So the YA book market as well as the movie world are living large off the many versions of dystopian futures where the youth of the time must save the day – Hunger Games, Divergent, and Matched just to name a few. But the thing NOBODY is talking about is how these books have 16-year-olds basically ready to beat the shit out of each other – but none of them ever think or want to have sex. Have the teenagers of the future turned into a bunch of eunuchs and nuns?
I think it’s really interesting that the super uber Christian authors, particularly Veronica Roth author of the Divergent books, thinks it’s okay to have a female character want to expand her world by entering a society without any sort of parental supervision that revels in violence, where bashing in someone’s face until they bleed is rewarded, and where one reveals personality and shows rebellion by getting tattooed, but can never express one ounce of lust or simple human biology. Her characters are mired by their need to save society and yet are completely clueless of what it means to be human.
The Matched series by Ally Condie is even more repressed. The dystopian society built in this series eliminates all creative outlets, matches kids up on their seventeenth birthday but they can hardly touch each other and where relationships are only maintained to propagate the species – but then again sex is NEVER mentioned. And it’s still up to the teenagers to save the world.
I’m not saying that all YA novels have to be as blatant and open as Forever, by Judy Blume, but it’s just ridiculous to continue to place teenagers in incredibly adult situations and never expect it to come up.