Sex in YA Books

NOTE: This is an opinion piece, dedicated to the lovely Bree Ervin. This has a lot of gifs, because I find them fun.

So

SEX

... in YA books.

I'm just going to be honest: I'm writing this is in my school's judgmental library and my cheeks are burning because anyone can just walk up behind me.

My stance on sex in books, personally, is to have it if you want to put it in there (no pun intended) but make it more implied because I do NOT want to read about you getting your freak on.

You can talk about it all you want and how aggressively you want it, but as long as I am not reading the act then I am happy.

A really good example of this, I feel, was Simone Elkeles in her Perfect Chemistry series, because it wasn't graphic in the "act of the sex" but more about the emotions that lead to them have it. I think that's a great way  to have that in books.

Or, if the people have it unprotected, then there are consequences. Like pregnancy. (I don't read that many teen pregnancy books so if you have any good ones, leave them in the comments!)

But there are also ways I do not appreciate people putting sex in their books.

Like Fifty Shades of Grey. A woman sitting next to me had it on her Kindle and I was like, well, might as well see what everyone is talking about and then BAM SEXY TIMES AND PAIN.

Or there's this ARC I read called Burning about a gypsy girl and a normal boy falling in love and they have sex. Not graphically, put then the Gypsy girl cleans the sheets and comments on the blood left and I'm still not okay from that.

Not that I'm a prude, it's just I don't really want sex to be graphic in YA books. If I did, then I'd be watching porn right now. (And I don't want to do that)

Especially for younger kids, because I started reading YA when I was around 11-12. And I read the Lauren Myracle book ttyl. While it didn't have sex in it (the last one, l8r, g8r did), there was a scene where the character Maddie drunkenly took her top and bra off and table danced.

But just imagine a little, vanilla, what's-sex-oh-the-stork-brings-babies tween reading this and getting a dose of DRUNKEN SEXUAL HOOLIGAN-ISM.

I told my parents (not knowing what happened and was just confused) and they hid the books from me until I was 13 and had learned about Sex Ed.

But, that being said, I definitely don't want books with sex or talks of sex in them banned. Because maybe if people talked about this kind of shit there wouldn't 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom or 32 and a Grandma (Jk). I mean, now I know if I do it and don't want a baby, then I will use protection.

What's your opinion on sex in YA books? Do you think there should be warnings? Or should we ban them? Or should sex be required in ALL THE BOOKS?

Bye you guys, love you all
Owyn