Oh My Word!

We’ve Left Little to Imagination Uninspired creative endeavors are not faults of potential but culture. Cloudless deep blue sky. Green coated hillsides. Calm ocean glimmering under a warm sun. A good day for a hike. Others were of similar mind, parents and kids and friends relishing the beauty and the day. Some wore t-shirts and shorts, some leggings, tank tops, pants. And some wore colored spandex so form-fitting even bills would reveal their value. Passing one such woman markedly sculpted by spandex, the thoroughness of the impact of the last several decades coalesced into a singular understanding. Though we gradually desensitize to the ever-infringed upon demarcation of now archaically-perceived propriety, the bright sun and clear ocean air showed it plainly. In our current age of progressive enlightenment, some decision was made that everything must be stated, everything must be qualified, everything must be shown. As necklines plunged and hemlines shortened, modesty and privacy became so unknown they currently border on the fantastical. Is it any wonder then that true creativity is feeling more and more uncommon, considering we've left little to imagination? Imagine a gift, artfully wrapped. Take a moment to see it, paper, card, bow, precise folds, and all. What's inside? It could be air or a pebble or a key that leads to a train, plane, the power of rain. Sense the possibility? The mystery? The chance for any single or series of items to be awaiting your eyes? Until the box is opened, anything could be inside. Then it can be admired, appreciated, valued, but it can also only be what it is. Imagine a gift, artfully wrapped. Take a moment to see it, paper, card, bow, precise folds, and all. Notice the corner? The paper is ripped just a bit, enough to peek at what awaits your eyes. Do you catch the edge of a design? The point of an image? The fractured angle of a letter? Until the box is opened, anything could be inside, though the mystery is not quite the same, as a clue narrows the possibility. Still, it could be a good many things. Imagine a gift, wrapped only with a bow. Exciting, but it's clear what awaits your eyes. Do you take it out right away? Maybe. Do you put it aside, because there's no mystery to uncover, no guess to confirm? Perhaps. Do you imagine what else it could be? Probably not. Once you know what it is, you don't regard it quite the same. Imagine man throughout the ages in different states of wrapping. Then think of how much has changed once we stopped closing doors, stopped covering up, stopped being subtle. In just another push to progress ourselves right into eternal, unmitigated happiness and freedom, we became more and more explicit in language, in dress, in art, in literature, in entertainment. The easier everything became to access, for any number of excuses from “education” to “we're all adults here,” the less need there was for our minds to conjure what we couldn't see. How much is there to imagine when everything is right in our line of sight? The result of such changes is most often noticed in the various possibilities of creative output. One dominant tendency is to imitate or rework what's already been created, repackaging instead of reinventing. While that could lead to some unique creative endeavors, it's difficult to call the same rose by another name just to make it appear as something else. The other inclination most often revealed is that when someone wants to garner notice, they no longer do so through an admirable, “Here's what I've done,” but something more akin to, “Look at this body I have! Like this and this and this!” Such is the machination of a disingenuous illusionist, who seeks to distract from what's real with shock and morbid fascination rather than true wonderment and value. It fixes the viewer's eyes on something he can't bring himself to look away from, so he doesn't realize he's not seeing anything interesting, intriguing, or intelligent at all. These approaches lead to underdeveloped creativity and people unable to bring life to empty spaces. Both hamper imagination, and thereby human innovation and achievement. Imagination is defined by its ability to range, to explore unmoored and unfettered, to envision what else could be. When everything is known, and in such sharp focus too, what is left for the mind to wonder about? What motivates creative endeavors, when the eye is so overstimulated by continual, concentrated bombardments of noise over substance? At times there is an advantage to knowing what a thing is, to spending hours, months, years exploring its entirety, usually in regard to what matters most in life, faith, meaning, relationships, and the like. For these, and similar, solidity is more important than imagining, so the more focus on what we have, the stronger, more resilient it can become. Moreover, this is specifically possible for things that truly matter because they have already been deemed worthy and good by the Infinite. Further exploration doesn't just uncover more, but also how much more could be because it intrinsically contains that quality. These are things which strengthen and endure as long as the discovery never bottoms out, the knowing never plateaus, the search for more uncovers greater depths. Thus, the concern for imagination isn't about individual potential, but society overall, the majority of designers, writers, filmmakers, entertainers, the ones who unwrapped the box bit by bit, unraveling the mystery, the compulsion to know more. As they unwrapped each layer in attempts to outdo the level of before, it wasn't just the unknown laid bare, but imagination itself. They tried to hide the undesired effects with oversized, glittering bows, presenting the obvious with forced razzle dazzle, so no one would notice they weren't presenting much at all. In making everything known, the excitement of discovery frayed, our perception of the unknown shifted. Why explore, why imagine, when there's no mystery, no reward for stages reached and levels earned? No delayed gratification, no commitment, nothing more than a screen or a word or an absence of fabric. No longer is there the length, breadth, depth of infinite when a thing has been stripped to its most finite. Another prevailing fallout is apathy, oft mistaken for acceptance or maturity, instead of the rewiring of how our minds and bodies should healthily react to what was once kept covered or enclosed. To the point, live on a nudist colony long enough and the clothed will appear abnormal. How easily we forgot, even scorned, the standards that once were with the distance of time and numbing. We scoff at the stiffness, the suffocation of the world past, yet, can we really say that certain modicums of respect, curtesy, and social norms were worth paying off just so we could dishonestly call less more? The evolution, rather devolution, of the bathing suit is a prime example. Already the bathing suit of the late 1800s was considered scandalous for the amount it bared a woman's legs, then the early 20th century brought the bikini, from the French Riviera, of course. Even then, the pearl-clutching design that bared midriffs was only the beginning, as Hollywood starlets unsurprisingly help popularize and mainstream the style, and swimwear became even skimpier from there. Whatever excuses or explanations for the advent of the so-called fashion, from wartime fabric rationing to innovations in materials to bodily freedom, none explain why we're not rightfully honest about what is essentially water durable undergarments, which should be treated as such. They should not be worn, they should not be worn in mixed crowds, and they should certainly be blamed for creating double standards of styles meant to arrest the eye then condemn the eye they capture. And if there's any instinct of contention, think of how people walk, talk, and pose while wearing one. Think of how it's all meant to attract notice. In that vein, examine any photo of deliberate body staging, for social media, advertisements, red carpets, and the like. Regardless of how much, or little, someone is wearing, don't let the image distract from a very important detail in many, many of these photos. Look at the pose. Look at what message it sends. Look at the eyes and ask how many appear beautiful in face and body but dead or shallow in depth of expression? In exposing all, we've smothered our consciences and emptied our insides of substance. Bikinis, clothing, aren't the only culprit in revealing more than they should. Of course, there's less and less discretion when it comes to social media, but for wider industries, as previously discussed, movies and books have followed an essentially similar path as the bathing suit, cutting out substantive material to reveal more and more in a skewed effort to shock, transgress, push boundaries, and incorrectly claim to be fresh and new. Horror and crime can be overly gritty, but there's no contention romance has mainstreamed what used to be relegated to erotica. Instead of romances portraying something sweet or aspirational, instead of overall writing making much better use of subtlety, romances of today are quick to spend time explicitly describing each step. And while some may accuse the former of being fantasy, the same is even truer of the latter, not least for the fetishism woven throughout. Perhaps this only happens in a society that decided everything has be to revealed, then luxuriated in the validation of similarly-minded people. Perhaps this happens in a society where real relationships between men and women have been attacked, then sidelined, for something, ironically, entirely of imagination. This sort of imagining has not been of benefit to us. Other reasons may compel a people to stop imagining, reasons much more insidious and malicious in outcome and intent. Those more advanced in years may rely less on imagination, because they've settled into the final bend, and feel no further need to dream a future they won't live in. But for the young, what could halt their dreaming when they have so many years yet to live? After all, dreams of the night are for sorting the mind, but dreams of the day are for the future. But why would a young person dream if he has no surety of tomorrow? Before anyone blames this on policy or politics, think hard on how the issue roots deeper than the current argument of the day, more symptom than cause for the end of dreaming. The young have been told for decades that they're powerless, hopeless, and hapless in the face of the inevitable end the past has precipitated. They've intentionally been taught naught to little of what truly drove men to build, of what inspired innovation that changed the world, of the ripple effects of groundbreaking or consequential invention. Without such lesson and context, there remains little reliable foundation for dreaming. And without dreams of day, dark thoughts easily cloud a bright tomorrow, leaving empty, soulless minds scrambling for succor and a stable ledge from which to launch their dreams. But they can dream! They can rebuild! Sure they can, but will they? How many are motivated to do so when the dust coating their vision isn't from construction but demolition? Even as they're encouraged to make history, they're simultaneously being shown its destruction, as if they won't somehow understand that if the very foundation of their world can be demolished then anything can be. Despite the obsession with history, the past isn't honestly studied, but rather treated like a rage room where what's dead goes to be broken. Why build today if it'll only be condemned and destroyed tomorrow? There is no drive to create legacy where everything is deliberately upended. Neither is there incentive to imagine something incredible, to reach for the greatest achievement when they don't believe it'll be allowed to last. How can they when they were only taught to tear down or imitate the accepted instead of build up or create something new? How can they when all that was long upheld as the best and most admirable has been crushed and melted down? The point of achievement is undermined when no one can agree on what's good and right and worthy and beautiful. It can be gutting to build and dream and imagine for a world they're been told will no longer be. It's even more difficult to invest if there's no one for whom to build. Even more, throughout their young lives, they've been constantly bombarded with the current crisis framed by rage and panic, by hysteria and histrionics falsely forming fatal threats to the certainty of tomorrow. Shrieking desperation may attract attention and news stories, but it also turns the future into a precarious spaghetti-fling with questionable, unproven solutions. Instead of an upbeat message of the future is yours if you build it!, the young are frightened into believing the world can disappear in any moment which lacks monumental change. Who wouldn't retreat into the safely compacted world of the screen, into numbing, mindless scrolling? Who wouldn't hide away in inanities or wholly performative emotions? Who could, and not eventually suffer for it? The worlds they retreat to instead are controlled landscapes rendered by pixels and prompts, easily manipulated or redesigned with a few keystrokes. Soaring and beautiful perhaps, but wholly disconnected from reality, particularly one already replete with so much beauty, from the majestic to the fierce, from the tranquil to the thunderous. These other worlds are not only missing the natural, but even their artistry is lacking the detail and imagination of a human hand, worlds wholly unlike those built by men whose visions were shaped by the feel of soil between their fingers, rather than the bright, and often false, colors of mimicry. Of course, the true cause and solution is rooted in the same truth as most ills of society, the careful, surgical removal of the Infinite, which once defined every contour of life and assured tomorrow. The young have not been taught to look up and beyond. They haven't been pointed toward the aspirational and inspirational which well outlasts the lives of mortal men. They haven't been told how a single small action matters, even if no one notices, even if no effect is seen, simply because everything matters in the totality of the Grand Design for Creation. Anger is fleeting and exhausting, Divinity is fulfilling and everlasting. Potential dreamers have been denied the greatest gift of mankind walking on two legs, whose natural line of sight is the horizon. How easy it is to look up from there, but only if you haven't been beaten until your neck only curves down. Only if you haven't given your brain over to a device, instead of given your mind over to devising. And yet, despite all that has been done, there will always be imagination. As long as there is a soul in a body somewhere, the spark of the Infinite will drive a man to reach beyond his self, in creativity, in refinement, in imagining how things could be better. We must keep reminding others of that. We must keep weaving dreams of day. We must keep directing their gazes up. Imagine the world that would be.

Make Morality Mainstream Again The adultification of teen fiction has intentionally Frankensteined books for teens into cesspools of ideological normalization. A while ago, I met a mother and her daughter, the latter of whom I hadn't seen in several years. On the cusp of turning twelve, she'd obviously grown in the time since, and, her mother proudly informed me, had become quite the reader. Indeed, the girl held quite a thick book in her hand. Which was it? The girl showed me the cover. I turned to the mother. “Do you know what your daughter is reading?” She'd figured telling her eleven-year-old she could read whatever was marked 14+ was a safe enough guardrail for appropriate content. As reading is an experience between book and reader, the mother wouldn't have seen what her daughter was taking in. She couldn't either know that her daughter's book was familiar not because it was something I'd read but because it was something I wouldn't. Worse, she thought she could trust the institution. THE READING DILEMMA Parents want kids to read, but as most can't keep up with their reading habits, they don't fully realize what's being allowed, even promoted, in books for young readers. As with other once vaunted institutions, the publishing world has morphed in ways many aren't fully aware of. Over a decade ago, I signed my first contract for Young Adult (YA) fiction. Before and since, I've watched the genre boom through the stages of audience demographic to viable business. Throughout, YA has expanded from books for teens to a genre unto itself, attracting talented writers, lucrative contracts, and the golden goose of Hollywood adaptations. YA is officially for readers 14-18 years (and up). However, as it's after Middle Grade (8-12 years), tweens are frequent readers, plus many eleven-year-olds reading up. There is “lower” and “upper” YA, but they're unofficial categories for libraries or writers specific about their target audience. Most retailers and publishers categorize all teen books under the general YA umbrella. NA, New Adult, mainly written for college-aged readers into their early twenties, is often sheltered under the YA umbrella too. Alongside the wider publishing industry, YA has changed significantly over the years, reflecting broader shifts in society. What follows isn't an analysis on talent or quality but content, as something about words in a book makes what's written more real, valid, romantic, admirable, aspirational. Thus, the intent is to shed light on some of the many topic and imagery that are included in books for young readers. At risk that this won't earn me any friends in publishing (at best), here's some of what I've seen: DEVOLUTION OF YA FICTION Growth of the YA audience/genre is an objective benefit, logical as it is to increase methods for targeting potential customers. As YA has increased in business and position, its morphing into genre unto itself has attracted many adults readers. As a YA author, I read mainly within my market and see the appeal for adult readers considering how well the genre's developed. The migration of older readers to YA is certainly one of the many reasons it's been so adultified. Other factors include the poisonous stranglehold ideological tentacles have on many aspects of culture, entertainment, and education. The shifts adults have finally caught onto in adult fiction and film have infected literature for younger audiences, picture books through YA. A quick example, originally, romantic comedies centered on a man and woman who clashed at the outset, then eventually found their way to each other at the end. The story would build to some romantic declaration, then a kiss. Anyone who's been watching knows that there's now a whole lot of touching that happens before any romantic declaration occurs. Longer, more frequent kisses are only second to scenes of the pair sleeping together before deciding how they really feel about each other. All this is becoming commonplace in YA. What was once cutesy stories about a high school girl chasing a crush has now become stories featuring a whole lot of other firsts, even seconds, and then some. The devolution of YA is a result of purposeful normalization and reshaping of societal norms through manipulatively emotional appeals by writers, agents, and editors. On average, books from larger publishing houses take roughly eighteen months to two years to evolve from contract to product on the shelf. To say, story trends are set in motion well before their rise in popularity. Whatever the view on agents as gatekeepers to the larger houses, publishers only publish so many books in a year, an amount significantly less than all the people who want to be published. Hence, agents act as preliminary filters for editors, whittling down potential authors to relatively more manageable numbers. An agent must really believe in a writer and project to nab one of those few spots. Like most creative fields, writing is highly subjective, so in addition to general quality, each agent and editor has preferences for stories they want to work with. They're also usually pretty clear about what they're looking for, so part of the progression of change can be traced back to what's being requested. CHARACTER INCLUSION CHECKLISTS When I first entered the “querying trenches,” wish lists from agents mainly specified genres and their various offshoots. Although ideologies make a home in all genres, most were subtler, more akin to a light sprinkling than the deluge of today. Within a few short years, wish lists changed. Unofficial “checklists” appeared in the now familiar cancerous categories of equity, representation, marginalization, and other socialist pseudonyms. Nonfiction for teens is dominated by activism, coming out, and adaptations of left-wing figures' biographies. Rather than prioritize quality, potential, uniqueness, the new gatekeeping is often focused on the inclusion of certain ideologies. For the first while, emphasis was on strong female characters, an odd request considering the YA market is dominated by female writers and readers. Previous character portrayal thus had little to do with some imagined patriarchal oppression. Now, female characters are “fierce”, projections of feminist fantasies celebrating girl bosses who are objectively pushy, uncooperative, obnoxious, self-righteous, and/or highly unrealistic. Somehow, they capture the most desirable love interest, a magical combination of masculinity and emotional vulnerability, who is inexplicably un-neutered by support of her domineering principles. Frequently, the girl makes the first move. Worse than overbearing feminism is unrealistic portrayals of a girl's physical abilities accompanied by most unsavory rage and wrath and anger. Supposedly, these traits aren't anathema to the gorgeous guys (when it is a guy) these girls miraculously attract. Unless there's a moth to flame metaphor here, it's a lie to pretend wrath is a healthy attraction. This well reflects the move away from what's become so-last-century stories featuring underdogs who searched deep for courage and heart to overcome challenges, raising up others alongside themselves. A time when character development focused on, well, character. More wholesome stories have been replaced with a self-proclaimed oppressed burning with self-righteous rage and violence. Such characters have seeped into fantasy for adults as well, most notably in armies featuring female combat soldiers and warriors without special powers, who somehow go toe-to-toe if not best male counterparts. Often this sort of matchup is shown as some cunning of smallness, agility, and destruction of arrogant male condescension. Never mind that such fighting is highly unrealistic, and any male is rightly confident if paired against a woman in physical combat. No amount of small body darting or ingenuity will save a girl from the full force of one landed male punch. The unquestioned portrayal of women able to best men in physical combat is worrying considering the real possibility of a reader confusing fact with fiction. Besides, a country which sends its women to war will no longer exist, as it's a country with males but not men. The current not-so-secret of major houses is that a book doesn't have a high chance of getting published if it doesn't check certain markers, especially for midlist and debut authors, though A-listers are not immune. A Caucasian is hardly allowed to write a story featuring a so-called BIPOC, but a straight author must somehow include the ever-expanding gay-bcs, and it must be in a positive light. Some authors were always writing these characters, which at least reflects acting of their own volition. For the rest, many didn't start until required. Because of the careful wording around these ideologies, many don't speak out against these practices so as not to appear hateful and bigoted. The mandated appearance of so-called marginalized and under-represented in stories lest the author risk erasing…someone, somehow also operates along these lines. Although, apparently, only very specific groups are at risk of disappearing. These standards are ridiculous in their least damaging iterations. How many so-anointed BIPOC were consulted over their standard portrayals? How can every individual of every minority be consulted for approval, and who chooses which faction decides? How many Latinos, speakers of gendered language, agreed to Latinx and Latine? Christian characters in mainstream publishing are rarely portrayed as steadfast believers or even rebels rediscovering faith. Jewish stories usually feature a character who's “lived experience” is assimilation, so the character is of a religion but doesn't represent it. A real portrayal of the true beliefs these characters come from would not align with the world mainstream publishing wants to shape. Even more ludicrous is that “disabled” and “neurodivergent” are considered identities, as if a physical or medical condition is cause for new labeling. The approach used to be that you are still you, worthy of respect and consideration, despite these conditions. In the glorified world of the self-hyphenate, the world of we-are-our-self-declared-identity, it's the foremost feature mentioned, with accompanying expectation of praise and exaltation, regardless of an individual's character or behavior. Don't confuse the argument against the labeling with the individuals, because they are separable. Worse than the tokenism is the reduction of individuals to secondary characteristics. Is this really the first thing you have to say about yourself, the most essential thing to know? When did it become norm to turn skin color or medical condition or physical ability into a character trait, the very notion of which says that anyone in this group must be viewed primarily through this lens, as if each is exactly the same? How myopic. How belittling. Following the cue set by movies, books for teens also morphed from cutesy rom-coms to ideological showcases. Unsurprisingly, there's been the introduction of the stereotypical gay best friend. Then storylines focusing on coming out or discovering someone close was gay, with accompanying template for writing them. The one coming out is always the strong one, the resilient one, though much language must be banned lest they be offended or erased, so their strength is dependent upon a carefully constructed bubble. Not only is inclusion necessary but happiness is the only possible, deliberately portrayed reaction. Never mind if some or all of it runs counter to a writer's religious beliefs. Moreover, “I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I'll still treat you with respect” was never an acceptable response. And it is an acceptable response in all manner of situations, unless you exorcise it in efforts to forcibly shape a particular worldview. Additionally, the attitude is that since you can't tell me who to love, and loving this person makes me happy, you must not only ally but champion me. Why is it offensive to present different acceptable, respectful reactions to teens? Who exactly is erased if this character isn't presented at all? As before, don't confuse the argument against mandate with the individuals. The contention isn't about love, but about religion protecting the sanctity of romantic relationships and marriage, a religious practice since the dawn of time, as seen across centuries and civilizations. Marriage is described as sanctified and holy, because it's Divine in nature, and thereby under the domain of the religious. If it's just a contract, then of course any government can regulate it. It’s disingenuous to deny that such enforcement clashes with the very nature of what writing is about. It shuts down discussion, then subverts it entirely by pretending there's nothing to debate. That shouldn't be a source of pride for publishing, but deepest shame. In their efforts to supposedly widen the window of story matter, they've narrowed the frames and tinted the panes to exclude suddenly unacceptable voices entirely. PORNOGRAPHY AND CONSENT Compounded upon all this, most books are no longer relatively clean romances building to a single kiss, as every stage of the relationship has become more explicit. Some scenes are akin to manuals, containing the sort of imagery once the sole province of steamy romances. When efforts are rightly made to remove these books from shelves, screeches of censorship! erasure! representation! resound. We wouldn't, and shouldn't, tolerate any adult approaching a kid on the street and telling stories with such description, nor should we allow it from close friends or family. Authors do not hold special status in this, no matter what the screechers screech. Taking such books off shelves isn't an indication of bigotry, intolerance, hatred, or erasure, but moral obligation. The counterargument from writers, agents, and editors is that explicit detail is necessary because of something to do with “lived experiences” and consent. First, if kids are doing it anyway, then adults definitely needn't assist. Second, consent is not quite the magical word society would have us believe. Third, “everyone has different experiences” is not a reason for writing graphic content, and the replacement of “intimacy” with “experience” is largely responsible for why relationships are in the gutter and leaving people unfulfilled. Intimacy is something private between two individuals; experience is a vague euphemism to pass off what should matter as transitory, despite irrevocable effects. It's difficult to imagine in an age when phones, cameras, and microphones track a person everywhere, but there was once an ideal called privacy, and the intimate was part of it. Pushback also leads to defenses of “sexuality,” another way of saying adults want to teach kids all kinds of ways to pursue these “experiences”. Changing the wording doesn't alter the nature but does allow immoral actors to force celebration of their fantasies and fetishes. The wrongness is incontestable, though not surprising from those who promote polyamory for teens and romantic relationships between humans and demons or other ungodly creatures. The feeble argument for writing scenes of teens sleeping together is they must see what consent looks like. Again, authors do not hold special status or exemption. There is no strong enough argument for writing scenes for teens in which one character undresses another and verbally asks permission every step of the way. Especially because the new trend seems to be the girl not only “consenting”, but also a burning I want this. If she wants, this wording implies, then she must have, abandoning all reason and morality. Consent has become an excuse for all sorts of undesirable, immoral, even illegal behavior, but mutual agreement is supposed to make it okay. This isn't the behavior we should be promoting for teens; we should be giving them better things, bigger ideas to think about. Worst of all, why is any adult writing about two sixteen-year-olds sleeping together? A teenager, no matter how mature, is still developing and while smart and clever not really old enough to fully understand what she's “consenting” to, and is probably being taken advantage of. We treat eighteen with the same magical power as consent, as if any age should be sleeping around, even if legalese only extends so far. Teen pregnancy, abortion overall, would hardly be an issue if everyone stopped sleeping with people they shouldn't. Any adherent to morality knows this, though morality is just another thing scuttled from teen fiction. G-dless ideology is the new morality; immoral, manmade gods have replaced G-d; lust is the new love; sexuality excuse for pornography; perceived racism and misogyny validation for violence and rage. Many are we who did not consent to this. These scenes are in teen films as well, though how many parents know this in an age of individual devices? Adults pretending to be teens take each other's clothes off before a camera for real tweens, teens, and/or adults to watch. Please explain in clear and simple language why this is not a form of pornography. What absolutely vital role does this scene have in advancing the story? Consent is not enough. Wanting is not enough. We're encouraging teens to turn their bodies into used cars, dented, scraped, scarred, and baggage laden, for what? Why is this hollowing out of self and morality good? This serves no benefit for teens and the overall state of relationships. Consent has become an excuse for all sorts of undesirable, immoral, even illegal behavior, but we're supposed to think that everyone agreeing makes whatever they agree to okay. It's incredibly obvious that feminism and the sexual revolution didn't free women, but chain them in a prison of animalistic, unsatisfying desire, dooming them to jadedness, frustration, and loneliness. But they're so responsible! So mature! By such logic, a responsible sixteen-year-old should be able to buy guns, alcohol, and drugs. But identity! No, identity doesn't mandate a book with graphic imagery, nor is it “sexuality” or “feeling seen” or any other term you hide behind. Witness the tattered remains of social morality that writers do not balk at writing this for teens. They should balk at writing this for anyone. Once we recognized that betterment came through battling temptations. It is not difficult to see how the enforced normalization of all this was also an effective ridding of undesirable shame. Not only have we banished feeling bad, we've enforced celebration of what shame once kept in line. But they'll never be prepared! How did any of us get here if none of this existed for millennia? But look at the sales! Many people also bought rock pets. Deviants and defenders will attempt to claim that (a) this sort of stuff always existed, which isn't really a reason for its continuance, and (b) previous generations were undoubtedly stifled in their inability to express their true selves. Perhaps. And yet, previous generations built civilization, with significantly less medical prescriptions too. Previous generations were better at family and community, meaning and purpose. We have “experiences.” But this is what married people do! Some writers introduce a faux or rushed marriage into the plot, perhaps because their weakening moral compass prevents writing an explicit scene between unmarried characters. Marrying the characters and making them eighteen doesn't magically okay writing this for teens. Everyone does it—indeed there are many common bodily functions which shouldn't be demonstrated in public—isn't either reason enough. Pressures to include these scenes is evidenced by authors long regarded as “clean” storytellers, authors who won't swear or indulge in graphic or gratuitous content, authors who clearly express Christian beliefs in their acknowledgements, writing them too. Would they give this book to their priest? To a young church member? Would they read the scene aloud for family or friends or the very teens they write for? If even the professed religious authors do not have the fortitude to oppose this, if even they can be convinced of the supposed validity, then gone is the bulwark protecting children from the psychological and moral damage resulting from these scenes. But inclusivity! We must reflect the world around them! Considering what's in these books, all should pray teens aren't seeing this around them. Either way, that doesn't excuse writing about it. Moreover, cries for inclusivity from those shutting down differing opinions are inherently without substance. True inclusivity is achieved when stories focus on universal truths and laudatory values shared by all. The fundamental argument is that “could” is not “should”, and the only reliable arbiter between the two is Divinely-based morality. Current permissiveness is only possible in a society which worked for decades to expunge religion from its vital foundational position and influence. The demonization piled atop its degradation was simple insurance that the moral truths of religion wouldn't interfere with the newly established secular order. We can still be good people, they claimed. Witness the tattered remains. Allowing, championing, this sort of writing has not made us better, and instead of listening to concerns, activists and proponents double down. Need you any proof of the separation between ethics and morality and elitism and academia, scroll through an article or two in defense of these scenes. The more “educated” the individual, the twisted the pretzel of rationalization. Rational lies, all of them. These lies are prominently center of the new crusade against so-called “book banning,” although the books are still available at retailers and publishers. Fueled by self-righteous hysteria, activists take great pride in influencing state legislatures to enact decrees against book bans in protection of “lived experiences,” representation, and the like. If a teen doesn't see two boys or girls or more sleeping together, so the thinking goes, then they face imminent, unspecified harm, never mind that their sacred voice has been quashed. They claim BIPOC and queer authors are specifically targeted, failing to mention it's the content not the author rejected. Somehow the bigots are the ones who don't want kids reduced to “sexuality”, while the tolerant are the ones who do. Need anyone ask if these protections extend to writers who don't align or even disagree with their worldview? I'd say these books are better suited for adults, but adults are despairing of the unreadability of books in their categories too. And that aside from the targeted “decolonization” of books and authors that adults, especially men, enjoyed reading. From the myriad of books extant, no plot was ever turned, no story ever dependent upon an explicit scene, in the bedroom or elsewhere. Neither does such render the work art or literature, but rather indecent and abhorrent. Parents struggle to encourage their kids to read when such are the books available. ELIMINATING THE WEST For some time, agents have specifically requested non-western narratives, histories, and legends. Atop the deteriorating state of the current education system, teens aren't being presented with a fictionalized character in history, which may thereby spark interest and curiosity in real history. No wonder they know so little of the past when they're not offered history at all. What does make it in represents very select time periods. Other permitted historical fiction is alternative histories where the past is magicked or reimagined, almost always in some gender swapped way. While alternative histories can be creative, the lack of regular historical fiction seems to indicate the only permitted history is a remade one. Otherwise, most of western history isn't on shelves because no one wants to represent it. Which means no one's fighting for it to be published. Which means young readers aren't given glimpses into the past that made this present and will highly influence the future. And this from those who claim large swaths of the population don't properly teach history. The same who pushed the fabricated and widely debunked lie that slavery was unique to the west, the only culture who actively sought to end it. The same who have yet to consider the absolute necessity of mandating schools to teach the true horrors of communism done right. The same who have a monochrome view of colonization and chameleon approach to the faux oppressed-oppressor narrative. A rather high volume of Asian-based stories, histories, and mythologies fill the market instead. The proliferation of Asian and other eastern fiction isn't objectively concerning, but it's deliberate increase alongside western stories' deliberate decrease is. It's less an expansion of viewpoints and more a supplanting of anything west. I grew up reading historical fiction, but there's a dearth on shelves for teen readers, who must see where we come from through the eyes of characters resembling our ancestors. Instead of walking through time in their shoes and understanding their struggles in the context of when they lived, we project modern ideologies upon the one protagonist somehow vastly ahead of her time. It's deliberately false and disconnects readers from the world that created the one we live in. Whatever your opinion of our world, it was formed in those histories, and we cannot appreciate the present without understanding the world that made it. MENTAL HEALTH Another major trend in teen fiction is the focus on the broad category of mental health, its emergence unsurprising considering the uptick in modern society. Whatever the viewpoint on diagnoses, the truth is that the ones calling for greater awareness have much to do with having caused the issues. Teens living in the most prosperous, free society that ever was should not have such measures of mental health struggles, yet they do. Skim the messaging of the last several decades and it's no wonder why. Teens are raised on a bombardment of lies and damaging viewpoints resulting in a precarious Jenga structure at their foundation. For decades they've been told they can sleep around without lasting consequence, negating the need to build deep, lasting, exclusive relationships. Families, a fundamental source of meaning and grounding, have been shoved aside for the faux glory of sleeping with whomever, whenever, and the new solution of “found family”. Just because a pill supposedly prevents biological consequences doesn't mean a different sort of toll hasn't been exacted. And that follows the perpetual degradation of dress, reducing the entirety of an individual to a form as valued or devalued as any other physical object. Added to the disrespect of the body is the incessant, unfounded claim that “climate change” is going to destroy the planet by…well, soon. Never mind that we're doing better than before, and all predictions have been proven wrong. Imagine what continual doom and gloom does to the mental state of a teenager already grappling with ping-ponging hormones, who should be presented with optimism for the future they're about old enough to create. Well, we have a pill for that too. Teens have been told the American dream is gone by those who set out to destroy it, that American greatness isn't worth dreaming about by those who recolored it a nightmare. Hobbies and collected skills, the work of their own hands, have been shunted for social media trends and unfettered internet access. Phones are given to younger and younger kids, so they don't grow up in the tangible, real world but an algorithmic, digital one. Inevitably, the worst of that world affects them. They're told that they're hated, feared for the way they were born. They're told they're not even who they've been since birth, basic facts purposely turned into issues and doubts to shake the foundation of self. Those most adamant about the contrived need for teens to discover identity are the most diligent at axing their very roots. The response to the mental health crisis, the jadedness, the internal turmoil they've helped facilitate by destroying the enduring, reliable fabric of society is to encourage more of the same empty, hollowing behaviors. Atop all this is never-ending rage, rage, rage. At the base is the deliberate removal of religion. No matter an individual's choice of observance, religion undeniably provides what liberal society and decadence cannot; meaning. Eternal, enduring meaning. The knowing that you're more than a clump of cells passing through this timespan, because you are an integral link in a chain reaching back millennia. Your ancestors didn't endure hardships or fight to build civilization so you could be the end of the line, but so you could gratefully take your place in it. You and your actions matter. Not because you're a political vote or celebrated community, but because you were made in the image of G-d Who woke you today as there's something only you can do in His world. What effect would the proliferation of this messaging in literature have on the mental state of the youth? And for those pontificating about diversity and inclusion, who in truth only want different skin colors espousing the same beliefs, there is no greater unifier than religion. Belief in a higher power unites individuals of different backgrounds, colors, and, most valuably, opinions, in ways no mandate or ideology ever can. While lengthy, the above in no way encompasses all the changes, reasons, and effects pertaining to the devolution of teen fiction. And, as the focus is not on talent but content, it can be shifted as easily as it was before. You may disagree with everything I've written. You may accuse me of jealousy, hatred, bigotry, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, erasure, et al. I only encourage you to look for yourself. Peruse bookstore aisles; click through new releases; check who's getting awards. What do your eyes see?

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