The Literary Sweet Spot: Sex in US and UK YA Fiction from the 1960s to the 1980s

This is a transcript of the opening keynote for the Let’s Talk About Sex in YA online conference organised by colleagues at the University of Cambridge in May 2021. It considers the suppression of sexual context in US and UK YA publishing before the 1970s in relation to attitudes to youth, virginity, and patriarchy, and looks at the effects on adolescent readers of the lack of age- and experience-appropriate reading material they could consult. Attention is also paid to the changing social context: the late 1960s and 1970s were decades when sexual liberation was widely promoted, including for young people, on the one hand but regarded as a challenge to authority on the other. Finally, it looks at how this context has continued to shape YA fiction that represents and writes about sex.


INTRODUCTION
Is it possible to write a sexual piece [for children] that is so objective and compassionate that the turn-on is lost in deeper emotion in the reader? […] If it is pornographic, would it be harmful to young readers? (Westall, Correspondence n.p.) These questions were put to Nancy Chambers by the British children's writer, Robert Westall, in 1978. At the time, Chambers, a former children's book editor, was one of the founders and editor of the journal Signal: Approaches to Children's Literature, and the questions are part of an exchange about an article for Signal. Previously, Westall had not thought it appropriate to "talk about sex" in his novels, but from this point he began to explore how it might be done.
His and others' early attempts to talk about sex tell us quite a lot about where we are today and why certain aspects of sexuality are now particularly problematic.
In Abstinence Cinema, Casey Ryan Kelly identifies attitudes to virginity as indicators of ideological struggles active in society at any given time (5). His interest is in what can be learned from how American popular films present virginity, but YA fiction, which is addressed to an age group for which loss of virginity is particularly relevant, is even more sensitive to ideological forces that focus on this area. Kelly's study offers ways of understanding when and how YA writing began to engage with sex.
Explicit sexual content, usually centring on first love and loss of virginity, began to be included in the mid-1970s as part of the developing YA literary scene. As Kelly suggests, this was not a straightforward indicator of changing attitudes to sexual morality, for the books kept a weather eye on conservative forces even as those forces seemed to be in retreat. The history of YA fiction and sex dramatises ideological struggles around patriarchal conservatism, with its emphasis on family values, authority, and sexual liberation, which at the time was strongly associated with feminism and equal rights. 1 Both the original ideologies and the strategies for managing them have proved difficult to dislodge, so turning the clock back to the conditions under which YA fiction began to talk about sex offers insights into how and why it is included in texts published today.

How you understand sexual attitudes depends on context. Michel Foucault begins his
History of Sexuality with precisely this point: what is accepted and unproblematic in one place and time may be pathologised and demonised in another, especially with regard to children (Chapters One and Two), or vice-versa. When we look at texts and images from the past, we cannot avoid bringing our current understandings, attitudes and concerns into play.
But that inevitable presentism needs to take account of how innovations registered at the 1 It is pertinent to this discussion to keep in mind that the US Equal Rights Amendment was approved by the House of Representatives and Senate in 1971and 1972respectively, and that in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case the Supreme Court ruled that the US Constitution protects a woman's right to have an abortion (see https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/113/). time, and what they signified for young readers, children's authors, and the children's publishing world.
The last century saw two notable efforts to introduce sexual content into YA fiction. The first can be dealt with quickly. 2 Its significance here is that its underpinning ideas were revived in the 1970s. Drawing on the psychological theories of Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich and William James, a small group of liberal thinkers identified sexual repression as a significant cause of personal and social illness. They regarded war in general, and the rise of fascism specifically, as products of sexual repression. In an attempt to break the cycle of repression and conflict, they set out to change attitudes to sex, including in the rising generation. At that time, the principal tool for reaching out to the young was print. A few progressive educators and creators of books for children and adolescents produced information books, leaflets, articles and a handful of novels that encouraged open discussion and new ways of thinking about sex. A 1913 number of The Young Socialist magazine explained why: Sex subjects, for growing people, need to be handled carefully and delicately, but they need to be handled. Until such matters are dealt with openly, in sympathetic and intelligent fashion, we may expect nothing but unhappiness to come as a result for years after […]. Prudery and calculated ignorance are responsible for a thousand evils in our land. (220) This first attempt to talk about sex failed. The arrival of youth culture in the 1950s ushered in moral panics about the condition of youth in Britain and America, creating a conservative backlash focused on promiscuity and a perceived lack of respect for authority.
This was also the cultural climate in which children's literature became an established and successful branch of the publishing business, meaning publishers were acutely sensitive to the opinions of their principal purchasers: parents, teachers, and librarians. In both the US and the UK, the children's book industry subscribed to an unwritten rule that there would be no sex in children's books (Reynolds,"Publishing Practices" 31). This included the growing number of titles addressed specifically to teenagers. It took YA writers and publishers more than a decade to challenge that view.
With the advantage of hindsight and through the filter of twenty-first-century sensitivities, some of the pioneering texts I discuss here may seem crude. They privilege white, heterosexual sex, and male experience is more visible and normalised than is female.
In context, however, it seems clear that writers and editors were working out how to include sexual content of any kind in ways that would ring true to and be helpful for their readers 2 Efforts to publish works that explained and fictionalised sex in the early and middle decades of the last century are discussed in detail in my book Left Out: The Forgotten History of Radical Publishing for Children, 1910Children, -1949 above suspicion and reproach" (Fox 805). 4 Significantly for this discussion, "chaste" is first and foremost. Books that might encourage sexual activity were not for "nice girls".

LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT SEX IN YA FICTION
Arguably, the absence of novels featuring sexual relationships specifically for an audience of adolescents was more important than the lack of adult advice. This was understood by children's literature professionals. For instance, in her 1969 summary of the relationship between "the library and the young adult", the US librarian, Margaret Edwards, made the case for good quality YA fiction. "[T]he best novels on the subject", she maintained, "go beyond the facts to the emotional implications of love" and offer "a richer, more subtle message about sex for the adolescent" than other likely sources (qtd. in Gillis and Simpson 38). Unfortunately, researchers and policy makers did not consult those who observed young people's reading needs and behaviours at first hand. In the UK and US, those who were investigating young adults' sexual behaviour and sources of information paid no attention to fiction, and were evidently unaware of its potential to help develop such qualities as insight, empathy, and responsibility in relation to sex.
Thus, while the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography did note that a quarter of boys and a third of girls used books as a major source of information about sex (314) "obtain facts about the sexual attitudes and behaviours of young people aged fifteen to nineteen" (Schofield 19) looked at a variety of ways that young people learned about sex and contraception, but discounted books. The lead researcher, Michael Schofield, explained this was because "the many thousands of books published on this subject for adolescents" were read after there was some initial knowledge [of contraception], "if they were read at all" (82).
What these "many thousands of books" were is a mystery, and since the survey contained no questions about them, it is impossible to know whether or not they existed, let alone if they were read. I could not locate any that were specifically for young people.
The lack of attention to, and provision of, novels and stories with realistic, reliable, and holistic sexual content is important. As Foucault argues in the first volume of his History of Sexuality, understanding of sex is an iterative process: while we are born into social ways of thinking about sex, these are not permanently fixed. Fiction provides a space where alternative iterations of how we understand our selves in relation to sex and sexuality can be explored vicariously. Subsequently, this understanding of fiction in relation to sex, sexualities, and the young has been studied. For instance, the Canadian educationalist, Jen Gilbert, points to the importance of narratives of sexual development that can help young people acquire "an interpretive practice that might help make sense of the upheavals of development and the tumultuousness of relationships" (59 Girl 1, reflecting the collective experiences gathered by Helena Mills in her study of women's memories of growing up in the 1960s, also read the magazine Jackie , which styled itself as "Your Top Pop and Romance Paper." "Romance" meant that it dealt with relationships between boys and girls and included a problems page which touched on issues such as how to know when the time was right to have sex.
Growing up in the USA, I read many of the same books, but we did not have magazines like Jackie. We turned to these works despite the fact that most had been around for many years, the characters were not our age -mostly not even from our century -and their relationships were fairly torrid. They featured beautiful women whose looks gained them handsome lovers, often in high places, but rarely happiness or security. Their lives had little useful to say to unconfident teenagers with awkward bodies, and the sexual thrills they experienced were not typical of most novice love-making.
None of us was aware of the Skinhead books of 'Richard Allen' (James Moffat), which began to appear in 1971, although the blog, "Nostalgia Central", claims that "For any kid attending a British comprehensive school between 1971 and 1977, Richard Allen's Skinhead books were required reading" (n.p.). G. Robert Carlsen's 1976 investigation into "Books and the Teen-Age Reader in England" reported that within five years Skinhead had sold 250,000 copies, even though the books were not available in libraries or most mainstream book stores (the researcher found them in a pornography shop). Carlsen describes the series as "truly appalling […]. The books alternate between agro (aggression) and sex" (16). He was particularly disgusted by a gang rape in which the girl victim finds herself enjoying the experience, and the glorification of racist violence.
The British librarian Margaret Marshall's Libraries and Literature for Teenagers (1975) supports all of these findings, reporting that girls enjoyed "romance, historical fiction and more lurid sex novels" (158), while boys liked books about skinheads and gangs for the uninhibited sex, sexual deviation, physical violence, anti-social attitudes, motorbikes and cars (157). Boys explained, "they liked the books because they are exciting and real" (157).
Their ideas of "real" are worth noting since they not only involve violence but the "usage of both male and female characters of the opposite sex for personal gratification and exploitation at whim and at will" (157 sex is a natural, pleasurable and healthy activity, including for young people. Like the writers earlier in the century, Cole claimed he wanted the film to "reduce shame and anxiety about sex" and "bring home to the audience that sex is not just about sperms and smegna or the plumbing of the penis but is also about erotic feelings" (qtd. in Limond, "I hope someone" 410 ). The result was the most explicit sex education film ever made. Reviewing the film, the Although very much of its time in terms of youth and popular culture, Growing Up was a step too far for the adult authorities. Following initial screenings it was immediately banned in some parts of the country and its release was severely limited. The 20 or so schools where it was shown gave it positive evaluations, including from teachers. These ranged from, which has been written about so often that I will not go into a detailed close reading here.
But it is a keystone text, so warrants some discussion.

TALKING ABOUT SEX IN YA LITERATURE
It is interesting to compare Blume's approach with 'Sex King' Martin Cole's. Both were revolutionary in their affirmative and frank accounts of preliminary sexual experiences, though where Cole focused on biology and urges, Blume provides a well-developed narrative of first sex as part of first love. Its no-nonsense approach to explaining a complete cycle of attraction, preparation, intercourse, and breakup between two responsible and sensibly parented teenagers was immediately valued by young adults. The same qualities have made it one of the most banned books in the world (Goldbart "Fact File" qtd. in Baker 66), reminding us that many of the longstanding apparatuses of social management continue to see controlling young people's sexual activity as important. Nowhere is this more evident than in the abstinence culture that has grown up in the US. Kelly sees abstinence culture as a response to precisely this kind of positive narrative of sexual liberation, so Blume can be credited with simultaneously providing the first fully realised account of sex in YA fiction and a stimulus for the abstinence discourses that were to follow.
Forever gestures to the misconceptions promulgated through the kinds of books read before YA fiction began to talk about sex. When Katherine first sees "Ralph", she is surprised because: "In books penises are always described as hot and throbbing" and "Ralph felt like ordinary skin" (60). Instead of romantic clichés about being swept away by desire, Katherine and Michael have to work together to learn how to make intercourse pleasurable for each of them. And there are some comic and unglamorous moments, as when Michael explains, "I didn't mean to get you" as he mops semen off Katherine. Through being open with each other, taking their time, talking to their parents, and seeking contraceptive advice, Katherine and Michael have been reassuring readers that sex is a legitimate, pleasurable component of adolescent experience for nearly half a century -and counting! Indeed, it is still a rarity to find happy, well-adjusted girls like Katherine managing love and first sex free from moralising or life-changing negative consequences. Lisa Dresner makes the same point about films in this period: "between the 1970s' rhetoric of sexual liberation and Reagan-era 'just say no' abstinence campaigns", she says, "teenage films venerated and empowered the decisions girls made about sex" (12). In the same spirit, Blume also makes the experience gender-equal: Katherine is as keen to have sex as Michael, and enjoys their lovemaking thoroughly… once they get it together.
Others soon followed in Blume's footsteps. In the UK, no one initiated more conversations about sex in YA literature than Aidan Chambers, starting with books from the Topliner imprint he edited for Macmillan Education. In The Reluctant Reader, Chambers explains that since "sex and relationships were at the forefront of teenage concerns", they feature in many of the Topliner titles (qtd. in Pearson 147). For example, John Crompton's Up the Road and Back (1977) recognises sexual desire and activity in both girls and boys, but like most books from this time, it centres on male experience. As in Goodnight Prof. Love, an unnamed teenage boy who is desirous but "too scared and too ignorant" (7) to initiate a sexual relationship with his girlfriend, sets off on a hitchhiking road trip with the aim of gaining some sexual experience. When he finally succeeds, nothing happens the way he had imagined it. The woman is married, but bored, and angry with her husband; worse, she changes her mind as soon as he has started, so he ends up using her and fleeing, ashamed and embarrassed. Importantly, what happens is not a rape -she initiated the moment and does not try to stop him -but it is desperately uncomfortable all around. From the moment they meet they start opening up about their fears and feelings. After a humiliating experience with a girl in school, David has created a "tough sexy" persona by reading material in sex shops, but he confesses that he actually has no experience (56).
Dorothea has the opposite problem. She is pretty and popular, but dislikes herself because she has slept with many boys without caring for any of them. She knows they do not care about her, either: "'Girls with figures like yours are just made for bed!' someone told me once. So we went to bed" (58). This was after making sure she had birth control however; quite a lot of information about what that involves is provided. The book makes the case that sexual liberation is not liberating at all, stressing again that loveless sex is damaging.

Dorothea tells Daniel:
I kept on the pill even when I was without a boyfriend for a short time. We swallowed them as easily as you'd eat a cough sweet. We thought we were free, we never noticed we weren't free at all. Ever ready, like the scouts. Every relationship bound to lead to bed. Sometimes I felt so disgusted with myself, I wanted out. (59) The warning about exploitation is legitimate, but even as YA fiction is starting to talk about sex, one eye is still being kept on officially approved messaging rather than attitudes and experiences in the public at large. I'm not talking about sexual encounters -just the fact that sexual interest exists is enough to send some people into a passion of threats and righteousness. The objects of their anger are usually teachers.
[…] What I certainly didn't mean to say was that I felt you should be writing about sex.
[…] you can get in enough trouble saying "fart", without dealing with the other fourletter f. (N. Chambers, Correspondence n.p.) Although she puts no pressure on him, this exchange may have helped Westall, a former art teacher, feel he had a duty to himself and other children's writers to include sexual relationships in his work. They certainly crop up consistently thereafter, though usually when they involve teenagers alone, the relationships are more romantic than erotic, and set apart from present-day reality through the use of past events or supernatural elements.
Falling into Glory (1993) contains one of the most fully developed sexual relationships, but since it is semi-autobiographical, it is safely distanced in time. In it, the protagonist, Robbie, is a bit of a 'Mary Sue' character: attractive, athletic, academic, and the love interest of Emma, the attractive young widow who teaches classics. He also turns out to be good at sex.
Like all of us in the days before YA literature talked about sex, Robbie has been reading about it where he can: "torrid love scenes" and "sloppy corniness" in his mother's books; gymnastic exploits in his father's "dirty" books (156). These, he pronounces once he has some experience, have it all wrong. There follows an ornate passage about women's bodies and how he feels like a great magician, able to "raise storms, tempests" at will (157).
Even this book, which allows Robbie a great deal of sex of one kind or another, keeps an eye on the adult gatekeepers. As well as its use of the past; there is also a vivid warning in the form of Robbie's friend Benny, who has had to marry his pregnant girlfriend and support her. Robbie is clear that he'd "rather be a monk for life" than end up like Benny (159). In 1993, fear of pregnancy was no longer the deterrent it once was, yet the story continues to emphasise the potential consequences of their relationship for both Robbie and Emma.
As these examples show, between 1975 and 1995, the taboo that forbade talking about sex was finally broken, though the conversations varied on the basis of class and they privileged white, male, heterosexual experience. Usually they also focused on problems and consequences rather than shared pleasure and relationships. The emphasis on problems years of Forever, Judy Blume was cautiously optimistic, first identifying the 1970s as "a much more open decade", then pointing to the censorship occasioned by the current "fanatically religious political climate", but finally saying that publishers were finding ways to publish some "very good books" "that deal frankly with sex" (qtd. in Crown).
In my experience, conversations about sex in YA literature today focus more on abuse and grooming than cultivating positive attitudes as part of learning about the kind of sexual, or indeed asexual, being one is. Behind the scenes, entrenched discourses and policies still equate sexual liberation of any kind with challenges to authority. As a consequence, while YA fiction is talking about sex, a question for future researchers is how far these conversations respond to the needs and experiences of twenty-first-century youth and how far they are mired in old debates and attitudes.