#when ppl wanna sexualize us we can have a libido and when they want to infantilize us then we can't

[thecrabbybarista]

Ace people can have a libido btw. Because apparently some people still need the reminder?

[firelxdykatara]

Hi, heavensweetheart in an ask mentioned you’ve written meta on adults writing about teen sex and told me I should ask you about it. I was wondering if you could give your thoughts on this in the context of ATLA, in fanfic and the Suki and Sokka tent scene. Some teens are having a meltdown over that scene saying it’s immoral for 16 y/o to have sex and imply that and I’m so confused. When did teens suddenly become allergic to sex? It wasn’t like that when I was one not long ago?

I’ll probably have follow up questions, but I’ll save those for now. Unless you say you don’t wanna talk on that anymore, which I totally respect. I’m just so confused as to why teens now are rioting against the Sokka and Suki scene, and even the *slight* implication that Zuko and Mai had sex too. They sound like church moms rather than teens and that’s jarring shift in culture in just a few years

I COMPLETELY understand teens wanting to avoid sex and stuff in their own lives or the media they choose to consume on personal levels but don’t know why they’re waging war against it

they’re complaining about that scene now too???? idk why i’m so surprised, considering everything else i’ve seen ppl getting up in arms about in the fandom it was only a matter of time, but jfc

listen, here’s an inconvenient factoid that fans--adult and minor alike--need to bear in mind before they go off half-cocked: underage teens have sex. it’s not like there’s some magical switch that gets flipped the instant someone turns 18 that unlocks their Raging Hormones where before they were Completely Sexless Beings. that’s not how it works. (i’m not bringing asexuality into this because ace ppl can have sex and even decent sex drives, libido and sexuality are not the same thing, and sexual awakenings can happen at just about any age post-puberty.) furthermore, coming-of-age tales (which often involve blossoming sexuality, as that is frequently a part of such narratives) are always going to be published and written by adults.

adults are, by and large, the ones with the resources and time to create finished and polished pieces of fiction and pitch them and get them into publishing houses and sold. teenagers who manage this are the exception to the rule, and the only one i can think of off the top of my head (christopher paolini, who started writing eragon when he was fifteen) was still an adult (at 19) by the time he actually managed to get published. adults are also, sorry to say, going to have a better understanding and perspective on what it was like to be a teenager--because they not only lived through it, but they have distance and a better ability to look at it objectively than someone still in the throes of massive hormonal changes and struggling through high school.

this doesn’t always work to our advantage--’adults forgot what it was like to be kids’ is a major theme in a lot of media for a reason--and sometimes it’s depressingly obvious just when any given author actually experienced being a teenager, because regardless of the setting their characters and plot points and tropes are incredibly dated--but it does typically mean that when an adult author is writing about teenagers having sex, or experiencing a sexual awakening, having a first love and everything that comes with that as a teenager, they aren’t acting like some voyeur watching teens gettin’ it on from the outside, but rather drawing on their own lived and remembered experiences and using those to inform their writing. (or experiences they wish they could have hand, like many queer authors who weren’t able to safely come out as teens and so get to experience being a kid and being able to be queer through their own writing in a way that was denied them in their own lives.)

i’ve done ‘first kiss’ and ‘first time’ type stories, now, as i am, as an adult, and i was never thinking about it as some outside observer perving on teenage characters--i was remembering what it was like when i was that age, and channeling that into my writing. no one is obligated to read or enjoy the things i write, of course, but trying to tell me that i’m not allowed to write about the things i felt as a teenager, just because i’m an adult now? that’s a quick way to get told in no uncertain terms to fuck off.

now, that being said, it’s absolutely flat ridiculous to me that people are complaining about the idea that suki and sokka were having sex, when they were child soldiers in a goddamn war. why is it more acceptable that they were preparing to fight and possibly die in a fierce battle, but gods fucking forbid they be implied to have a sexual relationship with each other before-hand? why is it more acceptable that children fight and die and kill (and yes, the gaang had a bodycount to their names, even aang), but the idea that mid- and older teens having sex is so taboo? nothing was even shown! it was all but spelled out, but in that scene we didn’t even see them kiss, it just immediately cut away after sokka called suki back to his tent!

what this tells me is that people are having a meltdown over the mere suggestion that these fifteen and sixteen-year-olds were sexually active, and considering that by the time i graduated high school (over a decade ago) i knew five girls personally who’d gotten pregnant and either dropped out or been homeschooled for a few months to have their kids before coming back to finish out their classes, i’m having trouble with this idea that even thinking of the fact that teenagers have sex should be so virulently anathema.

teens have sex with each other. sometimes teens get pregnant. sometimes these things find their way into YA fiction, and that is a genre that is almost 100% written by adults. (i’m sure some started writing as teens and maybe even got their early fiction reworked and polished, but the vast vast majority are at least adults, if not totally out of their teens, by the time they are officially published.) sometimes these things find their way even into narratives aimed at a younger audience, because there are always going to be elements that children won’t understand but the adults watching will get a kick out of--think of all the jokes in Shrek that you didn’t understand if you saw it for the first time as a kid, which seem even more hilarious once you’re an adult and have context for them.

no seven-year-old kid is gonna look at the scene of zuko walking in on sokka and the latter inhaling a rose he was holding between his lips as he waited for suki and think ‘OMG HE WAS EXPECTING HIS GIRLFRIEND AND THEY WERE GONNA HAVE SEX’--not unless something else was going on in that household, and at that point its not the show’s fault by any metric. but adults or even older teens are probably gonna get a chuckle, understanding the wink and the nudge that younger kids won’t get cause they don’t have context for that kind of romantic/sexual coding. and that’s ok!!!! the fact that people won’t get it unless they already have context for that sort of behavior is exactly why it works as a subtle joke!

and, again, the fact that a kid was killed on-screen and the fact that the main characters are all effectively child soldiers in a war, and these are somehow not topics that are too mature for the audience at which the show is aimed, but implications (which the target audience won’t understand, but older people who enjoy the show will) that teenagers are having sex is somehow beyond the pale???? (sure sokka might die tomorrow, but at least he wasn’t having -gasp- SEX before he did!!!!! that’s how they sound and it’s fucking ridiculous)

i genuinely do not understand that attitude, and i don’t think i ever will.