Susan Landis-Steward's Page

I write lesbian mysteries for the adult crowd. I know that older teens "read up" and I know some teens will read my books. Yes, my books do have explicit sexual scenes in them. Along with less than pure language.

However, a raging debate in YA is the question of explicit sex in YA novels. I vote no. Why? The developmental range is 12 to 18. Kids over 15 or so tend to read adult novels.

So who is that sex scene for, anyway? My twelve year old granddaughter? I think not. Her mother is too much of mother bear to allow that. In fact, she has returned books to the store when the content was too explicit. And complained mightily. So lost sales for the author, and bad publicity because my daughter is highly social about such things.

Another question I read from time to time is this: If you are going to write explicit sex for teens, should you "break the flow" to have the kids practice safe sex (ie. use condoms, discuss pregnancy and STDs, etc.). To me that's a no-brainer. Yes. If you must have sex in books for kids, it must model acceptable safe sex practices.

And a last thought. Library sales. I doubt that middle grade libraries will allow explicit sex in their books. And given the propensity for some folks to fight to ban the dictionary for Pete's sake, YA with explicit sex may be a hard sell even in high school libraries.

Thoughts?