Reddit mentions of Boy Proof

In the land of good timing, /r/fantasy is also having a discussion about sex in fantasy today.

I also find these rants (from Limyaael's Rants, of course) to be quite topical: 1 2 3 4 5 6

And I'm probably going to beat /u/bethrevis to the punch even though it's her blog entry, but this conversation seemed to sum up "Adult" attitudes towards sex in YA quite well and stuck in my mind:

>Attendee: Oh no, violence is fine. Is there sex?

>Friend (starting to feel awkward): There's a scene in the book that does get a bit graphic, sexually. But it's relevant to the plot, and it's not gratuitous, and--

>Attendee: puts the book down on the table No. We can't have any sex in the books for the school.

>Friend: But it's a relevant issue. The girl in the scene is nearly raped and--

>Attendee: Oh? It's not consensual sex? Well, that's okay.

For context, graphic sex in books has always kinda squicked me out (though maybe the poor production value in erotica is more to blame - poor grammar also makes me cringe), but before I actually started having sex, I was fairly oblivious to the references in books. As in, totally missed what was going on in books like Brave New World or Song of the Lioness. Just totally skipped it. Didn't bother me or turn me into a sex-crazed deviant like people seem to fear or anything.

Now that I'm older, I do find it conspicuous when a world's meant to be gritty and completely detailed and cover everything from depression to bathroom habits to violence to inner turmoil, but even references to sex remain absent. For example, in the Mistborn trilogy (skirting the YA/genre fantasy border, supposedly), it's all [spoilers](#s "OK, so we're 20 and married and the most powerful people in the land and have no one to answer to and the world is ending and we really need a way to blow off steam... Let's never have sex ever.") It cuts into the believability of the stakes and to me, it seemed like possible justifications for that mindset were skipped over. [Possible justifications being things like ](#s "a political marriage, past trauma, fear of bringing a child into the world and complete ignorance of birth control, traditions built into that fantasy world, etc.")

That's not to say that you need to have sex in order to have a believable romance for high school or college-age characters. I think I'm in love with Levi from Fangirl without anyone getting naked even off-page, and I'm not even sure there was kissing in Boy Proof despite the sexual tension being through the roof. The lack of sex at that point in the story fit those characters and those relationships.

YA-ish books with sex I've recently read: Trickster's Queen (made sense for the characters involved), The Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy (props for having lots of build-up re: acquiring birth control and waiting for it to take effect), The Jewel (fittingly thematic, since it's a book about forced surrogacy and there was [spoiler](#s "a contrast between forced, mechanical impregnation and natural, chosen sex"), Eleanor & Park (fittingly awkward and open-ended, just like every other interaction they had), Looking for Alaska (public conversation about private awkwardness seemed really believable).

Edit: Looks like /r/fantasywriters is also having a discussion today, though with more of an LGBTQ slant.

Definitely check out The Perks of Being a Wallflower if you liked John Green. Boy Proof by Cecil Castellucci might be another good choice (loner geek girl in Hollywood).

Some more non-girly YA titles, mostly in different genres:

• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, about a teenage hacker swept up by the Department of Homeland Security after a terrorist attack in near-future San Francisco
  
• Leviathan trilogy by Scott Westerfeld, alternate WWI where the British have genetically engineered whale blimps and the Austro-Hungarian Empire is using steampunk mechas.
  
• Feed by MT Anderson, about a super-capitalistic future where everyone has the internet in their head from birth