Sex in YA

Unless you're writing an outright romance novel, it's actually not much of a problem. Just don't describe the sex. Nobody really needs to know which dangly bits got stuck into which areas of negative curvature. It doesn't matter, and ultimately, it's kind of boring to read.

What you _do_ want to focus on are the emotions and reactions of the characters to the doing-it, and to the having-done-it..

Crashdown (YA sci-fi / horror)
Stranded on an alien world, Ruve must deny his own humanity in order to survive. To get home, he'll need the help of someone back here on Earth. If, that is, he can convince anyone here that he's real.

I personally don't like reading sex described which is part of the reason I usually read young adult.

I like Tamora Pierce's way of handling it. Alanna has sex with...at least 3 of the characters I can think of immediately, but it always happens "off screen." They "share a bedroll" or something of that nature but the details are left out.

The main rule is to be careful and keep it subtle.

There's a book by Judy Blume about a couple of late-teenagers and she describes their first time together. Rather in some detail, but very honestly, not flowery. I believe it was still housed with YA, though. It's called "Forever" and as far as this topic goes, might be worth looking at.

Thanks for the responses!

I know it's a touchy subject for this genre and to write a sex scene well is hard. I'll be sure, if I decide to write it, to take care.

I have read the Tamara Pierce novels and she does leave things out which reads well. And I will be sure to look at the other novel as well.

2006: Rockstar--15,500 words--Fail
2008: Meadow Brook (working title)-50,671- Winnee

I struggled with this with my last book. There wasn't sex in my last book, but make out scenes. I aways wondered where to draw the line. What was too much. What was not enough. Was it even necessary? I felt it was necessary in order to show the MC's emotions and reactions, but I didn't think that the reader needed every detail. These same characters will have sex in the third book in this series. My biggest problem is that I'm writing for my daughters' age group. I'm tired of first sexual encounters being "oh wow that was wonderful let's do it again because my life is now complete" scenes. And so much YA I've read that involves sex has NO mention of protection. Does it really take too much from the scene to show a little responsibility and have the guy (or the girl) roll over and say, "Wait, let me get a condom" or "Do you have a condom?" (I'd really like to see this a bit more in adult genre romances as well - amazing all the sex in all those romance novels and no one gets pregnant or contracts an STD!)

I'm 15 and my story is geared towards my age group. I had put a sex scene in there because it helped go along with my plot but I have to edit it. I'm proud to say that the guy got up and got a condom out of his wallet before they had sex though.

I also don't like heavily detailed sex scenes. But I like it when it's a little awkward, or somewhat humorous, but still emotionally romantic. And I like it when it has an after effect, makes it interesting. Less is more (:

Good question...I know that when I was a teen, I would read the sexy bits in YA novels with a certain amount of...relish? It didn't have to be graphic, just enough to peak your interest. Tamora Pierce was one of my faves, and she did a good job establishing tension (which is the best part) without being vulgar...so I agree with the above people, though I do think teens are (duh) interested in sex and (in general) probably enjoy reading about it. I say if it makes sense in relation to your plot, go for it! Plus, your MCs are more than old enough, so it'd probably throw off your teen readers if they weren't having sex, or at least addressing it in their relationship. Hope that helps....!

Also, to the teen writer above, I do hope you know that a wallet is probably the last place you want a guy to be keeping his condoms...they get all hot and worn out (since most teenage guys don't have reason to use them often!) and break a lot easier. I'm not trying to be weird, but as far as your plot goes, that could be seen as foreshadowing a pregnancy...since you're drawing attention to using protection, but faulty protection rather than safe(r) protection. Does that make sense?
Best of luck to you both!!

Thanks for the tip. I've heard that before but it was just the only place that I could think that he would have it since they are at a party.

How about someone else's stash in the drawer of a bedside table? Or maybe he just found one in the bathroom...
It's a bit strange to think about, really.
Thanks for the thanks!

The book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow has a sex scene between two eighteen year olds, and both the girl and guy had condoms on hand. I appreciated the acknowledgment of safe sex and the understanding that it is every person's responsibility to be...er...responsible. Also, in one of the Princess Diaries books, sex is heavily discussed. *Spoiler Alert!* Mia dates a boy who is older than her by three years, and worries that he wants to have sex. Rather than painting a rosy, perfect romance, Meg Cabot wrote interesting dialogue. They discussed the issue, with Mia's boyfriend saying that yes, he did want to have sex. Not necessarily right away, he would wait, but he didn't want to wait forever. The male character is a freshmen in college at this point, and if I remember correctly Mia is a sophomore in high school, making her about 15.

Anyway, just a couple of examples of how sex was discussed in YA books that I really loved!

Well, I just wrote my first sex scene in my novel (which is supposed to be YA). For me, personally, I don't see why it's okay to show sex in TV shows and not in books. Actually, we talked about this in one of my college classes (the class is called "Sex & Death" ^^); we talked about how it's much more uncomfortable for people to read about sex than it is for them to see it, because we're exposed to it visually every day, if that makes sense. So, pretty much, I guess my sex scene is pretty explicit. My MC actually describes how she's getting herself off and her past sex experiences and stuff, in quite a bit of detail.

Pretty much, I think it's the same for everything: it depends on what you're trying to do/who your characters are. My MC is a "normal" American teenage girl who has almost no consideration for others and therefore isn't worried about embarrassing people and stuff... meaning she doesn't see anything wrong with talking about sex and using explicit language, so it's in character for her to describe sex the way she does.

All I know is that when I was younger (15/16-ish) I really wished I could find a sexually explicit book for teenagers). :/

(I also think that if a teen doesn't feel comfortable reading about these sorts of things, s/he can put down the bok and pick up another one... no one is forcing anyone to read anything)

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Oh thank you for bringing that up. And a good place where he might carry a condom would be his front pants pocket. Seriously. Or, gee, if your couple were thinking of sex, your MC might even carry one in her purse (maybe even at his request).

They met randomly at a party and my MC doesn't carry a purse. It was the first place that popped into mind because I've known many guys who have carried condoms in their wallet.

I just wrote the first sex scene I've ever written. It worked out well as a good first sex scene to write, because my character was just as awkward as I was writing it. Every few seconds I would stop and think 'this is so weird'. But it came out in the end, and I pretty much skipped over the whole sex act. The exact thing I say is: 'And I guess...we did it.' It worked well, but both characters in my scene were virgins and really had no clue what was going on, which worked well for me. It just depends on your novel, but in YA sex is pretty much always skimmed over, not in any detail. Usually that's one of the big thing that shows if a novel is YA or not YA.

2006: My Boyfriend Wants to Eat Me-lose
2007: The Rise of Queen Callia-lose
2008: Opening My Eyes-WINNER!

Some authors go as far as describing how the characters get naked and whether or not they have a condom. That's about it. So in other words, you can talk about before and after as much as you want. Just don't talk about during. xD

One of my characters this year had a drunken one night stand. I started the scene where she wakes up in bed the next morning, not even knowing the guy's name. That worked better than actually showing it...I mean, I'm unmarried, a virgin, etc...I want to describe that stuff, and I don't think that I would do it well if I tried. Instead, I showed the stuff that had to do with the development of that character.

South Orange County ML

Hmm, I guess I will have to disagree with most of the posters here and strongly agree with Nibo that you should take a look at "Forever," by Judy Blume. It was the most popular book among the teen girls I knew growing up -- insanely popular -- mainly because it did graphically describe YA sex and it may have been the first book of its time in the genre to do so. Teens (I'm not talking pre-teens here, but the 14-19 age group) want to know about sex, they want details, and if you "gloss over it," they will feel cheated. Many of today's YA novels include graphic sex of all kinds, even the slightly violent and fantastical (see Holly Black's popular Valiant, Tithe, and Ironside books, three in a "Modern Faerie" series). That said, you do have to write your sex scenes well. And the only way to get better at writing sex scenes, as far as I can tell, is to write a lot of them.

My two lovebirds never got any further than shirts-off-making-out followed by spooning in a sleeping bag, because there's just so much other heavy emotional stuff going on with each of them that they decide to take a rain check.

...it's possible this was my subconscious chickening out. But hey.

I had the same problem!! I was writing a sex scene but it was getting more and more graphic even though I was trying to tone it down. I decided to stick to describing the MC emotions about what was happening.