightly more human-y is to have her be raped? Which causes her to become embittered and straight up cray-cray and murderous? You're saying if a person has been raped then we understand if they turn out insane? How is this not super problematic for rape victims?

I also just finished an ARC of Starglass by Phoebe North. I have many, many thoughts on this novel [spoiler warning, k] and I'll probably write a review of it closer to its release. However. A big thing is how people aren't allowed to be gay because...because....they just...aren't. Because it's not okay. Babies are grown in tubes so like, I'm pretty sure the reproduction thing isn't an issue. It's just that they...don't have gays. Which Courtney pointed out was supposed to be because of the whole Jewish culture idea, but that doesn't hold water for me because the whole Jewish customs thing was used when it was convenient and ignored when it wasn't.

So North wants to point out that it's bad to not let homosexuals be who they are and be with who they want to be with. This is a good message, a good Big Idea. But the way the gay characters act is super concerning for me. They cheat on spouses and lie to fiance's in order to be together. So we have gay characters cheating on their wives because they are repressed and not allowed to be gay. But it's not bad that they're cheating because...it's not their fault and they can't help it? So we get into this whole thing about gays not having the same higher moral standards as non-gays have and I take issue with that. Because GAY PEOPLE HAVE GOOD MORALS. Some gay people have good morals and some gay people don't - just like any other non-gay person group. Just because a person is gay doesn't mean they don't care about living morally and they just want to be hedonistic and crayyyyy.

Another thing in Starglass is how Terra's sexuality is depicted. On one hand, we have her awakening sexual awareness and what are essentially psychic wet dreams (I'm sorry for the crass term but seriously, that's how they read), and the author wants us to feel like, oh no, Terra, and feel bad for her and want her to be sexually liberated. But the way it's written does not make us feel like that. It's written as though it's wrong for Terra to think about or want sex and that her desires are deviant and not the norm and that she should be ashamed of them. So then we see her dad calling her a slut and the author wants us to be outraged at that, and we want to be outraged at that too, but from how all Terra's sexual encounters are written, we sort of want to agree with him.

It's just...when sexual things like rape, molestation, infidelity, pre-marital sex, and all that are just used to explain a character's behavior, it's at best lazy and at worst irresponsible. When they're used to serve a plot point or to really drive home a BigIdeaMessage, it's at best annoying and at worst just poor writing. 

Sex in YA can be done really well and really, really badly. Sexual politics in YA seem to be even trickier. But I mean, it's just a good idea, in my mind, to not portray rape victims as only either insane murderous wenches or timid weaklings. It's not a good idea to hold your gay characters to different moral standards just because they're gay. It's not a good idea to send all these mixed messages about sex/desires/slut shaming. I think we're better than that.

- Fire