Just in time for Valentine’s Day, my ruminations on the state of love, romance, and marriage in contemporary Young Adult fiction:

Boy meets girl.
Boy loses girl
Boy finds girl again.
Marriage, happily ever after.

But now it seems that the recipe for romantic comedy (in the sense of happy ending) in Young Adult novels is more like:

Boy meets girl.
Boy loses girl, or at least complications ensue.
Boy finds girl again.
Mandatory premarital sex in the penultimate chapter.
Ambiguity and lack of commitment.

I’ve read two young adult novels this past week that followed the latter formula, and although I could see it coming, it was a disappointment both times. I liked the characters in both novels. I wanted more for them than a quick coupling in a motel room or an act of incredible vulnerability and tenderness that ended in a nebulous commitment to “see where this relationship takes us.”

The problem with this ubiquitous plot outline is not that premarital sex is mentioned or portrayed or described. Of course, young people engage in premarital sex, and it’s naturally going to be a part of young adult fiction sometimes. However, the problem that I see is that young people are being trained —in books, movies, magazines and on the web– to expect that their relationships with the opposite sex will lead to one night stands and uncommitted sex. No one connects sex to marriage, either before or after the act; no one seems to want commitment or marriage. Hardly anyone expresses the idea that sex means anything. It’s a just a fun, expected thing to do together on or after a date, like walking on the beach or going to a movie. On the third date or after a certain amount of time, you are expected to have sex if you really care about someone. But don’t think that this physical act means that the relationship has entered a new level of commitment, or heaven forbid, that you and your sexual partner, whom you of course love very much, will get married, spend your lives together, and create a family.

Let me emphasize that sex is NOT what the following books are about. That’s part of the problem. Sex is an afterthought or a step in the logical progression of a relationship that may or may not last. And nobody in any of these books tells the young characters that sex is meant for marriage, that two people who are committed to each other for a lifetime can express themselves in sexual relationship in ways that go way beyond the physical and touch the spiritual. Or even that it will hurt like you-know-what to have a sexual relationship with someone and then break it off and move on. Or, on a very practical level, that STD’s are rampant, and casual sex is an excellent way to contract an STD that may become a more constant companion than the guy or girl you slept with last night.

Here are just a few of the otherwise good recent YA novels that seem to me to reinforce this idea that sex is just another bump in the road, something to be experienced whether the relationship is going to last for five months or for a lifetime:
Harmonic Feedback by Tara Kelly. An autistic teen learns that sex can feel incredibly good and bring her close to the young man she loves, but neither the girl nor her paramour mentions marriage.
Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. Semicolon review here.
Saving Maddie by Varian Johnson. Semicolon review here.
Willow by Julia Hoban. Semicolon review here.
Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler. Semicolon review here. Sex as a game, recreation for the bored and the vacationing.
How to Say Good-bye in Robot by Natalie Standiford.
After the Moment by Garrett Freyman-Weyr.

There’s just no sense whatsoever in these books of the sacredness of a sexual relationship. Our bodies are connected to our souls. We are persons made in God’s image, and what we do with our bodies affects our entire being. Sexual coupling was intended for a committed long-term marriage relationship, and without the commitment, it’s a harmful and ultimately unfulfilling act for both the man and the woman involved. When are we going to tell teens and each other the truth about sex?

Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.