I Solemnly Swear That I Am 18: The Most Told Lie In The YA Reading Community

 

    'I have read and agreed to the terms and conditions' is probably the most told lie in our world. How many of us actually read them? I swear companies could have us selling our souls to them without us even noticing. If the devil ever needed a new way to collect souls, that would be the way to get them.

    Adults are guilty of this lie as much as teens are. We don't want to take the time to slow down and read through pages upon pages of legal jargon related to whatever app we're trying to download. We just want to play our games and forget about reality for a bit. 

    In the young adult reading community, there is another lie being told just as much as the first and it is 'I am at least 18 years of age'. Don't lie, if you've ever read fanfiction in your life you've clicked on that little button so you can have access to all the stories that are rated M (mature) and E (explicit). I'm guilty of it too, it's nothing to be ashamed of. 

    Had my parents caught me reading a rated E fanfiction as a teen I probably would have gotten my computer taken away, but I made sure I was sneaky about it (says the girl who read fanfiction on a computer in the living room, where anyone could walk by). 

    Here's the thing, I like to think that ratings in the reading world are more like guidelines than actual rules. Yeah, I'm playing the Barbosa card (Barbosa being a fictional character from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean if you haven't seen the movies).

    You see, there is no such thing as inappropriate books, there are only immature audiences. I know, I know, that's a controversial statement, but I stand by it. You might say, "But what about Fifty Shades of Grey? That book is nothing but sex." Um, have you read the book? Yes, there are a ton of sex and BDSM scenes in the book, but it's actually about the effects trauma can have on our lives and the different ways people cope with them. Grey, for instance, is into BDSM because of things that happened to him as a child. Now, obviously, a child should not read Fifty Shades of Grey, but it's not because it's a bad book, it's because they aren't mature enough to comprehend the deeper meaning and, because of that, it could end up desensitizing them and making them believe that intimacy should always be done the way Grey does it. 

    It is the job of parents and guardians to help children control what they read until they are old enough to make such choices for themselves because they don't need to be wandering into dungeons or mass graves. For me, my parents stopped monitoring my reading when I was 15. 

    I loved the library growing up. I would have spent every waking moment there if my parents would have let me. Being homeschooled until high school, I actually did spend about 75% of my time there. I would attend classes at the library and my mom would drop me off with guidelines as to where I could pick books from. 

    When I was under 10, I was dropped off in the children's part of the library and told, "You can get any book you want from this area, but don't leave the children's department. 

    When I was 12 I was shown the young adult section of the library and told, "this is where the teen books are. You can read anything in this section, the children's section, or the non-fiction section."

    By the time I was 13, I was reading off specific shelves in the adult section of the library. By 15 I had free reign of all the books. By 16 I'd learned what banned books were and decided that they were now my favorite kind of books. I was then, and still am, against literary censorship. I started buying more books than I checked out and my friends started coming to me asking to borrow books that weren't available at our school or local libraries. 

    I was in track and field primarily because my parents were worried about me not being social enough so I joined it as an after-school activity. I ran long-distance races and a couple of team races. I actually loved it, but I hated the bus rides. So, every night before a track meet I would log into my Fanfiction.net account (which I no longer have because the site went to crap, in my opinion. I use Archive Of Our Own now.), type in Star Wars (Now Supernatural), find the pairing I wanted to read (back then Luke and Mara, but now it's Dean/Cas), click the 'I am at least 18 years old' box, scroll through several pages of stories, and print out a couple to read on the bus trips. I never really hid what I was reading, which is why sometimes I have to remind myself that there are more conservative readers out there. 

    If you're a part of my reader's group on Facebook or follow me on Instagram, you'll have noticed that I review all age levels and genres of books, regardless of the fact that I write young adult fantasy. Most of my tribe is understanding of this, but I've had a few concerned people contact me in the past and ask why I review 18+ material in a place that is easily accessible by teenagers. 

    Sorry parents and guardians, but if you aren't monitoring what your teens are reading, chances are that they've already moved up to the adult level. They're not bad kids, okay? They aren't reading explicit romance books because they're looking for written porn, which might be what you are thinking. They're reading it for the same reason that they played Barbies or GI Joes growing up, to explore and learn about the next stage of their lives.

    Taking a step back for a second, there are romance books out there that set unrealistic expectations about intimacy. So, if you have a teen that loves reading romance, you may want to let them know that. 

    Back on topic, though, literature is a way for humans to safely explore the world around them without the fear of physical harm. It's an exploratory method and even though I'm an anti-censorship supporter, those guidelines like 'I am at least 18 years of age' are put there for a reason.

    "Okay, Ashes, you're giving me mixed signals. What are you talking about?"

    I'm not trying to confuse you all. I promise. I believe every person in the world should have access to every book in the world, but I also believe that some people in the world (like children) need to have reading materials monitored for them until a time comes that their guardians and/or parents feel they have reached a maturity level high enough to make such decisions for themselves. 

    Take banned books, for example. Banned books are books that a country's leaders believe to be controversial for society. Banned books are not illegal to own, but they cannot be taught in schools without parent permission. 

    Barnes and Noble has a list of popular banned books in America and if you haven't checked it out, you may be surprised by the books that are on it. As of  March 2021, more Dr. Seuss books were added to the list. Harry Potter was added to the list. Of Mice and Men, 1984, and To Kill A Mockingbird are on the list.

    Most banned books get banned because of religious material, controversial ideology, the way races and sexualties are portrayed, for slurs, and for controversial topics. 

    The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of my favorite banned books. This book was banned because it talks about abortion, human sexuality, sexual abuse, pedophilia, and mental illness. It is a great book for teenagers to read, if they are ready for it, but it can not be taught in school because it would be impossible for a teacher to teach it without negative feedback.

   If you want to check out Barnes and Noble's complete list of currently banned books in America, you can find it on their website, here. You can find lists of banned books in other places as well, but Barnes and Noble is a reliable source when it comes to book news, so I usually check their list. 

    The most ridiculous case of censorship I've ever seen happened in college and, to this day, I wish I'd had the will to speak then as much as I do now because that professor did not deserve what happened to him. 

    I attended a private university. Private schools are notorious for being picky readers. This is primarily because they are religious organizations and all of their teaching material must be approved by their religious docturns. However, the humanitary department has a little bit more flexibility when it comes to materials simply because they consist of artists, writers, readers, photographers, journalists, graphic designers, and such. People who take those classes aren't big on censorship, just saying. 

   I studied English literature and creative writing. Until my junior year, no one raised a fuss about any of the books were were assigned to read. I took an entire class on how to apply banned books to a classroom environment, and nothing happened, until an entry level novel course. 

    Literature classes were on a rotation so I ended up taking my novel course my junior year. About five other students in this twenty student class were English majiors. The majority of the class was actully made up of junior and senior religious majiors who needed to fulfill a literature credit before graduation. 

    The teacher of this class was one of my favorites. He was only slightly older than us students, he taught at two different colleges, and only taught afternoon or night classes. We got along fine, I had him for a few of my creative writing classes, and he was the only professor I had that both demanded speaking in class and gave you a set time to voice your thoughts so you could get participation points without interuption.

    This teacher assigned our novel class to read Corrections, by Johnathan Franzen. I hate that book. There is a scene where a girl reaches orgasm on a couch and one of the main characters spends a full page talking about how he likes to smell the couch becuase he can't get enough of the smell of her. Corrections is not an easy book to read. I struggled through every page of this book. It's one of two books that's made me feel physically ill. 

    We were college students, though. We were juniors and seniors. We were 20-22 years old. We had the maturity level for this book and, once you get past the uncomfortable descriptions of things (I'm not even going to tell you about the three paragraphs about a fish sliding down the inside of a guy's pants) the book had a good message.

   What our professor was trying to teach us with the book was that there comes a time in every person's life when a decision must be made...when you have to make a course correction, wether positive or negative...and that correction has the potential to effect the rest of your life. I understood this. The other humanitary students understood this. A group of girls in the religious department did not. 

    One girl put together a petition to have the professor removed from our university. She went all the way up to the dean and it wrecked our teacher. Here he was, trying to show us something important about life with a book he thought we should all be able to handle since we were all adults, and along comes this girl that gets him fired. 

    Yeah, you read that right. 

    I'll never forget the way he walked into our classroom half way through the semester with sunken eyes and a long face. He sat ontop of the teacher desk, like he always did, looked at all of us and said, "I want you to know that I respect each one of you. You all have the right to choose what books you read. I wish that some of you would have respected me enough to talk to me about the problem you had with Corrections before you went to the dean. For those of you who don't wish to continue reading our book, I've assigned an alternate one. I will be leaving the university at the end of this semester."

    I was so pissed, but back then I was too quiet to say anything. So, I say things now. I post reviews of 18+ books where teens can reach them, I read all genres and age levels, I support authors of books that I may not nessicarly agree with, and I read banned books. Because, the rules are guidelines.

    Under the Consitution of America, publishers are allowed to publish whatever books they want, writers are allowed to pen whatever books they want, and readers who are of age to choose for themselves what they want to read are allowed to read whatever books they want. 

    To any 16 and under people reading this, I'm not giving you permission to go read 18+ material. I'm giving you incentive to have a conversation with your guardians about wether you are mature enough for it. 

    To those of you who are already reading banned books, you go, little rockstar! 

    Be rebellious, read a banned book. Human growth happens outside of our comfort zones.