Romancing the Youth: Why the issue of teen romance novels isn’t an issue

By Lauren Drexel

Women’s reading habits are frequently scrutinized, and have been throughout history. We don’t trust women, especially young women, to consume the written word critically or analytically. I think one of the most prominent modern-day examples of this is the debate surrounding teen girls and romance fiction. Throughout our class discussions we have debated whether romance, or more specifically dark romance content should be available to younger audiences, with much pushback to the idea that this more mature content be potentially in the hands of younger readers. The question is though, what do we think will happen if it does? The fear of young women reading about sexuality is rooted in the fear of women owning and enjoying their own sexuality. As feminists, we should be in favor of girls feeling sexually confident and able to consume their media with a critical lens, so why do we have the desire to hide this content from them?

The popularity of the Book Tok community on TikTok has exposed many young readers to books and genres they may never have encountered before. More often than not, literary content creators on the app are sharing books with sexual content in them, and many books from the dark romance genre have gained popularity this way. I believe the concerns stemming from teenage girls consuming this type of content are either rooted in fears of teenage sexuality or the fear that girls will attempt to mimic the relationships they read. I think to have these fears is to somewhat forget what it's like to be a teenager. The reality is, at least here in BC, only about 16-17% of youth aged 12-17 are engaging in any type of sexual relationship (Smith et, al. 2024). By assuming that teenagers are going to take this information and start applying it to their own lives in a way over-sexualizes them and seeing this as a negative thing implies an unfair expectation of asexuality. If the fear is that they’re going to engage in dangerous relationships, we can be reassured knowing most of them won’t engage in any kind of sexual relationship until adulthood, and that we therefore still have time, and the duty to educate them on the difference between fiction and realistic expectations for their relationships in the future. Their fantasies are not their realities, and I don’t think it's fair to say they always want them to be. The reality is young people engage in sexual content if they want to, and reading a dark or particularly sexual romance novel may be quite tame compared to the content they can find in online sources for content such as Wattpad or Pornhub.

Another common concern making waves in Book Tok spaces is the debate over sexual content in young adult and teen novels. The main argument against it is that there never needs to be any representations of teenagers engaging in sexual activities, labelling those who argue in favor of the content as perverted for wanting to read about the sexuality of teenagers. To this I argue, it is completely normal for teenagers to want to read about teen sexuality. If the books are written for teens, I see no reason why there shouldn’t be discussions of teenage sexuality in them. While I don’t think this means there has to be excessive descriptions of the activities like in an adult romance novel, I do think there are benefits for the youth in seeing their sexuality represented on the page. We know that generally, youth who are more educated on sexual health and who have a better understanding and ability to explore their sexualities by themselves wait longer to have sex and take more safety precautions when doing so (WHO, 2023). In that case, I think giving teenagers a fictional outlet with which to explore their feelings around the topic of sex and sexuality could be incredibly helpful in their personal development. If a teenager never sees a representation in their books of teen sexuality, they may label their own sexual desires as deviant or unnatural. This is especially true in the case of queer youth, who may not be able to find many realistic representations of queer sexuality, especially given how much of queer porn is meant to cater to the heterosexual viewer. A mild description of how a queer relationship could develop might peak someone’s interest and help them learn about themselves or could affirm someone who’s feeling abnormal in their peer group.

When we are talking about youth media literacy, it is also important to remember that it’s our job to ensure it. We all had to learn this at some point, from someone. Media literacy is not divined into us at a certain age! Learning these skills inherently requires exposure to the content we are meant to be critical of, and examples of how to practice using this analytical lens. We shouldn’t be surprised when teenagers miss things when reading or have bad takes because they haven’t had as much practice doing this work themselves. Teaching media literacy is far more helpful to youths than trying to regulate what they have access to. I think a young girl who reads a ‘spicy book’ and then has a conversation with an adult about it who explains it to her is in a far better position to make her own decisions about what she wants for herself in her relationships than a young girl who isn’t exposed to sexual content at all. When I teach media literacy, I talk a lot about how sexual media is a form of entertainment and not an educational resource, and how important it is to think critically about what you do or don’t like about the sexual media you’re consuming. I also teach self-consent, which is the practice of asking yourself whether you feel comfortable consuming the content you are and whether stopping or slowing down would ultimately be healthier for you. These practices give teenagers autonomy, and an ability to explore without accepting all the content they see blindly. Ignorance is only a helpful tool to adults who are more interested in controlling or complaining about young people than preparing them for adulthood.

The pushback against allowing teenagers, teen girls in particular, to engage with sexual content is founded on the idea that they are fundamentally incapable of understanding this media and that their sexuality is inherently a dangerous thing. In actuality, when given the right tools and opportunities to practice with the support of the adults around them, teenagers can absolutely consume sexual content with a critical lens. When we see teenagers who are struggling to practice media literacy, we should see that as society failing to provide adequate education, rather than an inherent flaw of teenagers. Most teenagers are curious about sex, its normal for them to be, and by sanitizing what they are permitted to consume we are denying them the opportunity to develop that part of themselves and leaving them in worse situations later. Teen girls who are given lots of examples for what a sexual relationship could be and have considered how they feel about those options will have more confidence in demanding what they want. A girl who has no clue is far more likely to go along with whatever she’s told. That sounds far more dangerous to me.