In a recent installment of HuffPosts Love + Sex podcast , co-hosts Noah Michelson and Carina Kolodny talked about the increasing number of teens turning to literature to educate themselves about sex.

It's not a surprising trend, especially considering that only 22 states require sexual education at all , and some districts still promote abstinence-only programs. Of course, it's not the responsibility of novelists to educate teens about protection, STDs and other important issues. But a well-told story from a teen's perspective can show what sex can be like when it's good, what sex can be like when it's not so good. It can remind young readers that being a sexual being is totally normal and worth celebrating.

Which is why it's surprising that few realistic YA writers tackle the subject of sex head-on -- John Green's moralistic and enjoyable novels lightly brush over the topic. Sure, there are fantasy books with sexually active characters. But, frankly, "Twilight" makes sex seem like a harbinger of doom.

Thankfully, the tides are changing, both in and out of the YA genre. YA writers like David Levithan are working to remind young readers that gender is a social construct; literary fiction writers like Danielle Evans give a voice to young black girls experimenting with sex for the first time.

We collected a few of our favorite books that make teen sex a very real experience worth talking about. Though they all offer something different to the canon of young voices, they're united by the fact that they don't talk down to their readers -- many of whom are presumably teens.

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott

Abbott specializes in writing about teenagehood as an experience too strange and surreal to be discussed straightforwardly, let alone idealized, as it so often is. But, she's not exactly employing vampires and werewolves as metaphors for how weird sexual exploration can be. Her latest novel, The Fever, is based on the true story of a town full of young women who are inexplicably plagued with seizures. But an earlier book of hers explores the bodily experience of growing up more subtly. In The End of Everything, two inseparable girls are separated when one of them mysteriously disappears. On her search for her friend, Lizzie learns about how fulfilling -- and how damaging -- sexual attention can be.

Ugly Girls by Lindsay Hunter

Hunters first book is a doozy, by which I mean it perfectly mimics the sensory and emotional-overload that is contemporary teenagehood. Frenemies Perry and Baby Girl are pretty different, aside from their shared interest in driving around and stirring up mostly innocuous trouble -- petty theft is their go-to time-killer. But when they both pursue increasingly heated flirtation with a mysterious Facebook friend, their warring approaches to dealing with their budding sexualities is brought to attention. The result is a very real examination of female friendship, and the ways women must fight to feel socially valuable.

Read our review of Ugly Girls.