Sex Sells, But Should Young Adults Buy Into It?

It’s everywhere we look – In magazines, television, movies, books, bedrooms, back seats of cars…you the idea.  There’s no escaping it.  I don’t care how “good” we claim to be, we’ll look.  We’re curious about the body, what it looks like (more importantly, what other bodies look like).  Let’s admit it and move on – naked bodies or scantily clad bodies – are a complete turn on.  We shamelessly flock to online sites en masse and hoot our approval.  For the males, they have the Hooter Girls, the Jaegermeister models, and a long list of others scantily clad women toting tools, beer bottles, and motorcycles.

Us women love, love, love it!  We create it!  Look at what CJ West is doing for the cause!  (By the way, comment on his challenge post and you could win a $500  Amazon gift certificate – but the biggest prize is to get CJ shirtless!)om 1953…

What about brain candy?  Look at the success of Fifty Shades of Grey.  Sex, sex, and more sex.  And the public is eating it up!  Then there’s Gabriel’s Inferno and the eagerly anticipated The Winemaker’s Dinner (available July 31, 2012).  It’s all about the seduction that makes us squirm (in the very pleasurable sense of the word).

Which brings me to my original topic.  How young is too young for readers to be exposed to sex in literature?  Where should we draw the line?  Should we draw the line?

I’m not advocating it one way or another, because that is a purely personal opinion for authors and the parents of young readers to deal with.  What I have observed, though, is the fact that these young adults are getting younger and are already well-schooled about the ins and outs (yes, pun intended) of sex, the very same stuff some of us try to keep out of their hands.

Let’s face it.  The act of sex is primal.  Used for procreation or not, there is, at various levels, arousal.  None of us are immune to it.

In my day job as a medical transcriptionist, I’ve lost count of how many reports I’ve typed regarding 14-year-olds who go to the emergency room due to complications from their pregnancy.  As much as I’m against babies having babies, the reality is that they know all about sex and keeping it out of books probably isn’t going to stop them from doing the wild thing.  In fact, they’ll see it, read it, and do it if they want.

A friend of mine understands that mentality, and even though her son is only 14 years old, he has a girlfriend, so she keeps a stack of Trojans within his reach.  Just in case.

When I was in seventh grade, there was a couple who spent every lunch, every recess playing throat hockey and copping feels.  Sheesh.  If they did that in public, one could only guess what they did in private.

I’ve been told by a few teens that they’ve read my novel, Again, which has a few choice sex scenes ranging from sweetly intimate to raw. (My guess is that they actually skimmed the book for the “best parts” and ignored the rest.) And they seemed rather proud of themselves for having read it.  I totally cringe at the thought, but then I remind myself of the time when I was 12 or 13 and the stuff I got my hands on. *shrugs*  Whaddya gonna do?

I’m not going to tell you if I wrote any sex into my next Young Adult novel, Souled, or not, because that would be a total spoiler, but suffice it to say, I kept it as real as possible.  I would love to hear your thoughts.  Is there a line you draw as a reader or writer?  What are your beliefs?