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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47970
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47970
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Well, I think you need to start by reading Lolita -- not because it will give you a clear answer to your question, because Lolita is hugely controversial to this day -- but because it will give you an example of a great artist treading the same treacherous ground you are proposing to tread. And you will realize that you are never going to be able to tread this ground in a way that will satisfy everyone.

Then I think you will need to think about the distinction between drama and titillation. Sex, and particularly the initiation of a first sexual relationship is one of the most dramatic events in anyone's life. Thus it is an important dramatic element in many stories. But descriptions of sex and sex acts can also be merely titillating. They can be used to produce a sexual response in the reader without exploring any of the life drama involved in the initiation of a sexual relationship.

That which is done purely for titillation is pornography. But because titillation is part of the initiation of the sex act itself, the depiction of titillation may be an essential element of the drama in a non-pornographic description of sex. But how do you describe titillation as effectively as you need for dramatic purposes without actually titillating the audience? In practice, that is pretty difficult, which is why the definition of pornogrpahy is so difficult and you end up having to fall back on "I know it when I see it" judgements.

And, of course, in stories for adults about adults, writers often include a great deal of titillation -- a porn and drama two-for-one for the reader. Romance novels often advertise the amount of this they provide, rather akin to the 1-4 pepper rating system used on bottles of hot sauce.

But, of course, where a child is involved, these impossible to define limits become much more difficult to handle and the two-for-one effect becomes particularly problematic. Unless you take titillation off the table altogether, you are likely to be in very deep water. And I can't imagine how you can take titillation off the table altogether except by avoiding any description of the act. Maybe someone can figure out how to do that, but, like I say, it is very deep water. But avoiding the act alone will not ensure that you avoid titillation. The water here is very very deep.

Nothing you can do in the depiction of this is going to get you off the hook with some people though. The mere fact of telling this story at all, no matter how successful you are in avoiding anything titillating or pornographic, is still going to get you in trouble in some quarters. For many today, the world must be presented as comprised solely of clear villains and clear saints. For them, ambiguous victims cannot be admitted, for they spoil the simple political case they are trying to argue. (To be clear, there is more than one such group in the world today.)

So, the question of dealing with it "appropriately" has no solution outside each individual's view of what is "appropriate", and there will be people for whom, for perhaps quite diverse reasons, the story you want to tell will never be appropriate under any circumstances.

You can probably affect the amount of criticism you will receive by being less explicit and avoiding any form of titillation (perhaps at the expense of some element of the drama) but you are certainly going to be in the dog house with a lot of people if you tell this story at all.

Original score: 4