Her fingers strayed along the hem of my skirt, then traveled upward…
I stopped writing. Closed the Google Doc.
Opened the Google Doc again.
I pulled her into my lap and rested my hands on her thighs, nervous about what to do next.
I deleted. Typed. Deleted again.
She moved her body toward mine and pulled off her shirt. I tugged mine off, too, and suddenly there was nothing between us but the lace of two bras…
Okay. Why was this so difficult?
I was working on my first young adult manuscript, writing about two 17-year-old girls who baked vegan cupcakes and had deep conversations on park swings and were slowly realising they were in love.
What I’d gotten down so far was alright, I supposed. It was a start. But something about the girls’ whole interaction still felt off. It certainly wasn’t the fumbling, thrilling moment of discovery I’d hoped it would be.
What I wanted to write was the scene. The kind of scene a teenager might dog-ear, then read over and over again by the glow of their phone while their parents were asleep.
I remembered many examples from my own reading as a young adult. These scenes became part of my mental landscape, sculpting the peaks and valleys of an emerging erotic imagination.
I wracked my brain for models. I could think of lots of scenes in YA fiction featuring one young woman and one young man. I could also think of scenes featuring one young woman and one male humanoid being––a shapeshifter, in one case; a member of a fantastical species with massive feathered wings and glorious ab muscles, in another.
What I couldn’t think of was any sex scene I’d read between two young, queer women in a real-world setting. No wonder I was struggling to write my own.
Knowing how it’s done
In a lecture titled “Groping in the Dark: Sexual Equity in Queer YA Stories,” writer and educator Jesaka Long, who holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults, explores the lack of on-the-page queer sex in YA literature, particularly in the case of women and nonbinary characters, particularly in non-fantastical stories. There is representation scattered throughout the category, and Long cites a few contemporary examples, both novels and short stories. But it’s far from enough.
In her craft book “I Give You My Body…”: How I Write Sex Scenes, romance author Diana Gabaldon tells aspiring writers, “You have an important advantage when dealing with sex, insofar as you can reasonably expect that most of your audience knows how it’s done.” Yet this assumption really only stands for sex scenes in adult fiction, and only for heterosexual partnered sex, which enjoys ubiquitous––and practically unavoidable––representation in film, television, music, literature, and locker room banter.
What about young queer kids, who may not have a good idea about what sex means for them? Or even a basic notion of “how it’s done?”
Long makes note of this issue in her lecture. “For most teens who are not heterosexual, and/or whose gender does not match the sex they were assigned at birth, they have almost no access to vetted, correct information about sex at home or at school,” she says. In the absence of quality information from adults or inclusive sex ed programs, many young people turn to other sources. One is porn. A recent study Long cites from the British Board of Film Classification reported that by the age 16–17, nearly 80% of LGB teens in the UK had viewed pornography. Another source of information for young people––one that’s potentially more nuanced and robust––is YA fiction.
For teens interested in learning about sex, it can be useful to see kids their own age having first experiences and navigating themes like consent, mismatched feelings, social pressure, and pleasure. Books that “fade to black” before the actual sex happens can still explore these topics, of course. But an explicit representation of the act itself––when appropriate to the characters, the plot, and the story world––can be powerful.
“I want you to have gay sex”
In an interview with The Booklist Reader, young adult author Carrie Mesrobian notes that “sex is a threshold experience; authors who devolve into language that is breathy and sweet without mentioning the bodies involved are missing a big part of the picture.” For LGBTQ+ readers lacking widespread representation of their community, this portrayal is especially important. Seeing people who identify, desire, and love like them experiencing physical intimacy can be educational and even healing. It can introduce new possibilities for intimate experiences beyond the standard penis-in-vagina penetrative sex taught in “comprehensive” sex ed.
And it’s not just members of the LGBTQ+ community who could benefit from this wider view of what qualifies as sex. As comedian Cameron Esposito discusses in a particularly hilarious bit, sometimes it’s not clear whether straight, cisgender folks really understand their bodies, their partner’s bodies, or their own desires, either.
“I read the letters you guys write into sex advice columnists,” Esposito says. She wonders whether straight couples actually talk to each other. What’s with all the guys writing in about how they can suss out whether their girlfriend had an orgasm? And why does it seem like no one’s ever talking about their fantasies, or asking their partner how something feels?
“I want you to have gay sex,” Esposito deadpans. The crowd laughs, a bit nervously. Esposito goes on. She doesn’t mean sex with someone of the same gender. Rather, she means sex where everyone involved has talked extensively about what they like and don’t like. Sex that’s creative and openminded and fun. Sex that’s less like rounding four preset “bases,” and more like “running through an open field.”
To me, that sounds pretty nice for everyone, LGBTQ+ or not.
Toward more LGBTQ+ representation in YA literature
Since that first tentative attempt at writing a sex scene between two queer women, I’ve completed an MFA, signed with a literary agent, and read and written many more stories about young queer people figuring stuff out: themselves, their desires, their ideas about love and sex. More and more books featuring LGBTQ+ protagonists have been published in the last few years, many by authors writing from their own lived perspectives.
It’s still not enough. But it’s a step in the right direction. Because whether or not they’re sexually active themselves, teens––the target readers of these YA novels––are already developing ideas about sex that will follow them the rest of their lives.
An explicit sex scene won’t be right for every YA character, reader, or book. But it’s important that teens, particularly LGBTQ+ teens, have access to literature that contains the full possibilities of what sex can be.
Basically: we all deserve to be part of the story. And we all deserve that dog-eared page we really, really hope Mum doesn’t see.
Article
How sex scenes in young adult literature help LGBTQ+ youth see themselves on the page
Her fingers strayed along the hem of my skirt, then traveled upward…
I stopped writing. Closed the Google Doc.
Opened the Google Doc again.
I pulled her into my lap and rested my hands on her thighs, nervous about what to do next.
I deleted. Typed. Deleted again.
She moved her body toward mine and pulled off her shirt. I tugged mine off, too, and suddenly there was nothing between us but the lace of two bras…
Okay. Why was this so difficult?
I was working on my first young adult manuscript, writing about two 17-year-old girls who baked vegan cupcakes and had deep conversations on park swings and were slowly realising they were in love.
What I’d gotten down so far was alright, I supposed. It was a start. But something about the girls’ whole interaction still felt off. It certainly wasn’t the fumbling, thrilling moment of discovery I’d hoped it would be.
I remembered many examples from my own reading as a young adult. These scenes became part of my mental landscape, sculpting the peaks and valleys of an emerging erotic imagination.
I wracked my brain for models. I could think of lots of scenes in YA fiction featuring one young woman and one young man. I could also think of scenes featuring one young woman and one male humanoid being––a shapeshifter, in one case; a member of a fantastical species with massive feathered wings and glorious ab muscles, in another.
What I couldn’t think of was any sex scene I’d read between two young, queer women in a real-world setting. No wonder I was struggling to write my own.
Knowing how it’s done
In a lecture titled “Groping in the Dark: Sexual Equity in Queer YA Stories,” writer and educator Jesaka Long, who holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults, explores the lack of on-the-page queer sex in YA literature, particularly in the case of women and nonbinary characters, particularly in non-fantastical stories. There is representation scattered throughout the category, and Long cites a few contemporary examples, both novels and short stories. But it’s far from enough.
In her craft book “I Give You My Body…”: How I Write Sex Scenes, romance author Diana Gabaldon tells aspiring writers, “You have an important advantage when dealing with sex, insofar as you can reasonably expect that most of your audience knows how it’s done.” Yet this assumption really only stands for sex scenes in adult fiction, and only for heterosexual partnered sex, which enjoys ubiquitous––and practically unavoidable––representation in film, television, music, literature, and locker room banter.
Long makes note of this issue in her lecture. “For most teens who are not heterosexual, and/or whose gender does not match the sex they were assigned at birth, they have almost no access to vetted, correct information about sex at home or at school,” she says. In the absence of quality information from adults or inclusive sex ed programs, many young people turn to other sources. One is porn. A recent study Long cites from the British Board of Film Classification reported that by the age 16–17, nearly 80% of LGB teens in the UK had viewed pornography. Another source of information for young people––one that’s potentially more nuanced and robust––is YA fiction.
For teens interested in learning about sex, it can be useful to see kids their own age having first experiences and navigating themes like consent, mismatched feelings, social pressure, and pleasure. Books that “fade to black” before the actual sex happens can still explore these topics, of course. But an explicit representation of the act itself––when appropriate to the characters, the plot, and the story world––can be powerful.
“I want you to have gay sex”
In an interview with The Booklist Reader, young adult author Carrie Mesrobian notes that “sex is a threshold experience; authors who devolve into language that is breathy and sweet without mentioning the bodies involved are missing a big part of the picture.” For LGBTQ+ readers lacking widespread representation of their community, this portrayal is especially important. Seeing people who identify, desire, and love like them experiencing physical intimacy can be educational and even healing. It can introduce new possibilities for intimate experiences beyond the standard penis-in-vagina penetrative sex taught in “comprehensive” sex ed.
And it’s not just members of the LGBTQ+ community who could benefit from this wider view of what qualifies as sex. As comedian Cameron Esposito discusses in a particularly hilarious bit, sometimes it’s not clear whether straight, cisgender folks really understand their bodies, their partner’s bodies, or their own desires, either.
“I read the letters you guys write into sex advice columnists,” Esposito says. She wonders whether straight couples actually talk to each other. What’s with all the guys writing in about how they can suss out whether their girlfriend had an orgasm? And why does it seem like no one’s ever talking about their fantasies, or asking their partner how something feels?
“I want you to have gay sex,” Esposito deadpans. The crowd laughs, a bit nervously. Esposito goes on. She doesn’t mean sex with someone of the same gender. Rather, she means sex where everyone involved has talked extensively about what they like and don’t like. Sex that’s creative and openminded and fun. Sex that’s less like rounding four preset “bases,” and more like “running through an open field.”
To me, that sounds pretty nice for everyone, LGBTQ+ or not.
Toward more LGBTQ+ representation in YA literature
Since that first tentative attempt at writing a sex scene between two queer women, I’ve completed an MFA, signed with a literary agent, and read and written many more stories about young queer people figuring stuff out: themselves, their desires, their ideas about love and sex. More and more books featuring LGBTQ+ protagonists have been published in the last few years, many by authors writing from their own lived perspectives.
It’s still not enough. But it’s a step in the right direction. Because whether or not they’re sexually active themselves, teens––the target readers of these YA novels––are already developing ideas about sex that will follow them the rest of their lives.
An explicit sex scene won’t be right for every YA character, reader, or book. But it’s important that teens, particularly LGBTQ+ teens, have access to literature that contains the full possibilities of what sex can be.
Basically: we all deserve to be part of the story. And we all deserve that dog-eared page we really, really hope Mum doesn’t see.
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