Is it wrong for 15-year olds to be sexually active?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Not yet. But the window is rapidly closing.

Parents have to face facts. A fifteen year old is rapidly approaching the age where she is going to be out on the world on her own. And when that happens she will effectively be beyond parental discipline.

So you need to not only tell her she can’t do something, you need to explain to her why doing it would have been a bad idea. That way, in a few years when you’re not there to tell her she can’t do it, she’ll hopefully remember the rest of what you said and figure out on her own that she shouldn’t do it.

42

You don’t always know when you have an STD and lesbian sex still exposes you to that risk. Can she be 100% sure her girlfriend doesn’t have HPV? Can she be 100% sure she doesn’t have it and hasn’t given it to her girlfriend? Would she be willing to risk cancer treatments at age 28 if she’s wrong?

Sex can also really screw with your emotions. I know at least 3 or 4 women who have really unhealthy mental hangups with sex and relationships that they might have avoided if they’d had a better grasp on the impact sex can have on a person before they jumped into that kind of relationship as teens.

All that being said, you really can’t control it. At this point I would keep the rule in place and set an appointment to take her to a gynecologist to have her tested for diseases and a basic physical checkup of her ladybits. If she is old enough and responsible enough to have sex she is old enough and responsible enough to take proper care of her health and having a doctor she can call if she does have medical questions of a sexual nature would be a very good thing in her case.

43

In general the three cards you get to play are:

  1. My house, my rules: This only works if you pretend your kids are essentially visiting adults, and only extends to the end of your property line. So, you can say no sex in the house, but not no sex somewhere else.

  2. I’m responsible for you: This only works if their behavior has a legitimate chance of repercussions that will burden you. In that case you can say when they get to an age where you can’t be held responsible for their actions, they can do what they like. If this were boy girl you might try the STD pregnancy up but it’s girl girl. How does the other mother feel about this relationship? You could say you could get in trouble for going against the other parents wishes. But it’s a stretch.

  3. Morality. But it has to be something you really believe, understand why, and do yourself. Teens have super BS detectors. Tell her either, I chose not to have sex when I was a teen, because… Or I did have sex but regretted it because… But only if either is true.

Or you could just be honest. “Look I’m not sure it’s wrong, but it just makes me feel uncomfortable. It might not be fair, but if you do it, this will be the consequence. And if you lie about it, it will hurt my ability to trust you.”

44

It never was, for many reasons, but they boil down to not truthful, not effective, and not helpful.

45

It is. At least, once they reach the age where they’re old enough to ignore rules or smart enough to circumvent them via subterfuge. The “because I said so” is basically the Jedi mind-trick school of parenting. That if you say something viamently enough, kids will comply. It works up to a point, but eventually they reach an age where they’re becoming their own person, and just telling them they must do something because their parents wish it and will be angry if they don’t isn’t enough. If they want to do it, they will. The only way to stop them is to convince them in their own minds its a bad idea.

If “because I said so” worked, parenting would be happily trivial. Just tell your kids what to do, and its done. And that it doesn’t work is probably for the best in the long run. I doubt any of our adult dopers do things because their parents command it, at some point, obviously, ones own motivations have to take precedence. Its a little silly to think that this transition is going to happen instantly the day the kid leaves home, even though that might make life easier.

46

I hope that she has already received her HPV vacination.

47

Thanks again for all of the responses. Particular thanks to Taomist and polar bear for the links–I will check them out tonight.

To clarify a few points:

“Because I said so” is the standing rule of the house. But my wife and I have always been willing to discuss our rationale upon request and are willing to listen to counterarguments. If we’re persuaded to change the rule, the rule gets changed (this has happened in the past). If we’re not persuaded, then the rule stands, whether the kids agree with it or not. We do not believe we owe anyone an explanation for any rule; it’s just something we have chosen to offer.

My wife, my daughter, and I have dealt with my daughter’s breaking of the rule. She has lost some privileges as a result of that decision and has accepted those consequences without complaint. The issue on the table now is just the prohibition on sex.

As has been suggested by others, a rule may not be a good rule if you cannot explain the basis. My failure to articulate a reason for the “no sex” rule is precisely why I wrote the OP. That said, I’m not (yet) comfortable dropping the rule just because I can’t articulate a reason for it. I can’t articulate a reason why my 11-year old daughter can’t engage in similar activities that my 15-year old wants to, but I’m not willing to drop the rule there, so why drop it now? I fully acknowledge the logical difficulties of this position and my discomfort with it. It’s something we’re still working on–we’re not locked into any position. I’m not looking specifically for reasons to support my position that the rule is appropriate; I’m willing to consider that it may not be.

One thing I didn’t state earlier is that none of us–me, my wife, or my daughter–really know the girlfriend all that well. I don’t know whether she’s virginal and innocent, for example, as someone described her above (I have no reason to suspect she isn’t, though, other than the general unfamiliarity). She and my daughter met at summer camp and the weekend visit was the first time they’ve spent together physically since that week of camp. She’s 17–two years older than my daughter–which causes some concern on its own. Two years is ordinarily not a big deal, but my wife and I believe it’s a pretty wide gap at these particular ages. I don’t know to what extent the girlfriend is influencing my daughter, but as I’ve said, my daughter is usually a responsible, intelligent, and mature kid. Her decision to sneak into the basement bedroom really came as a shock to me and my wife, as we had discussed sex with my daughter in the past and she has maintained that she has no interest in it. Clearly that has now changed. Maybe it changed because of the girlfriend, maybe it would have changed anyway. My daughter says there’s no influence, but it may not even be conscious influence.

That would work, but it conflicts with my efforts to talk my wife into some experimentation now. :slight_smile:

Sorry if I missed any specific questions or comments. If so, I’ll get to them.

48

She definitely agreed to the rule, but it was a case of “these are the conditions, or she doesn’t visit.” So she may have agreed to the rule to get the visit without ever intending to follow it. There was no ambiguity in the rule, though–we were very clear.

I haven’t checked the laws, but I think, at most, sex between a 15-yr old and a 17-yr old would be a misdemeanor along the lines of “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” I will look into that, though, thanks. It would be helpful to know.

49

This is pretty much where we are at the moment.

50

Yep, she has. I’m very glad that we made sure of that.

51

I don’t think it’s sex that is bad for 15 year olds, as much as being in “serious” relationships.

“Love” makes you do all kinds of things you wouldn’t normally do, and quite often this means making sacrifices for the sake of the relationship. When you are in a committed relationship your social circles become smaller, your prospects in life become tied to another person’s and your world just becomes a lot more narrow. In adults, this can be worth it because the rewards are huge- someone to have a raise kids with, someone to buy a house with, someone to grow into old age with, etc.

But for a modern middle-class teenager, those rewards are not realistically there. In 99.99% of cases, they wil date for a bit, maybe even into college, and then break up as they grow into themselves and find they don’t have the same things in common they had at 15. So any sacrifice you are putting into such a relationship is wasted, and making your life worse for no real benefit.

15 is not a time to be sacrificing for another person. It’s a time to be absolutely selfish. You should choose the college that’s the best fit for you, not for the boyfriend you are almost certainly going to break up with. You should choose the life path that is appropriate for you. You shouldn’t be focusing your life choices on making someone else happy- especially someone who is unlikely to be in your life for all that long.

At that age, many (but not all) people just don’t have the perspective and experience to keep their emotional commitment in a sexual relationship appropriate to where they are in their lives. So t makes sense to be careful with sexual relationships at those ages.

52

Nope, not disqualified. I am grateful for the input. There’s been other drama, mainly from external sources and my daughter’s own insecurities about coming out. We’re still working through those, but everything seems to be going well.

53

Very good points, thanks. Her girlfriend is already looking at colleges–we took her around to a couple while she was here–and my daughter is already talking about going to the same college. We’ve tried to explain that she needs to make those kinds of decisions based on her own life. For one thing, the age difference they’ll only be in the same college for a couple of years. And the odds of them still being in a relationship by the time my daughter goes to college are, frankly, pretty slim.

That’s some excellent food for thought and a perspective I hadn’t really considered enough. Thanks again.

54

So you’re willing to (attempt to) deny your daughter her right to happiness because it makes you “uncomfortable”? And you know that she’s just going to do it behind your back and resent the hell out of you for it, right?

55

What exactly do you think daughter and GF were doing at summer camp? Lots of free time, minimal supervision.

Really?

Two teenagers sexually attracted to each other under the same roof, and it’s a shock that you found them together.

Seriously?

What do you think would happen if you left a steak by your dogs food dish and sternly told him not to eat it?

56

golf clap @ treis

57

She (the dog) would hump it?

58

Ok, that came out a bit harsher than I expected, but there was an important point I wanted to get across there.

You have the wrong view of how a parent/child relationship works. It seems like your idea is that you lay down the rules, child agrees to them, and child follows them. Like you’re writing a computer program, and everything should happen according to those rules. Your child, and every child in the history of the world, sees it like a POW/Prison relationship. A POW is expected to try and escape, and will do everything possible to get out. So the thought process is Dad says no to A, I lie and agree to that, and then do my best to do A without him finding out. It’s not an intent to hurt or be disrespectful. That’s just how the game is played.

You need to look at this from a different perspective. The issue isn’t really whether you should forbid her from having sex. The issue is how capable are you of enforcing that decree, and is it worth it. So let’s look at your power in this situation objectively. She’s 15. Presumably she goes to school, hangs out with friends, does activities, and even goes to summer camp. Unless you lock these down and treat her like a high risk prisoner, she’s going to have sex if she wants to. If you try to stop her, it will make life miserable for the both of you.

One of the talents that I claim to hold is seeing the outcome of a situation before it happens, and being willing to accept that outcome without pointless fighting. And my read of the situation is that you are beat. Badly. You have no effective moral or logical argument, and your ability to enforce the decree is virtually zero. What that means is that there are two outcomes:

(1) Daughter sneaks around and has sex behind your back. Occasionally you catch her, punish her, and cause a big fight.

(2) Accept that daughter is going to have sex. Sanction it, and give the best guidance you can.

In both scenarios daughter is having sex. In scenario (2) she has adults she can talk to about it, a safe place to have sex, and you can monitor the situation to see if intervention is required.

59

Or send her to a Christ based school for girls, but I think we can all see how that would play out.

60

If only diseases were the only thing about sex that could go wrong!! There would be vaccinations for broken hearts, depression and the pain of unrequited lust.
It is rare the fifteen year-old who can responsibly handle all those things when they’re caught up in excitement and infatuation; her lying to you is a clear indicator she isn’t one who can. That’s why it’s wrong for your daughter (and most) fifteen year-olds to be sexually active. Not a thing about her is physically matured, her bones haven’t even hardened fully; it’s bizarre to think of someone that age being sexually active.
Prime indicator - she thinks she’s impervious to disease, as though sexually transmitted diseases know there’s no penis there.