I swear to dog, if I see one more tweet about the moral perils of hypersexualising fake fictional not-real teenage characters who, I cannot stress this enough, ARE NOT REAL PEOPLE AND DON’T ACTUALLY EXIST, I am going to McFreaking LOSE IT. When did anti discourse port over to YA?
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My answer: adults are, both functionally and in terms of marketing, an integral part of the YA target audience. You can argue that they shouldn’t be, but I’m not going to agree, and for two main reasons:
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One, because, with a bare handful of exceptions, adults are the ones *creating* YA content in the first place, which makes it patently absurd to argue that they can’t likewise enjoy reading it, as though we need an age cutoff for relating to our younger selves; and -
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- two, because *teen readers grow up*. What, are you going to argue that no adults should be rereading Tamora Pierce? That a teen fan of Holly Black’s books has to quit an ongoing series if they hit 21 before it ends? That we can’t stay fans of YA authors once we get too old?
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So: adults are going to read YA. We’re ALLOWED to read YA, and that means we’re also going to engage in YA fandoms. And while I can understand teen YA fans wanting adult-free spaces in which to enjoy the thing… I also have very little patience for the idea that adult enjoyment -
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- of YA content is somehow inherently suspicious, or weird, or gross, or unseemly. Because YA content is *fiction*. We’re engaging here with things that ARE NOT REAL, which is exactly why fandom language and culture thrives on hyperbole, exaggeration and dramatic excess.
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But because most westerners live in very age-segregated societies, and because those societies are still rife with embedded misogyny and homophobia, particularly when adult women are fans of a thing, or where the fandom is queer, we’re taught to see that as icky.
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The number of adult female fans on tumblr who get teen girls asking them “ew, why are you still in FANDOM if you’re MARRIED” is a case in point: we are trained to view adult female interest in anything other than Traditional Areas as weird and anomalous. And it sucks!
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Here’s the crux of it, though: when teens and adults share a fandom space that involves any sex or romance, there’s always going to be friction about it, and that friction will go both ways. Teens will feel weird about adult sexuality; adults will feel weird about teen sexuality.
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This is both a bug and a feature - by which I mean, it just *is*, and we have to learn to navigate it on a case by case basis. We have to accept that our personal discomfort is not always indicative of a moral evil; this is as true in fandom as it is anywhere else in life.
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Some teens have had really shitty fandom experiences because of adults, just as some adults have had really shitty fandom experiences because of teens. Teens also piss of other teens, and adult piss off other adults.
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I feel like I’ve already had this conversation a thousand times when it comes to AO3 & broader fan culture, but it applies here too: being squicked is not an objective moral assessment. The source of your discomfort doesn’t have to be Verified Bad for your discomfort to be valid.
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Teen YA fans who don’t want to interact with adults? That’s valid! But it also doesn’t mean adults don’t belong and are committing a moral offence by enjoying teen works! Yes, even if sex and romance are involved! Really and truly!
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(Please, I beg you: let us not have yet another rehashing of the difference between fictional people and real ones when it comes to sexual anything. Wanting to fuck MCU Loki no more makes someone a genocide apologist than adults writing Sterek is pedophilia.)
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Is there still room for discussion about wider social trends re: youth and culture and sexuality (among other things) in reference to particular works or authors? Yeah, always! But the relevance of those convos does not distill to Adults Liking Teen Things Bad, Always.
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Just… please. I am so tired. Please do not invite rebranded anti discourse to jump from fandom wank into mainstream YA/SFF spaces. Nothing good will come of it. I have seen where those arguments lead, even the well-intentioned ones, and it’s nowhere good.
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End of conversation
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