Book Censoring?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about whether or not I want to make my books YA friendly.

Honestly, I feel that one of the things I set out to do when I started writing Obsidian is write something that is for those who want to read something older.  Something more mature.  Something more real.

People have sex in real life.  Especially people that are in their twenties--like in my book.  They aren’t necessarily married in this day and age, and they aren’t necessarily committing to a relationship either.

My problem is this: There are three sex scenes in my book, none of which are overly revealing, but you do get the idea of what is going on--and my brother who is in middle school wants to read it.  My mom said she would have to read it first and allowed him to read the first few chapters, where nothing of the sexual kind happens.

Living in a small city, I realize that kids his age are going to want to know what the buzz is all about over my book.  Especially since there are tons of Twilight Fans here.

I thought about taking out the sex scenes, but then I’d completely kill my goal of writing something for the college age adults who want to read something not quite YA, but not Erotic either.  Then I thought about having a YA version and an Adult version, but I doubt my publishers would go for that.

I mean songs get censored before being put on the radio all the time; Why not sensor books, right?  But would that be considered selling out?  Like I’m just trying to make my book available to as many audiences as possible and not caring about whether or not it retains its original purpose?

Who knows?  Anyways, it’s too late to take out the sex scenes--and I’m glad.  I forced myself to keep to the reason I wrote it by sending it to my publishers, sex scenes and all.  The way I see it, it’s in their hands now, all I have to do is walk it through the editing process.

What do you think?