-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Bayless
Sent: Mar 7, 2014 10:59 AM
To: 'CCBC-Net'
Subject: [ccbc-net] Everything you wanted to know about sex (in YA literature) and were afraid to ask

An interesting and dicey issue.  The top four parental and librarian concerns expressed to us as booksellers are concerns about Sex, Violence, Drugs, Language followed closely by Moral Ambiguity and Dysfunction.  These parental and librarian concerns match each other pretty closely and also match reasonably closely with the categories ALA tracks.  The following are questions I have.  Some reflect a simple lack of knowledge on my part, some are speculative and some are based on logical inference but somewhat hypothetical.  Some of these questions I have enough information to hazard a guess but I am interested in any information more substantial than my anecdotal experience and haphazard research.     I am treating literary fiction and nonfiction as related but with potentially different issues. 

What constitutes an honest portrayal of sex?  What is the titillation continuum?  From oblique references to double entendres to direct allusions to salacious content to graphic portrayals. 

At what point on the continuum does parental concern usually trigger?

Where do we demark sex from pornography?

Who reads these books (gender, age)? – PW and SLJ suggest that the great majority of YA readers are in their 20s to 40s and therefore this is not much of a children’s literature issue at all. 

How many such books are there? – Number of titles.  Dozens, hundreds?  I am guessing maybe some small number of new titles in a year. 

How big a part of the market are they? - 1% of the market, 10%, 20%?

How widely are they read (unit sales)?

How do, or would, we know if they are increasing or decreasing in prevalence?

To what extent are YA books relevant in terms of sex ed and YA? 

Where do YA get their sex information and/or norms and is literary fiction a meaningful source?

What percentage of YA sex reading is from YA literary books versus all other books (and magazines) to which they have access? – What if, as I suspect, 99% of YA male sex “reading” is internet/magazine based, not literary?  What if Fifty Shades of Grey is read by 20X as many YA as read sexually frank YA literature?

What is the balance between institutional interests (missions and goals) and parental interests (missions and goals)?

To what extent are institutions (libraries and schools) supposed to lead community norms versus reflect community norms?

Are there genre issues/conflicts/differences? – Sexual depictions in Manga versus in literary fiction versus in action hero comics for example?

How do you address/reconcile authorial sexual attitudes with parental religious attitudes?

How do you address/reconcile ideological conflicts – Where does sexual independence leave off and sexual exploitation take up?

What about issue conflation? – Sex and abortion and gender roles and cultural traditionalism, etc.?  In other words, descriptive sex may be the provoking issue, but perhaps the corollary issues are more

incendiary and might be the real issues to which people are reacting via inference.

Is there a YA equivalent to Harlequin romances, and if so, what is the relationship between them and sex in literary fiction, if any?

What impact has the increasing prevalence of school sex education had on the market for YA sexually frank books?  Any discernible trends in twenty years?

Are YA literature with sexual content in greater or lesser demand/circulation in the 20-30% of school districts without formal sex education?

Is there any empirical evidence of real world consequence to literary sexual content, positive of negative? – I doubt it, but curious. 

Why are authorial judgments deemed to be superior to those of others (parents, teachers, librarians)?  – Are books “the safest place for them to learn about sex—not just the physical part but also the complex web of emotions that accompanies it.”  A fair enough proposition, but the position is an assertion of belief not a supported argument: i.e. I, the author, believe it is better to learn from books regardless of what you, the parent believe.  Is there such a case to be made?

What do we mean by censorship?  -  Parents aren’t censors.  They are parents seeking the best for their child, given their child’s circumstances. How do we distinguish good judgment from bad judgment in a case specific context?

Is sex in YA simply a proxy for a clash of worldviews?  - In other words is this simply a function of opinions and values with no objective answer for what is better or worse?

Is there a difference between institutional and individual markets for YA with sexual content?  In other words, if institutions are 30% of the market for all of YA, is it a higher, lower or the same for YA with sexual content?

What is the interplay between sex in YA literature and multiculturalism? – How do we respect different culture’s moral positions on sex in YA literature?

Given the emotional, physical, cognitive variances in individual children, and given the multitude of economic, cultural, religious and sociological circumstances in which a child might live, is there any way to a priori determine what is appropriate or not for any given child or even group of children?

How often is sex associated with consequence in literature? – Is the wonder of sex associated with the gravity of sex?

How does biological maturity and cognitive development factor into the issue? – Some children are experiencing puberty at much earlier ages than in the past and yet cognitive development, particularly of the executive function (prefrontal cortex) is still a late bloomer, particularly for males.  So there is a greater window of peril between physical adulthood and mental adulthood.  What are the implications of that for what is appropriate in YA literature?

Thought experiment – Given the laws against children and sex, particularly with regard to the internet, and given the strict rules schools have promulgated around sexting, to what extent would recording a reading of passages and/or transmitting those readings via email or text create exposure to legal or disciplinary actions? 

Sorry for the barrage and jumping all around.  Any data, facts or well received research that establishes or clarifies any of these issues would be appreciated.  For example, I suspect that there is probably some standard legal doctrine that establishes at least a framework of a continuum of artistic expression that includes sex, all the way up to some working definition of pornography.  Does anyone know what that is and how much it might be used in other fields and whether it might be applicable in this discussion? 

Charles

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