LGBTQ+ Teens Need Books That Teach Them About Sex (Exclusive)

“Shame is their weapon. People who feel shame remain hidden, and that’s exactly how they want us.”

This line, from my novel Like a Love Story, perfectly sums up why the book is banned. The novel is about three teenagers experiencing the joy and angst of their senior year in a New York City high school as the AIDS crisis devastates their community. Inspired by my own emotional journey as a young Iranian immigrant moving to New York in the 1980s, Like a Love Story has been banned statewide in Utah public schools, and in districts across Florida, Texas and Virginia. Utah’s criteria states that the book includes “pornographic or otherwise indecent content, as defined by Utah code.” 

In defending against these accusations, I’ve heard some deny that banned books are in any way sexually explicit. But I feel this line of defense plays right into the hands of the book banners and politicians who want to turn any discussion of queer sexuality into “indecent content.” I would rather focus on why it’s necessary to craft texts that allow teenagers to discuss sex and sexuality honestly and without shame.

My experience has taught me that we must resist shame, especially when it’s aimed at those who are coming of age. Shame, especially when experienced in our formative years, has a tendency to linger. My queer generation grew up with unimaginable levels of shame aimed at us at school, from our communities and families, in the media. I managed to overcome the shame, but so many didn’t. I’ve lost far too many queer loved ones to suicide and overdose, including my first boyfriend. I’m sadly not alone in this. There is still an epidemic of shame in our community, and overcoming it requires meeting shame with defiant pride every single time we see it and giving young people the tools to do the same.

Another quote from Like a Love Story: “‘Our whole culture is in severe denial … TEEN. AGERS. They are out there having sex. And nobody is talking to them about the risks. We need to protect them!’ When she says the word teenagers, she says it with a level of passion that scares me, like there’s something about being a teenager that’s so intense that the word needs to be spoken like a warning.”

In the novel, these words are spoken at a meeting of the activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), but would not be out of place today at any hearing on book bans. Once again, we are living in a society that would rather pretend teenagers don’t have sex than engage with the uncomfortable conversations we must have to help them feel seen and keep them safe. 

In addition to celebrating the activists of ACT UP, the novel features Madonna, a banned artist herself. When her music video for “Justify My Love” was banned by MTV, she said, “The networks won’t even play ads on TV about condoms, about birth control, about practicing safe sex. We’re pretending we don’t have a lot of teenagers that are having sex in the world right now. Why are we subjecting ourselves to this kind of ignorance?” She asked this question in 1990. I’m asking the same question in 2025.

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If I were to defend my young adult novel by denying the accusations that it includes depictions of sex, I would both be lying and allowing book banners to set the terms of the conversation. I know, and you should know, that the end goal of this “parents’ rights” movement (which disregards queer parents like myself and my husband) is to define all queer art as pornography. 

So, I proudly state that I feel it is both vital and responsible to include discussions of sex in a novel about why HIV/AIDS was so traumatic for teenagers of my generation. One of the scenes I’m most proud of depicts two adult gay men talking to two gay teens about gay sex. I wrote the conversation I wish someone had with me when I was a scared teen in need of guidance. 

One of these mentors says: “Sex is beautiful … Intimacy is beautiful … You can’t be robbed of that. Stay safe, but don’t lock yourself in a prison. Live.” In writing this scene, I tried to model what I believe we need more of: true mentorship for marginalized young people. Many of us grow up thinking we’re the only ones dealing with the unbearable loneliness of shame. I hope any open-minded parent out there who reads this is inspired to seek out mentors and stories that mirror their child’s queer identity. Young people must know their history to feel grounded in the past. And they deserve an intergenerational community to show them they have a future.

Another quote from Like a Love Story: “What we did. What we fought for. Our history. Who we are. They won’t teach it in schools. They don’t want us to have a history.”

I’ve built this piece around passages from my own banned book because the true reasons the book is banned are all in the text itself. The book celebrates a history society wants hidden, and in doing so, it shows young readers how a previous generation fought back. 

My next novel, Exquisite Things, is a direct response to book banning. In it, two teenage boys become immortal when pages from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray are burned. This is a commentary on the magical power of art, and a reminder that the banning of art must inspire us to continue living and loving as boldly as possible. 

In considering different covers for Exquisite Things, I pushed for one that features a close-up of two boys kissing passionately. As the government once again attacks the queer community, I felt it was vital that this cover communicate loudly and proudly that queer love must be celebrated, and that teen readers deserve love stories by, about, and for them. My hope is that these stories empower them. Wilde, a banned writer himself, is credited with saying, “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”

That is what books bans are about: Power. Who gets to tell their stories? Whose perspective is history told from? Who is shame weaponized against? We must address these questions before it’s too late, because as history teaches us, book bans are a chilling signal of where a society is headed. A government that bans books, as we’ve seen, is one that seeks to control higher education, dismantles public health, deports innocent people, turns protest into crime, deploys the military against its own citizens. The forces of power want to shame us into hiding. We can’t let that happen.

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Exquisite Things by Abdi Nazemian is on sale now, wherever books are sold.