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books

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Crossing the Line: Adult-Teen Relationships in YA Fiction and Beyond

March 25, 2014 |

In Saturday’s Links of Note roundup, I pulled together some of the posts making rounds regarding the sexual misconduct scandal within DFTBA records. If you aren’t completely up on what’s going on — and I have to admit, I’m not entirely clear on everything happening either — here’s a piece that’ll give the rundown as it started. This is a story that has many layers to it, and I think that Jeanne has done a pretty good job breaking some more of them down in her post (and the subsequent update she’s linked to). Read this, as well as the comments. Her background is within the fandom perspective, which is an arena I know little about. 

But what’s stood out to me over the course of this is less the allegations of sexual abuse — which isn’t to say that’s not important because it certainly is — but instead, I’ve found myself fascinated by an organization which is run primarily (entirely?) by men who serve a primarily teen audience and fan base. There is nothing wrong with that, but it leads to a lot of questions about how those who are older than eighteen can or should interact with their underage audiences. This isn’t only about DFTBA; it’s about any situation where adults work with or for or come in contact with teens in some capacity. 

I was a teen girl once. I was a teen girl who loved male acoustic singers, and I was lucky enough to be able to go to a lot of concerts growing up. I lived close enough to Chicago to make this a reality, and I’d earned enough trust to go, whether with an adult or by myself/with a group of friends. I never thought a whole lot about the fact that I was under 18 and going and seeing these men who were in their late 20s and 30s performing. Many times because of my working for the high school newspaper, I was able to get in touch with these artists and set up either web-based or in-person interviews. 

I never found it weird to talk with them after a show or ask for an autograph or ask a few questions or even approach them for a hug. It never occurred to me that that could be uncomfortable. I was a teen girl and expressing my interest and my passion for music and the art someone else was making. 

One night after a show, I’d had such a good time and had a chance to talk with the singer afterwards, mentioning that I was really bummed I couldn’t go to his show the next night since it was a 21 and older only spot. I’d been there with my mom, and rather than invite me to come to the show anyway, he talked with my mom and said if she was willing to come with me, he’d sneak me in to sell merch for the show that night. 

But this was after he talked with my mom. 

Of course then it didn’t seem like a big deal to me, but in thinking about that moment now, it was exactly the right thing for him to do. Rather than invite me personally or offer to sneak me in, he asked my mom for approval and asked if she would come with me to do so. He didn’t lead me on and he didn’t try to make promises for me. He set up some clear boundaries and expectations immediately in order to protect not just himself but to protect me, as well. 

Barry Lyga wrote two really great posts last week talking about being in the sort of position where he’s regularly interacting with teenagers. The first, which you should read here, set off a lot of questions and discussion. Was he being too strict in having a “no hugs” policy? He followed up with a response to the things people asked or said to him — primarily to those who thought his approach was far too rigid and strict — in this post. The golden piece is this quote: “Why do we presume men are guilty? Dunno, but here’s the thing: until it changes, I’m not going to pretend it hasn’t changed. Change comes first —then hugs.” 

What Lyga speaks to isn’t the presumption of guilt. He’s not calling men the problem. He’s instead pointing out that we do live in a world where bad things happen and rather than contribute to that, his policy is simply hands off. Does it mean sometimes a teen doesn’t get what he or she wants? Something that could make his or her day or week or year? Certainly. 

In his own words: “A part of respect in a relationship between an adult and a minor is acknowledging the power imbalance and setting reasonable boundaries. We can quibble about the nature and tone of those boundaries, but I don’t think we should quibble about their necessity.”

This is where I find myself most fascinated by the DFTBA community and the events going on within it right now. There is a power imbalance. While we’re most familiar with imbalances that put someone in a position to hold their power over the heads of others, what is going on here is a power imbalance that’s never been considered: those who have power don’t see themselves in that way. It’s not that they should feel guilty or bad for what happened. It’s that the possibility of what could happen in such a position wasn’t at the forefront and wasn’t considered.

There was no blanket manner of dealing with issues that could arise because the idea that they could arise wasn’t something that they thought about. 

No matter how cool a 15 year old might be, a 22 year old shouldn’t be anything more than a 22 year old adult with that person. Gender does and doesn’t matter here. It matters because there’s certainly additional power imbalances when it’s a sexually-charged relationship, but it doesn’t matter because there is a clear line of legality regardless of the type of relationship being pursued. It can go either or both ways — older men or older women and/or younger boy or younger girl. 

What’s interesting in this particular instance is the language used to describe the teenager. She is not a teenager, nor is she a girl. She’s a young woman. There is a power construct in the word choice, whether intentional or not. Regardless of how cool or polished she comes off, she’s still a teenager. When I think about when I was a teenager, I was fueled by my feelings, especially in regards to how I was being talked to and treated by “cool” adults. I loved that respect and attention. 

But it didn’t change the fact I was a teenager and not a young woman. 

In thinking about relationships between adults and teenagers, I thought rather than try to deconstruct this further, it’d be worthwhile to build a short reading list of books that explore these relationships. In some instances, the imbalance is clear and the lines of right and wrong are crisp. In others, it’s not as clear. Descriptions come from WorldCat, and I’ve elaborated a little bit, too, about why these books are worthwhile reading and discussion fodder, especially in light of what’s happening in the DFTBA community. 

Please feel free to offer up other titles that showcase adult-teen relationships and the power (im)balances within them. I’d love to have a nice resource list because I think that this is a topic that doesn’t get talked about much but offers a lot of places for empowering not just teenagers, but adults, as well. 

This Gorgeous Game by Donna Freitas

Seventeen-year-old Olivia Peters, who dreams of becoming a writer, is thrilled to be selected to take a college fiction seminar taught by her idol, Father Mark, but when the priest’s enthusiasm for her writing develops into something more, Olivia shifts from wonder to confusion to despair.

In Freitas’s novel, Olivia wants the approval of her idol so bad, she’ll go to the ends of the Earth to earn it. The problem is that Father Mark takes complete advantage of her desires and manipulates Olivia in the worst possible ways. Olivia is and is not entirely on to what’s going on. She believes that in order to achieve, she has to listen and follow with the instructions she’s given, even if it feels weird or creepy or wrong. What complicates the matter further is how well respected Father Mark is not just in the community, but in Olivia’s family in particular. 

The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr

Sixteen-year-old San Franciscan Lucy Beck-Moreau once had a promising future as a concert pianist. Her chance at a career has passed, and she decides to help her ten-year-old piano prodigy brother, Gus, map out his own future, even as she explores why she enjoyed piano in the first place.

Zarr’s novel doesn’t seem like it would have this element to it, but it does. Lucy’s become a little bit smitten with one of her teachers, and there is a clear exploration of what the lines of appropriate and inappropriate are as it comes to their relationship. What I think is most noteworthy here is how much Lucy seeks that approval and admiration from an older male. He’s cool and she loves the attention he can give her. That desire in her is, at times, hard to separate from the fact she’s 16. 

Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo

A fifteen-year-old Australian girl gets her first job and first crush on her unattainable university-aged co-worker, as both search for meaning in their lives.

What Buzo’s novel does is offer us the perspective of both the boy and the girl. We have a fifteen year old girl who is enamored by her coworker, who is in his early 20s and who enjoys hanging out and talking with her. But he understands clearly where the lines are in their relationship. He isn’t interested in her beyond talking and being friendly. He won’t pursue a deeper relationship with her and he certainly isn’t interested in leading her on nor holding his power over her head. He thinks she’s cool and she’s very smart, but he’s well attune to their age difference. 

Pointe by Brandy Colbert (available April 10)

Four years after Theo’s best friend, Donovan, disappeared at age thirteen, he is found and brought home and Theo puts her health at risk as she decides whether to tell the truth about the abductor, knowing her revelation could end her life-long dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer.

I’ll have a lengthy, spoiler-laden review of Colbert’s novel next week, but it’s a title that fits within this list and does so in a bit of a different way. While we see the emotional tolls that happen in Freitas’s and Zarr’s novels, what happens in Colbert’s novel is not only emotional, it’s physical too. It takes Theo the entire novel to understand what happened to her and what ripple effects it had not only on her own well-being, but on the well-being of her best friend. 

Though not for teen readers, Alissa Nutting’s Tampa is another novel worth reading that delves into wildly inappropriate adult-teen relationships. I mention this title in conjunction with the YA ones because I think it gets at an aspect that I haven’t talked too much about, which is gender. While the other novels have an older male at the forefront, Nutting’s flips the script and has an older woman pursuing completely inappropriate relationships with teen boys. This is a challenging and squick-inducing read. 

What other titles would you add to the list? While I think there’s a lot worth exploring on the sexual abuse end (Pointe and Tampa fit there), I’d be particularly interested in titles where the power dynamic is on burgeoning non-sexual relationships. 

Filed Under: Adult, adult-teen relationships, big issues, book lists, Discussion and Resource Guides, Uncategorized, Young Adult

Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month: A Discussion and Reading Guide

February 13, 2014 |

Did you know that February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month? I had no idea until I saw someone talking about it, and I thought it would be more than worthwhile to talk a bit about why having a month of awareness of this topic is important, as well as offer some discussion fodder and a reading list of YA fiction that delves into teen dating violence.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, a 2011 survey of teens found that 9.4% of teens reported having been in a romantic relationship that resulted in them being hit, slapped, or physically hurt on purpose in the last twelve months. Sit with that a minute: in the last year, almost 10% of teens reported having been in a relationship that involved violence. If we believe that at least that much did not report violence in their relationship — and anyone who went to high school and took one of these surveys knows what they involve — that is a huge and startling statistic.

In addition to that, 1 in 5 females and 1 in 7 males report having been sexually assaulted, raped, physically hurt, or stalked by a romantic partner; those statistics are for those aged 11 to 17.


Twenty percent of women between the ages of 11 and 17 have reported being raped, assaulted, or stalked by a romantic partner and fourteen percent of men between the ages of 11 and 17 have reported being raped, assaulted, or stalked by a romantic partner. 

These numbers were reported in a survey separate from the one above, so considered separately and considered together, those numbers are frightening.

Starting a conversation about this topic can be difficult, but I think it’s one that’s important to keep aware of and know the statistics about because it should be informative in working with teens. Whether you’re an educator or a librarian or teen advocate in some capacity (which includes writers for teens, readers who appreciate YA fiction, bloggers, and so forth), being ignorant of what teens experience or are familiar with because of their peers’ experiences can be more harmful than helpful. Fortunately, aside from the statistics that exist, there are excellent resources for building your awareness of teen dating violence, as well as excellent teen novels that tackle this delicate issue in ways that are not only helpful, but can be the door that invites important conversation.

Despite what we can think as adults, teens are aware of these issues and not only are they aware of them, they’re not afraid to talk about them. It’s us as adults who are more fearful to broach the issues for fears we may do or say wrong or — in a worse case scenario — we fear that we might put ideas into “impressionable minds.” Let’s be real though: teens know. Teens aren’t impressionable in that way. What can and does make an impression is being willing to be an advocate and an open conversationalist to, for, and with these teens. That knowledge that you care can change their world.

Select Resources 

Last April, I wrote a guide to discussing sex, sexual assault, and rape, so I won’t go too much into that here. But I do want to point to a project being built by Teen Librarian Toolbox, called the Sexual Violence in Young Adult Literature Chat. The ongoing project, which is supplemented by the linked tumblr account, is meant to foster conversation about sexual violence in a manner that helps empower readers and teen advocates in not only their ability to think about this challenging topic, but also to foster conversation with teens themselves.

Become familiar with Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month’s site. This online hub is a space for discussing and advocating for the efforts of promoting and raising awareness of teen dating violence. There are a wealth of resources, including dating abuse helplines and a wealth of public awareness campaigns. Those campaign sites will offer even more great resources and helpful tips for raising your own awareness, as well as for becoming a stronger advocate for teens.  

The Teen Dating Violence site is an arm of love is respect, which is another site you should have on your radar. This resource is one that would be especially useful for teen themselves, as it offers a tool defining what dating violence is. Again, the statistics are that roughly 10% of teens reported being in a physically harmful relationship; it’s not always obvious to teens (just like it’s not always obvious to adults!) when a relationship is abusive.

Although I don’t think that the US Department of Health and Human Services site offers the most useful information, I’m linking to it because it does offer tips and help as to cultivating conversations about Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. This is the toolkit for adults to talk about this month and what the purpose behind the campaign is. It offers some downloadable and printable fact sheets that could be valuable in displays, on social media, or on physical bulletin boards.

Dating Violence in YA Fiction

Since I covered sexual violence last spring, I’m focusing this list more specifically on dating violence. All of these are YA titles, and each has some component of relationship violence — and I’m not going to shy away from it: some of these books can be really challenging to read because of that. But I think knowing about them, talking about them, and having them available for teens can be invaluable in fostering important conversations, if not for helping a teen in one of these situations realize what’s going on is not okay.

All descriptions come from WorldCat, and I know this is far from a complete list. Please feel free to add more to this list, especially books where the male main character may be suffering from dating violence. I find that there is often a lacking in stories about relationship violence — verbal, sexual, or physical — of the male being the victim. Which isn’t to say the stories of females being victims aren’t important (they definitely are, and as noted, they are more frequently the victims), but I think it’s just as important to show the other side, too, as it’s often the one that’s talked about far less. Likewise, there’s a dearth of LGBTQ relationships presented.

Since my knowledge is heavier on realistic fiction, that’s reflected, but I am aware dating violence shows up in other genres within YA fiction, as well. 



Bad Boy by Dream Jones: Devastated to find herself back in a group home after a peaceful year of living with loving foster parents, a Brooklyn teenager striving to become strong and independent soon falls prey to the dangerous affections of a good looking but shady young man.

Bitter End by Jennifer Brown: When seventeen-year-old Alex starts dating Cole, a new boy at her high school, her two closest friends increasingly mistrust him as the relationship grows more serious.

Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf: Allie is overwhelmed when her boyfriend, Trip, dies in a car accident, leaving her scarred and unable to recall what happened that night, but she feels she must uncover the truth, even if it could hurt the people who tried to save her from Trip’s abuse.

Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn: Sent to counseling for hitting his girlfriend, Caitlin, and ordered to keep a journal, sixteen-year-old Nick recounts his relationship with Caitlin, examines his controlling behavior and anger, and describes living with his abusive father.

But I Love Him by Amanda Grace: Traces, through the course of a year, Ann’s transformation from a happy A-student, track star, and popular senior to a solitary, abused woman whose love for the emotionally-scarred Connor has taken away everything–even herself.

Dark Song by Gail Giles: After her father loses his job and she finds out that her parents have lied to her, fifteen-year-old Ames feels betrayed enough to become involved with a criminal who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen: After her older sister runs away, sixteen-year-old Caitlin decides that she needs to make a major change in her own life and begins an abusive relationship with a boy who is mysterious, brilliant, and dangerous.

Falling For You by Lisa Schroeder: Very good friends, her poetry notebooks, and a mysterious “ninja of nice” give seventeen-year-old Rae the strength to face her mother’s neglect, her stepfather’s increasing abuse, and a new boyfriend’s obsessiveness.

Panic by Sharon Draper: As rehearsals begin for the ballet version of Peter Pan, the teenaged members of an Ohio dance troupe lose their focus when one of their own goes missing. (From description it doesn’t sound like it’s about dating abuse, but that is a storyline among other characters in the book). 

 

Rage: A Love Story by Julie Anne Peters: At the end of high school, Johanna finally begins dating the girl she has loved from afar, but Reeve is as much trouble as she claims to be as she and her twin brother damage Johanna’s self-esteem, friendships, and already precarious relationship with her sister.


Shattered by Sarah N. Harvey: After March shoves her boyfriend and he ends up in a coma, she tries to figure out what it means to have a perfect life.

So Much It Hurts by Monique Polak: A teen actress gets involved with an older director, whose explosive temper and controlling behavior threaten to destroy her life.




Stay by Deb Caletti: In a remote corner of Washington State where she and her father have gone to escape her obsessive boyfriend, Clara meets two brothers who captain a sailboat, a lighthouse keeper with a secret, and an old friend of her father who knows his secrets.


Teenage Love Affair by Ni-Ni Simone: Seventeen-year-old Zsa-Zsa is torn between her current boyfriend who is abusive and her first love, Malachi.

Things Change by Patrick Jones: Sixteen-year-old Johanna, one of the best students in her class, develops a passionate attachment for troubled seventeen-year-old Paul and finds her plans for the future changing in unexpected ways.

Filed Under: big issues, book lists, dating violence, Discussion and Resource Guides, Uncategorized, Young Adult

The Chemical Garden Trilogy – A Discussion

July 11, 2012 |

I have a complicated relationship with Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden trilogy, which so far includes Wither and Fever. I wasn’t hugely impressed with Wither, but it wasn’t really because I thought it was poorly written or dull. I guess you could say my problems were more ideological, but I’m not sure that’s totally accurate either.

Regardless, I liked it enough to read the sequel, Fever, which I finished a few days ago. I had a lot of the same problems with it as I did with Wither, and rather than write a review which would mostly just be a re-hash of the one I did for Wither, I wanted to talk about the series of books in broader terms. More specifically, I want to discuss how sex and rape are portrayed in the books, and how problematic I find those portrayals. (There will be some spoilers for Wither, but not any for Fever that you wouldn’t discover by reading the jacket copy.)

I’ve been thinking about this a lot more since reading this opinion piece by Drew McWeeny, which discusses how problematic depictions of rape in movies have become for him. His thesis is that so much of rape in movies lately serves no purpose other than to shock or titillate, and neither of those purposes are artistic or justify the rape’s inclusion. In short, it’s exploitative in the worst way. 

In a related way, there’s something about the Chemical Garden books that seems exploitative. It’s different from the movies that McWeeny references, since the readers of the Chemical Garden books are probably more likely to be female than male (so presumably the titillation aspect isn’t as prominent), but I can’t stop seeing parallels. I do have major problems with media that throw in a rape to shock or simply as an easy way to say “Look how shitty this person/situation is!” It’s bothered me more and more as I got older, and now I screen everything I read or view so that even if I choose not to avoid the book or movie, I at least know what I’m getting into and am prepared for it.

In the Chemical Garden books, I don’t feel that the rampant sexual violence has much purpose beyond demonstrating that Rhine lives in a terrible world. And that’s not enough for me. Just because it’s not explicitly described doesn’t mean it needn’t have some real purpose for being there. In Fever, Rhine and Gabriel escape Vaughn’s estate only to run into another nightmare: a brothel set in a decaying carnival/circus site. This section of the book (about 100 pages) introduces a character who sticks around for a while, and it builds Rhine’s world a bit further, but I don’t think either of those reasons really justified the inclusion of the brothel. I didn’t see it do much for Rhine or Gabriel’s character development and I didn’t see it do much to further the plot. The new character didn’t seem to have much point, and I already knew Rhine’s world was shitty since I had read Wither. I knew her world was filled with just this sort of violence and sexual abuse. I didn’t need this chunk of the book to reinforce that knowledge. It seemed extraneous and left a bad taste in my mouth. It felt exploitative.

Obviously, my feelings and thoughts about these books hinge very strongly on how much and what kind of meaning I require in my books. Perhaps it is unfair, but I require more meaning in my dystopias than in other books I read. By “meaning,” I do mean it in a pretty traditional sense: I want the books to say something about our world, whether that something is social, political, familial, or anything else.

This series of books has often been compared to The Handmaid’s Tale and Julia Karr’s XVI, both of which have copious amounts of rape and both of which I found to be valuable reading experiences. So why the difference in my opinion between the Chemical Garden books and these two? The meaning in each resonated with me. The Handmaid’s Tale had so much to say about religion and faith and the power of story. XVI wasn’t as smoothly done, but it had plenty to say about the power of media to make us believe impossible things. Both books have a lot to say about the problems with power and unflinching obedience. I suppose the Chemical Garden books have something to say about what desperate people do in desperate times, but McWeeny addresses that in his piece. It’s not enough for him, and it’s not enough for me, either.

Clearly, my problems with the books aren’t enough to stop me from reading them. DeStefano has made me care about Rhine. I want to know that she’ll be OK. I want to know if she’ll live past her 20th birthday. I want to read the third book and witness a world that begins to heal. Hence my complicated relationship. I’ll probably read the final book, but I predict it will be punctuated by these moments of frustration and distaste, just as my readings of Wither and Fever were.

I don’t intend this post to be a slam of the books. Many people whose opinions I respect enjoy them quite a bit and presumably derive a great deal of meaning from them. I only intend to describe my frustration with them and perhaps open up a dialogue with others about these aspects of the books. If you’ve read them, did you experience the same frustration?

Filed Under: big issues, Discussion and Resource Guides, Uncategorized

Profanity in YA: Research, Assumption, and Feminism

June 1, 2012 |

I’ve mentioned that my educational background is in psychology. I love research and I love the idea of studying behavior to better understand it. Throughout my coursework, I had to do a lot of my own research and paper writing, along with a number of my own full-blown studies. I also had to take a course in research methods, and the professor I took it with had us work with him on his personal research. His project was utterly fascinating — he explored dating advertisements to see whether there was any sort of script to which those seeking mates sold themselves to the opposite gender.

The project involved reading a lot of dating ads and coding them (the ads were randomly selected). My partner and I in the project had to make hash marks for each time we read a word that fit a certain category; some of the categories included mentions of appearance, wealth, jobs and whether these mentions were in relation to the person writing the ad or the person they were seeking, along with the gender of each. The two of us coded each ad separately, then we checked with one another to verify whether we had the same number of coded terms each. This is standard research practice, as it helps eliminate bias or misinterpretation. We had a really strict set of parameters to follow in terms of what did and did not count as something worth coding.

At the end of coding, our professor used the information to figure out whether there was any correlation between dating ads and gender scripts. From his extensive research on gender norms and on relationship psychology, he had a solid set of hypotheses about the behavior he’d expect to see played out in the advertisements. Using the coded data we’d provided, he was able to determine whether his hypotheses were supported or not (note: supported, not true or false). From the analyses (we as students) ran on the data, he was able to write about what this support could suggest about behavior. And since he studied behavior via the advertisements, he could draw those sorts of conclusions.

The long introduction to this is necessary in explaining why I had such a fascination with reading the study being interpreted by media and bloggers about profanity in YA. I was interested in both what the study looked at and how it was presented, along with how it was being interpreted (spoiler: it was being interpreted and is STILL being interpreted wrong).

The thesis of Coyne et al’s “A Helluva Read: Profanity in Adolescent Literature” is not even a thesis. It’s a statement presented in research form stating that the study’s aim was to provide a content analysis. Content analysis means the researchers looked at something intensely in order to understand communication patterns, rather than draw conclusions. It’s sort of a pre-study, meant to be the first step in doing more in-depth studies, if that makes sense. For the purposes of this study, researchers looked at how often there was profanity in a set of books, who said the profanity, who the profanity was directed at, and what sort of characteristics were associated with either the swearer or the sworn at.

In the next section of the paper, the researchers discussed why they chose this topic to explore. They talked about how media can influence adolescent thinking, and they were curious why it had never been studied in print material the way it had been in television or video games. Other research somewhat suggested that reading has a greater influence on adolescent thinking by virtue of how reading impacts the brain and processing (it’s higher level in that it’s engagement with material, rather than being lower level and passive in consumption). The researchers’ final words in this section say that “it is important to examine negative content in print media, such as profanity, as it may represent a significant cognitive and ultimately behavioral influence on the use of profanity.”

From all of the research they cite, this sort of conclusion is wild. First, they slip in the word “significant” for no reason; in research, the word “significant” is related to statistical analysis, not behavior. Once you have found stat analysis to be “significant” when researching, you can explore the correlation among variables (i.e., if you are reading dating ads and notice a significant difference between the way men and women identify themselves with objects of wealth, you can correlate that perhaps men emphasize wealth as something women would find attractive in a mate). Likewise, if you read the sentence a few more times, you’ll note the only thing they believe is that if teens are exposed to profanity, they will think about profanity more. It doesn’t say they will use it more. Just that their thinking and behavior could be influenced.

Ahem.

The third section of the study lays out the exact questions the researchers were curious about:
1. How frequent is profanity use in adolescent novels?
2. What type of profanity is used most often?
3. Is profanity more frequent and intense in novels aimed at older adolescents?
4. Does author gender influence use of profanity in adolescent novels?

Let’s break this down a tiny bit. Their questions were mostly developed to help guide collecting raw data. They wanted numbers — frequency of profanity and types of profanity. Then they were curious whether profanity was more frequent in books meant for older readers. And then, out of the blue, is the final curiosity: does an author’s gender (note: they use the word gender, not sex) influence the frequency of profanity use.

Tied up in their interest in counting the instances of profanity, these researchers were attempting to draw conclusions about whether or not the gender of the author impacted the frequency of swearing. Their choice to include commentary on what impact the women’s liberation movement may have had on profanity in a handful of YA books baffles me. After the researchers presented the question, they offered a little more research. Their first study (1973!) talks about how men used profanity more than women; their second study (1997) said the ladies were using “coarse language more than ever before.” How many conflicting variables happened between 1973 and 1997?

Oh right.

The researchers then offer up a bit of research from 1991 that says there’s still a stigma for girls to swear in a way there is not one for boys. They then ran with the info of the 20-year-old study to make the leap that because the “focus of adolescent novels is on the adolescent characters, the frequency of swearing should be higher among male characters than among female.” After this line, the researchers then give a series of hypotheses about the information they expect to cull from their data coding:

1. Male characters will use profanity (especially strong profanity) more frequently than female characters.
2. Adolescent characters will use profanity (especially strong profanity) more frequently than adult characters.
3. Profanity will be more frequent in humorous situations than in non-humorous.

The researchers at this point slipped in another research question, but it doesn’t interest me as much as the gender ones do. The question, if you’re curious, is about whether social status had any bearing on profanity (i.e., do richer, prettier characters swear more?).

So far, we have a study that is going to count things. Then they’re going to look at the things they counted and draw some conclusions based on those numbers. Note: not a single one of their questions was about behavior, about influence of profanity, or any other measure of the impact of the profanity in adolescent lit. Since they had no way to run such a study without first understanding the prevalence of swearing in the lit, they instead chose to go after an odd factor and attempt to draw conclusions of no impact: whether or not the author’s gender or the character’s gender influenced profanity.

As for methodology, Coyne et al used the books that were listed on the New York Times Best Seller List the week of June 23, 2008 and the week of July 6, 2008 and pulled out the 40 most popular titles. Any books geared for those over age 9 were included, and books in a series were limited to just the two most recently published books in the series. They then divided the books up into age categories, such that 9-11 were together, 12-13 were together, and 14 and older were together. One of the books was an outlier in that it had so many instances of profanity they did a little statistical work to make it less of a problematic title in the sample (and the way they did this was legitimate, especially since the book wasn’t even a novel but a memoir).

In studying the books, the researchers used the same system of coding profanity that prior researchers who studied profanity on television used. There were 5 categories:

1. The Seven Dirty Words — things the FCC won’t let you say: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.
2. Sexual Words — things that described body parts or sex in a less-than-nice way (so, “dickwad” is their example)
3. Excretory words — anything describing poop. This includes the word “crap,” even if it’s used in a way to express frustration. I suppose that makes sense.
4. Strong others — words that are offensive and taboo: bitch being one of them.
5. Mild others — words that are only kind of offensive and taboo: damn being one of them.

They drew their list of words in the 4th and 5th category from a book called Cursing in America (1992) so they had an objective list. At least, I’m led to believe that. The study does not offer an appendix with the actual list of words they coded for (a huge oversight). However, a word like “hell” used in the right context was not considered profane. The researchers only coded each word once — but they put it in the highest level category first. So, if the word “piss” was used, it went to the Seven Dirty Words category and not the excretory words.

Gender coding was straightforward: they went based on names and pronouns. They didn’t have a big deal with non-gendered characters except in the case of aliens or robots, and they were just left as “unknown.” They also coded for age (who said the swear, who received it) and for whether it was uttered in a funny or not funny situation. Social status stuff was explored too, but again, doesn’t interest me. They used multiple researchers to code the data, did verification of the coding, and all looks pretty good.

Their methodology was solid, aside from the fact the sample was so tiny (2 weeks worth of books in the middle of one summer). Also problematic was that it wasn’t random.

But rather than dwell on those little facts, let’s talk about the results!

In regards to their first research question, the researchers found 1,522 separate uses of profanity in the 40 books. Only 5 books did not contain a single profane item they were looking for. And 4 of the 5 were for books in the 9-11 age group. In doing a little more number crunching, the researchers found the average adolescent reading and average size book would encounter 6.66 profane words per hour. Let that number sit with you a few minutes.

For their second research question, researchers found that 51% of the profane instances were mild profanity. The Seven Dirty Words made up 20% of profanity. The other categories were much smaller.

The next research question relating to target age of the book and instances of profanity includes a large table that, if you can get your hands on the study, is worth looking at. But some of the interesting findings included seeing that the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books had virtually no profanity, whereas Harry Potter, Pendragon, and Ranger’s Apprentice books were coming in with 20+ instances each. For books published with the 9-11 year group in mind, there were 166 instances of profanity total. Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother had 175 instances of profanity, whereas the Summer Collection of Gossip Girls books had between 16 and 70 instances. Sarah Dessen’s Lock and Key had 53 instances. For books published with the 12-13 market in mind, there were a total of 654 instances of profanity. As for books geared for the 14 and older crowd, there were 1,522 instances of profanity, with The Book Thief having 101 instances of profanity, and the two Pretty Little Liars books having 40 and 80. Anna Godbersen’s The Luxe had 14 instances of profanity.

Looking at those raw numbers would suggest something, wouldn’t it? That The Book Thief is a terrible book because it has so much swearing in it, but that the Pretty Little Liars books were better because there weren’t as many instances? Or that Little Brother is the worst offender out there with its hulking 175 instances of profanity. But I’d say that The Book Thief and Little Brother are modern YA classics because I’ve read them and know the content, and I know as a reader that goes a lot further than the instances of profanity. Yet, researchers who are not invested in the content of the books are looking instead at word frequency, and in doing so, they’re intentionally developing a system of ranking the books based on it. But I’m not going to talk about this more because I think the YALSA blog post does a fine job expressing these things.

Of course the researchers found that there was more swearing in book for older adolescents than for those meant for younger ones. However, and I go back to my earlier discussion of the word “significant.” The research showed no significant difference in the instances of profanity for books published for those age 12-13 and those published for the 14 and older crowd. What that means is there cannot be any real correlations drawn. However, there was a significant difference in profanity between books aimed at those age 9-11 and those age 14 and older. To that I say, no shit. Oh, and books aimed at those for 14 and older were six times more likely to use the seven dirty words than those aimed at 12-13 year olds.

On to the thing that interested me the most in the results: gender. Again, gender. Not sex. There was no difference between the use of profanity in a book written by a male author and a book written by a female author. Even in terms of what kind of profanity was used (lady authors are using piss and fuck as much as the men are). The only differences found in the numbers came when the researchers looked at who was swearing in the text. Books written by females had more frequently swearing female characters than books written by males did, and vice versa.

When the researchers broke down the data they collected and explored their hypotheses, more things emerged worth looking at. First and foremost, gender of characters did not matter when it came to profanity use. In other words, female characters kept pace with male counterparts (the percentage break down was 49% of profanity came from a female character and 51% from a male). Likewise, there wasn’t a difference in the types of profanity uttered between the genders. And in results that aren’t surprising, adolescents swore a lot more in books than adults did. The researchers then drilled down even further and found that minor female characters swore significantly more than adult female characters except when it came to the seven dirty words (apparently adult females needed their fucks and cunts more than minor female characters did).

The other result I want to note was that profanity happened 23 times more often in non-funny books than in funny books. Again, a total no-brainer for anyone who has read one of these books in the last few decades.

My favorite part of any research study and the one I focused on most in this one is the discussion section. This is where the researchers have a chance to speculate upon the things they found. This is also where the bulk of misinformation about this particular study has stemmed from. The bulk of discussion in this piece boils down to this: while 88% of the books studied had profanity, some books had a lot of it, while others only had one or two instances (and I imagine many of those books were instances of saying “crap” or “damn” or other inoffensive, mildly profane words). They also state that in comparison to television, YA books aren’t pumping out more profanity. They’re on par with one another. And in an hour, the researchers found adolescents would hear 12 instances of profanity on television, as opposed to 6.66 in reading a book.

The researchers mentioned, too, YA books have more profanity than video games rated T for teen (this is based on a study they cite). But you know what they say about this? They suggest this is the case because most of the video games marketed for this age range are not heavy in dialog. And thus, when there is little dialog going on, then there’s going to be less profanity.

In their own research, they state that there is not more profanity in adolescent books than there is on television nor in video games.

More curious in the discussion, though, are the bits about gender. As the researchers showed, gender didn’t matter in terms of profanity use — that is, male and female authors wrote their swears equally, and they didn’t discriminate against the character’s gender either. But what the researchers had the gall to say here is what is worth thinking about. They write, “In previous years, women seemed to conform more to gender stereotypes, being kind, considerate, well mannered, and well spoken. In fact, it was often seen as a man’s obligation to protect women from profanity.” I want to note this was attributed to a source dating from 1975.

They continue with this, “With the women’s movement of the 1960s, however, activists challenged the idea that women should not use expletives. Later, women were encouraged to use expletives as a symbol of power they had gained through this movement.” Note, this was attributed to another source. Dated 1975 (not a typo — both sources are from 1975).

The researchers then dazzle us with this conclusion drawn from the antiquated research and their own work, “In books at least, it appears authors are moving with this trend and are portraying women to be just as crass as men.” 

Let that sink in a second.

Coyne and her associates explored how many instances of profanity appeared in adolescent literature. But their conclusions come to involve the notion that the loose lips (or fingers) of lady writers is thanks to the women’s liberation movement. Not even thinking about the fact their sources about dainty and demure women date 1975, this sort of commentary is mind-blowing and discredits everything else said in the study for me. Because men are no longer dominant and women have some equal rights, they’re mucking up books with their crass language? If women were demure and well spoken and kind, they wouldn’t be contributing to the downfall of our children? To me, the message is between the lines here that, thanks to women having the ability to do what they want to do without the guidance of men, they’re ruining the future. They’re swearing! And they’re letting their young people in fiction swear! And forbid it all, but those young people then might use a profane word here!

Stepping back a little bit further, I’d like to point out that this study was conducted at Brigham Young University, regularly listed as one of the top conservative universities in the country.  Moreover, the researchers were split between the department of family life and the department of communication. This is also an LDS university. Absolutely none of these things in and of themselves is wrong or questionable, but given what the commentary is in the discussion, the questionable research framing, and the topic at hand, it is hard for me to give this much credence. It is unabashedly biased and it is, without question, influenced by the source.

There’s more to the discussion section worth highlighting too. The researchers bring up the notion of social learning theory (we learn things via other people) and suggest that the more young people are exposed to profanity, the more likely they accept it. They become, in the study’s words, “desensitized.” That’s quite a leap to make, given that never once did this research set out to study behavior, but I suppose they’re pulling upon historical research on other, unrelated topics (they didn’t cite anything here though). But as much as I am giving this a hard time, I give the researchers huge credit when they state for themselves that they did not study behavior and that they were only speculating upon what the effects of reading profanity could do for cognitive and behavior of adolescents.

This is the line that those news articles everywhere failed to mention.

All Coyne et al’s study did was count instances of profanity and compare it to a number of other quantifiable variables like gender.

While the study talks about how finding books appropriate for adolescent readers can be challenging for parents, it states explicitly that the researchers do not advocate for a ratings system on books. They acknowledge that including a rating on a book is cause for hot debate and it is incredibly controversial.

What the researchers are curious about for future studies is how adolescents are using profanity in books. They set out believing that profanity would be used in humorous situations and were blown away to discover the bulk of swearing came in non-funny situations. As they state in the discussion, “Future research might more fully explore to what purposes profanity is used. Specifically, is use meant to exercise power, to assert superiority, to threaten, to warn, or to add emphasis or force to other utterances?” They also advocate for continued research of adolescent books in order to better understand it as a media form and to better learn about how it can impact behavior.

Okay.

Here is an idea that could help both future endeavors:

How about reading the books?

This is not a study about context and it is not a study about the impact of profanity in books on teenage behavior. This is also not a study about how important it is to label content nor does it even advocate for that. This is not a study about how women swear more now than they did in the past nor about how crass and filthy characters in books are. This is not a study about how books for 11-year-olds are going to ruin them for life. This is not a study about what does and does not make an adult uncomfortable reading in books meant for kids. This is not a study about how much better or worse books for young readers are than watching television or movies for that age group are nor is it a study about how video games and books compare to one another in terms of how they impact a teen’s mind. This is not a study written by the researchers meant to incite others to react and decry these books.

All they did was code data.

When I brought up the research project I helped out with, I mentioned that once we had coded the data, my professor was able to explore the statistical results and draw some interesting connections among the data. From there, he could suggest that men often spoke more to things of wealth in their dating ad while soliciting mentions of beauty in what they were seeking in a mate. He could then suggest that women made mention of their appearance in dating ads while their solicitations made mention of age quite frequently. In looking at this data, he could say that, in general, men are seeking mates who are good looking and do so by showing off the financial security they could offer and that women seek older, established mates while emphasizing their attractiveness. Through the research, my professor could draw these sorts of conclusions because he had not only the raw data, but he’d gotten it through the study of behavior (writing and submitting a dating advertisement), context (dating advertisements again) and through use of solid and up-to-date research done by others about intimate relationships and gender. It’s an incredibly careful methodology.

What Coyne and her team did was not this. They studied frequency of words in a non-random selection of books that were on the NYT Best Sellers list during two separate weeks. They studied those words out of context. They then went as far as to attempt to define behavior in a sexist and problematic way by looking at author gender and the number of profane words used in a book. Again, without context.

So what we should be making of this study and of the news articles that came out suggesting what this study said is this: nothing. What we should be doing when we attempt to describe what this study said is this: nothing. I will not be linking to any of the erroneous blog posts I’ve seen talking about this study because each time I saw one, I got a little bit more frustrated.

Misinformation is problematic. As much as this study in and of itself is silly, it wasn’t wrong and it didn’t actually suggest anything in regards to what we should be doing with profane teen books. It never once explored whether or not there has been an increase in profanity in teen books (that would have required them to study books over a period of time or from different periods of time and that is not what they did).

Part of being an advocate for books and reading and teenagers or, hell, anything worth being an advocate for, is being critical. It requires you go to the source material when you read a claim that feels outrageous or inflammatory. In this case, we’ve done precisely what the media, which didn’t even read the study correctly, has wanted us to do: panic. It’s caused erroneous stories to spread. Misinformation continues to be fed to people who take what they hear at face value. They then worry and fret about how everything is going to hell in a hand basket.

This is a non-story and a non-issue. But it has been a damn good exercise in critical reading, critical thinking, and, really, a damn fine opportunity to learn a hell of a lot about profanity and just what books are chock full of it.

It’s also been an opportunity to say thank you to authors for not censoring their stories and not conforming to gender roles. For pushing boundaries and challenging 1970s societal norms.

And the biggest thank you goes out to all of the women who pushed for liberation and for all of the men who have embraced equality.

Because, as I learned, feminism is about showing your power through one’s fucking words. For both men and women.

All data, citations, and statistics come from Sarah M. Coyne, Mark Callister, Laura A. Stockdale, David A. Nelson & Brian M. Wells (2012): “A Helluva Read”: Profanity in Adolescent Literature, Mass Communication and Society, 15:3, 360-383.

Filed Under: big issues, censorship, Discussion and Resource Guides, feminism, Uncategorized

A cheat sheet to critical reviews

March 5, 2012 |

Back in January, I talked a bit about why being critical matters. I’m still thinking about the things in that post and I’m always going to be an advocate for being critical and being classy.

As you know, we’re critical reviewers here. We like to look at books in depth and talk about the things that do and don’t work in a story. Something I’ve been asked often — and even more so after posting about the topic of being critical — is how I approach reading and reviewing a book. More specifically, what elements do I think about and how do I think about them then take those considerations and write a review.

This was sort of what inspired the original KidLitCon presentation last year, and when we build our presentation, one of the elements was a cheat sheet to review writing. In all honesty, I sort of forgot about it until the other night, and I thought it would be worth sharing. This was a collaborative effort, with help and insight from Abby, Janssen, and Julia. You’re welcome to borrow it, share it, and any insights you may have you’re welcome to add, as well. I hope it’s helpful not only in giving insight into what goes into a critical review, but I hope it’s helpful in shedding insight into critical reading and critical blogging, as well.

Critical review cheat sheet
If you’re looking to freshen your content or are just getting started in blogging, here are some “big” things worth considering. These can assist in blog consistency or in helping establish your voice in the blogosphere, and they help when you fall into one of those sticky situations when it comes to comments or feedback you may get from readers.
– Summary vs. Publisher Copy: Do you want to write your own summary or rely on publisher copy? Your interpretation may differ from the publishers, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is essential, though, if you do borrow publisher copy that you cite your source (i.e., publisher’s copy, GoodReads summary, Amazon summary).
– Substance vs. length: How much you write in your review doesn’t matter. There are good short reviews and there are weak long reviews. It’s about substance, not length. Finding your own reviewing voice will guide you to this.
– Spoilers and content concerns: Do you write your review with acknowledgment to spoilers? Do you warn your readers when spoilers appear? What’s the length of time when spoiler warnings are not necessary? What about content – do you discuss issues of language or situations which may make readers uncomfortable?
– Your readership: Do you blog to be a resource for teachers/educators? For causal readers? To keep a record of what you read for yourself? For book publicity/as a means of PR for books and authors? Consider this when structuring your reviews. What’s your end goal? Write and review toward that. And remember: this can change. Nothing’s set in stone.
If you’re looking for some ideas of what to do when critically reviewing, here are a few suggestions. Not all reviews need all of these. In fact, you might find it worthwhile to talk in depth about only one of these issues or none of these issues. This is meant to be a helpful cheat sheet for those times when a book is simply a “meh” book — one you are struggling to review because it wasn’t great and it wasn’t terrible — and you need to find words to put to that feeling. The list below is certainly not exhaustive.
– Character Development: Do you find them fully-fleshed or lacking in development (is there an arc)? How does the main character interact with secondary characters? Are relationships believable? Does the dialog aid in their development?
– Story Pacing: Is the story consistent in pacing or uneven? Is it a quick read or a slow read? Did some parts become weak because of the pacing?
– Cohesion and Flow: Does the storyline work? Is it fluid? Is it rocky? Does it flow right, whether it’s meant to be a linear story or not? In short, does it make sense or does it leave the reader confused? Is that intentional within the story or a fault of the writing/characters/dialog?
– Language and Writing: Is it a literary masterpiece? Are the metaphors smooth like honey or are they distracting like flies? Is it poorly written? This is an opportunity to talk about things like length, too, as well as editing. Could it have been tightened or lengthened? Did the writing heighten the story or was it merely serviceable?
 – Authenticity (to the character, to the story, to the setting, to the time period, to the intended audience): Do you believe it? This is especially helpful in non-contemporary works. Did you believe the world building? The mystery? The characters? The situations? Was the setting developed or was it forgotten about? Are historical elements authentic? Is this book going to meet the expectations of the intended audience? Does the book feel real? Are the teenagers/middle schoolers/preschoolers depicted believable or are they inauthentic? This is trust in the story and trust in the writing and, over time, perhaps trust in the author him/her self.
– Voice: Does the story have a voice? A feeling to it? Does the character have a voice? It’s not an easy topic to talk about, especially with the “meh” book, because often, that’s the problem with the “meh” book: there’s NOT a voice. A voice is the tone of the book, the feeling underscoring the story, and the thing that can ultimately be what is most memorable about a story or a character.
– Reader Appeal: This one is dependent on your blog’s goals. Who will the book appeal to? Does it appeal to fans of other authors? To certain genre readers? This is a fun but challenging aspect of critical reviews because it requires removing your own biases about the critical elements listed above and thinking about big picture readership.

So there it is — I hope it’s helpful or insightful, and if there’s anything you consider in reading/writing critically, share away.

Filed Under: big issues, Discussion and Resource Guides, Professional Development, Uncategorized

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