The letter C – Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you should. Right?

Right? Isn’t that the old saying? Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Examples in young adult literature:
– drugs
– swearing
– sex
– violence
One could argue those are the realities of teen life though, right? They cuss, they have sex and they can be violent and drug-filled.
But do we need to write about it?
Can we live without it?
Sure, we can. We can live without a lot of ‘stuff’ but the reality of the world is that these things make for great conflict. Think about it … there is internal conflict but that takes a lot of time to build up. There is external conflict – and that comes in the form of some of the items in the list above.
What do you think? Acceptable topics in YA literature = anything? Or should we be leaving fiction to more fantastical unreal stuff?
Share in the comments!