Sexual Assault and Trauma: Young Adult Literature Tackling Tough Topics

Several contemporary young adult authors have addressed the topic of sexual assault and violence in their latest novels. Recently, twenty years after its original publication, Laurie Halse Anderson's ground-breaking novel Speak (1999) has been rereleased as a graphic novel, reaching an even broader audience. Some school librarians might be inclined to shy away from texts that contain depictions of (sometimes graphic) sexual violence for fear of parental concern or triggering past traumas. However, these texts are powerful tools for examining themes and topics that are a part of national conversations in the #MeToo era. In this article we will talk about one specific text that has had a huge impact on our students and discuss how young adult literature that tackles the topic of sexual assault can be used in school libraries.

Asking for It by Louise O'Neill

As three instructors in young adult literature courses at the university level (for pre-service teachers and librarians) one text continues to have a significant impact on our students: Asking for It by Louise O'Neill. In this young adult novel, eighteen-year-old Emma Donovan is sexually assaulted and raped by several boys from her community while attending a party, and when their actions come to light after photographs are posted on Facebook, she experiences shame and humiliation in her community and from her family, friends, and church. What resonates with our students most is that from the beginning of the book O'Neill masterfully creates a character in Emma who is completely unlikeable, attention-seeking, jealous, and cruel, before ultimately asking readers to decide if Emma was indeed "asking for it."

Reading the book is often transformative for our students. One of our students said:

"She was, in my mind, asking for it. But as I continued to read, certain events made me start to feel for Emma. First and foremost was the way her family treated her. Her father couldn't even look at her, her mother blamed Emma for allowing the rape to happen. Even though I initially believed that Emma put herself in a situation that did allow her to get taken advantage of, I was still shocked that her own mother couldn't have sympathy or understanding. It wasn't until page 301 that I truly, for the first time, believed that Emma was the victim, was someone to be believed, was someone to feel anger for instead of against."

This was a common response; students felt she was asking for it initially (blaming the victim), but their perspectives shifted midway through the book. This reaction is a reminder that young adult literature is a powerful tool for creating understanding and empathy among students—feelings that are central to conversations about sexual violence victims in the #MeToo era.

Topics for Discussion and Collaboration

By collaborating with teachers across content areas, school librarians can be part of proactive education efforts in a culture that has too often dealt with these issues retroactively. The library can offer support for victims and play an important role in school and community awareness, especially when it comes to a greater understanding of issues of consent, victim-blaming, and expectations for survivors.

Consent

A central goal in the #MeToo era is to start conversations about consent, and young adult literature can be an excellent starting point for teaching young people to be respectful of their partner's boundaries and desires. In Asking for It consent is at play on many levels. Early in the novel we see Emma consenting to various sexual activities, but we are also made aware of her inner monologue that suggests she has internalized a belief that she must give consent in order to be liked by the men. Later, when Emma is violently assaulted, it is clear that she is unable to give consent because she is intoxicated, but several people in her community question whether her promiscuity was a form of consent. Each of these layers and questions about consent provide opportunities for discussion and collaboration.

School librarians can collaborate with teachers in English language arts to facilitate conversations and offer resources when issues of consent arise in literature and when sex and reproduction are discussed in health classes. Though Asking for It is not yet common in classrooms, other contemporary texts like Anderson's Speak and classics like Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream can also provoke conversations about consent and empower students to think about consent in a variety of complex contexts. School librarians might work with language arts teachers to enhance discussions about consent in the texts they currently teach, while new collaborations with health teachers might lead to the use of excerpts, literature circles, or whole-class study of young adult literature texts.

Victim Blaming

Initial reactions to accounts of sexual assault or harassment often focus on a female victim's guilt: What did she do to deserve it? What was she wearing? Had she been drinking? Did she lead him on? These questions were central to the responses that Emma encountered from her friends, family, and community after her assault, and they were exacerbated by violent images that were taken and shared on social media without her permission.

This kind of victim-blaming and "slut-shaming" is common in the conversations and social media lives of today's teenagers as well, and school librarians can help bring these conversations out of the rumor mill and into the curriculum. When students learn about digital literacy and digital footprints in technology classes, teachers often focus on how a young person's online posts can impact their future goals for work and college. However, school librarians can help teachers add to this focus on future consequences by creating lessons to discuss how students can challenge slut-shaming and respond to viral social media gossip and image-sharing in the present. In this way, excerpts from novels like Asking for It could inspire important conversations beyond the literature classroom.

Desire for a Hero Narrative

At the end of Asking for It, Emma, the main character decides to abandon her lawsuit against the boys who raped her. Ultimately, her vindication could never be worth the emotional toll that the scrutiny took on her. Many of our students are unsatisfied with this ending because they want Emma to fight and ultimately receive vindication. However, for Emma, pursuing justice is too painful without the support of her family and friends.

School librarians can work with psychology and sociology teachers, guidance counselors, and government teachers to expand conversations and provide resources when issues of rape and sexual trauma come up in their coursework. Rather than perpetuating the image of an "appropriate" or "heroic" response from a survivor, educators can examine the psychological, social, and legal constraints that inform how each individual responds to his or her sexual trauma. News articles, literary excerpts, and film clips can become springboards for examining varying responses to sexual trauma.

Ideas for School Libraries

Conversations about sexual assault and violence will continue to feature prominently in the national spotlight, and school libraries can play an important part in making information about consent, trauma, and healthy relationships accessible for students. Secondary school libraries, in particular, have a responsibility to make materials accessible for young people who are parsing out the dynamics of relationships, while weighing as well the decision to use trigger warnings with these materials. Collaborating with teachers and using young adult literature as springboards for these discussions is one way to provide that information, but there are many ways to address sexual trauma in library programming:

• Create displays—YA titles can and should be showcased in displays either relating to the #MeToo movement or important dates like Sexual Assault Awareness Month (April).
• Book clubs—Book clubs can be an important venue for facilitating conversations and exploring relationship dynamics with teens. Facilitating partnerships in hosting these books clubs with local rape/trauma/sexual violence organizations and centers will ensure that students have access to expert information.
• Hotlines/Community resources—Providing links, phone numbers, and other contact information for local community resources or hotlines could be potentially helpful for many students. Consider including this information with displays, inside of books dealing with sexual violence or on bookmarks with selected titles.
• Community collaborations and guest speakers—School librarians can partner with community groups and experts like counselors, healthcare workers, law enforcement, and policymakers to broaden the conversation to address community responses and responsibilities related to sexual trauma.

Recommended Titles

Several books have been published in recent years that would be ideal for including in school library collections and could be used as tools to spark conversations about consent, sexual harassment, and assault.