Triggering Topics in YA

This is an expanded version of a reply to Sarah Fine's post about whether YA writers should include 'triggering' topics in their books. Behold!

Let's begin by talking about the Bible, shall we? Don't worry, I'm not going to get all preachy on you because 1) I'm an atheist and b) that would be lame, but this Bible verse (courtesy of having lived with Christian housemates and having a Christian grandma who supplies me with unasked for literature) is apt. "Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'" Some parents worry that their teens will read something 'bad' (premarital sex/homosexuality/drugs/self-harm) and then go out and blindly imitate what they've read. Ignoring the condescending attitude toward teens implying a 'monkey see, monkey do' attitude that, for the most part, is inaccurate, it makes me hope that those kids with parents who fret about them so much they'd like to censor their reading material aren't the ones who need to read these books. Relating the above Bible verse back to our topic, it's the kids who are already struggling to cope with the issues raised in these books that need them. Little middle-class Timmy who never had to worry about money or bullying or strange new feelings for Tommy-across-the-road will probably be okay with or without issue books. But for the teens who finally see themselves and their problems and, here's the big one, someone else experiencing and overcoming them, these books could be a literal life-saver. Yes, we write to entertain and maybe to educate a little, but we also write to show the 'weird kids' and the screw-ups that they're not alone and there's a way through their problems.

Writing about the issues some parents would prefer don't get spoken about doesn't magically bring them into the world; unfortunately there are already teens living them as a reality. You can get onto the subject of whether YA books should be prescriptive or descriptive (showing how things should be versus showing how they are) but I'm always going to fall on the side that having books that handle these topics authentically -- showing the good and the bad and the reasons why -- can never be a bad thing.

In Memoirs of a Geisha, Sayuri's mizuage is an important plot point, and important for her future as a geisha. Mizuage is an auction for an apprentice geisha's virginity. Yeah, I'll just let that sink in. You can imagine that wouldn't go down well in a YA book, even if it was written in the same way i.e. as an important part of the story and the culture, and in anatomical terms that make it clear that this isn't glamorous. The one thing missing from the portrayal is a lecture. No-one says that mizuage is immoral, degrading, or wrong because the characters don't think that. It's not even viewed as something akin to prostitution because there's a whole ceremony attached to it, protocol to be followed during the auction and on the day. There's no drawn-out introspection over her feelings about the event, no unwanted pregnancy or STI to show that this is bad and you shouldn't do it. It happens and Sayuri moves on because that's authentic to her character. If this happened in a YA book, you know there would be some media attention. It probably wouldn't have made Bitch Media's '100 Young Adult Books for the Feminist Reader' (is that old news now?). But it is authentic. Why can't the same courtesy be extended to YA writers, why not assume that we aren't trying to tell people how to live we're just showing how *this character* lives? Because while the issue (rape, incest, kidnap, death of a loved one) may seem so unbelievably horrible and far from our lives, it is true for the character and, more importantly, there are also young readers out there for whom this may be all too familiar.


Do YA authors have a responsibility to teen readers to not glamorise triggering topics? What's your opinion on the existence of these topics in YA books-- are they always unacceptable or are they only okay as long as they show negative consequences?

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P.P.S. There's this thing called twitter and I'm considering the username fleetfootedself for it. Opinions?