Young adult! Many of us positively associate this genre with nostalgic tales of teenage angst, glittery vampires, and boy wizards. But hearing “young adult” can 
also send heads shaking. “Oh no! No thanks. Not for me!” I don’t understand what these readers are rejecting – probably because I’m not quite sure what “young adult” is supposed to mean. A more simplistic style? Adult bestsellers like Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist couldn’t feature simpler prose. Length isn’t it either, as J.K. Rowling has proven. So if size isn’t everything, and it’s not what you do with it, what shoves a book onto the YA shelf?
I know what you’re thinking: Young adult novels either feature young protagonists or are aimed toward a younger audience. But what qualifies as young? The United Nations says a young adult is someone between the ages of fifteen and twenty. The World Health Organization is much more generous, extending the range up to thirty-four. And in modern psychology, Erik Erikson cuts out the teen years altogether, claiming a young adult is someone from twenty to forty. So does that mean most of the M/M Romance we enjoy features young adult characters? Depends who is asked, apparently.
So perhaps the YA genre isn’t defined by the age of the characters, but by the intended audience. But why the need for a distinction? Is there content that younger people can’t handle? Violence, maybe, but if someone who is eighteen is old enough to die in a war, surely that person can handle fictional bloodshed. If there’s one thing young adult literature has never shied away from, it’s brutality. Lord of the Flies set the precedence, and the currently popular Hunger Games trilogy continues that tradition. While reading The Hunger Games I noticed that, against the backdrop of abhorrent violence is a scene where the main character turns around so her dying friend can remove his underwear. In the middle of a battlefield and in the midst of trying to save his life, she takes extra care not to catch a glimpse of his sausage. For real. I’m not trying to knock The Hunger Games, because I love that series, but this scene gave me pause. A story that puts human vulgarity on parade also avoids one of our most natural impulses.
Is sex what draws the line between young and standard adult fiction? Can it be as simple as that? Young adult literature covers the full scope of human experience, but does seem to shy away from this subject. Harry Potter graduated from Hogwarts without losing his virgin wings, and while Bella from Twilight finally got Edward to put out, the scene was anything but erotic. Or as detailed as the gory birth that followed. When sex does show up in YA novels, it’s often as a hardship, such as those depicted in Sapphire’s Push (AKA the film, Precious). While surely some YA books freely depict sex as something positive, I somehow made it through my life without reading any of them. Those that came close never went into detail. And why not? Why is graphic violence acceptable while graphic sex isn’t?
This troubles me most when it comes to gay youth. Sex is confusing enough when first starting out, but gay people have less points of reference than straight people do. When I was sixteen, most of what I knew about gay sex came from slurs and jokes, like the use of Crisco or Richard Gere and his gerbils. At the time, I truly was naïve. I’m old enough that the Internet wasn’t a resource for me then. Young people today can at least discover the mechanics without much effort, but I hate the idea of cold pornography being the cornerstone of sex education. Gay sex isn’t always a blow job followed by anal sex and a facial. That’s what porn usually depicts, when the truth is more playfully, varied, and hopefully, much more loving.
The average age of consent on this planet is sixteen. I think this clears a fifteen-year-old—already considered an adult by many definitions—to read about sex. The onset of sexual maturity should allow access to accurate information, not vague hints or clumsy metaphors. Personally, I’m fine with anyone twelve and older reading stories that depict graphic sex. To an adult, twelve seems incredibly young, but I was raiding my parents’ porn stash at that age, and some of my schoolmates were already sexually active with each other. Sexual capability precedes mental maturity by many years. The best way to narrow that gap is education, and storytelling is one of the most effective tools in teaching.
So maybe graphic sex is lacking from YA stories, even if it probably shouldn’t be. Luckily, gay fiction can be very progressive in this regard. While homosexuality is much more than a physical expression of love and lust, most of us recognize that sex is an inseparable part of the experience. A gay YA novel is much more likely to include those sex scenes, to describe what’s happening and how it feels, rather than fading to black. Maybe the absence of sex is a defining trait of mainstream YA fiction, but not so much in our cozy little subgenre.
Considering this advantage, I’m surprised gay YA novels are often dismissed outright. Young adult characters have a lot to offer. They’re usually not locked into nine-to-five jobs, and that lack of responsibility leaves them freer to get into trouble or find adventure. Emotionally they are a lot less predictable. Adults are limited to a few acceptable reactions, or else they appear stunted or downright foolish. Younger characters get more leeway because of their age, and all bets are off as to how they’ll deal with conflict. The world is transformed through the eyes of a younger character, the most mundane adult experiences made fresh and exciting again. I understand why people like mature characters, how they are more immediately relatable, but reading only those stories is like swearing off chocolate because you prefer vanilla. Every once in a while, it’s good to get lost in a time when everything was new, an age when nothing felt certain.
If you’re looking for the fountain of youth, you won’t find a better way of turning back the clock than YA fiction. As many of the recent bestsellers have proven, YA fiction can still be awash in high stakes, romance, intriguing characters, and breathtaking plots. Hopefully YA authors and publishers won’t shy away from 
sex so much in the future. Young people and nostalgic old-timers need stories that focus not just on the hardships of youth, but the love that can be a part of those years as well.
Jay Bell is the author of Something Like Summer and Kamikaze Boys, both no-holds-barred young adult books. Occasionally, when he feels especially daring, he writes stories that feature adults as well.