Why does this demographic elision matter? Because the idea that fictional/fantasy preferences must necessarily align with IRL wants and actions is much easier to push when you’re placing it next to a convenient vacuum. Single adult women are just so much more SUSPICIOUS here -
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- because, consciously or not, you’re using their singleness as a covert proof of deviance, and goddamn, is that an old, OLD form of Puritanism. “See the spinster eyeing up the young men? No wonder she has no husband and no respect for a woman’s duties!”
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But if you have to acknowledge that the woman is married, or queer, or a parent… suddenly, there’s no handy domestic vacuum for your perception of their fantasies to fill. It’s like trying to argue that a married fan is committing adultery by reading or writing erotica: absurd.
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“Oh, but that’s different - reading erotica isn’t cheating! It’s just fiction!” WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER! EXACTLY! If reading or writing about fictional sex isn’t cheating when you’re in a relationship, then how can you call it indicative of IRL preferences for singles?
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Also, just... the sheer scope of what's potentially being objected to? Is absurd? There's a reason nobody's out here posting their preferred guidelines for How They Think Adults Should Relate To YA (If At All): if you actually lay it all out as rules, it's self-evidently bizarre.
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So... can adults read YA at all? Probably some hardliners will say no, and will treat the adults who write it as being on Thin Fucking Ice. The majority of their allies will say, "Yes, but only under certain circumstances." But what circumstances, pray?
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I mean, setting aside the question of how you'd ever enforce this except by social shaming, and ignoring what how creating such a toxic culture would potentially impact the genre's financial viability... at what point do we decide that an adult is participating Too Much in YA?
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Can they buy and read the books? Let's say yes. Can they review them? I mean, it'd be kind of legally dubious to fire your YA reviewers right when they turn into adults and start hitting their professional stride, so we might have to let that fly. Hmm.
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Can they create or consume fanworks about the content? Well, we might say yes, provided there's no sex or romance involved... but then we're arguing that sexual content in fandom should belong solely to the same minors we're saying need to be protected from it, so. Hmmmm.
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At this point, I can hear in the distance the outraged screeching of antis: "OH MY GOD, JUST DON'T BE GROSS, IS THAT SO HARD?" LISTEN, IF YOUR ONLY DEFINITION OF "GROSS" IS "STUFF THAT MAKES ME, SPECIFICALLY, UNCOMFORTABLE, SUBJECT TO VARIOUS INDIVIDUAL CAVEATS," IT KIND OF IS
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I've definitely said something similar to this on my community listserv when people are asking what the police can do to fix a mild inconvenience, but a thing can be annoying or upsetting to you without it actually being a flaw in the system, or a crime, or a real problem.
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Welcome to interacting with other people! Sometimes our needs and desires are incompatible with each other, but this doesn't mean one person must automatically be Morally Bad! We just have to negotiate with each other and work on personal boundaries!
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