Why is it so hard to believe a 13 year old can’t use a condom? Maybe you might have been too immature at that age but I remember being 13 and making the same choices I would have made as an adult. I learned how to use a condom at ~12 years old and I knew what they were for and why I should use them. A 12/13 year old can certainly make adult decisions.
And why would you consider condoms to be a poor method of birth control? It’s simple and relatively effective and CHEAP. It also doesn’t require hormones or a doctor to use (unlike a UID). I’d rather have my kids use a condom than nothing if they’re STILL going to have sex either way.
You’re making blanket statements about 13 year olds yet there are several dopers in this thread who have stated they safely had sex while young.
Of course a whole other topic should be why we’re talking about pregnancy out of a BJ. Last I checked no one got pregnant from a hummer and it’s unlikely (but possible of course) for another 13 year old boy to have had enough sex encounters with other strangers to have a STD (unless of course you think only 13 year old girls shouldn’t have sex but not the boys). That 13 year old boy is probably as much a virgin as the OP’s daughter.
I agree with badmana in that there definitely is a 13 year old somewhere that is capable of having safe sex. Though when you think about all the consequences of uneducated sex like STDs, babies, and plus the fact that it can reduce girls into sluts, I think plnnr and his wife have to get involved to find out exactly why their child is doing this and if it she doing it safely. As most people would suspect, the little 13 year old was not doing it for the right reasons (I don’t know if she used a condom.)
I’m not sure what badmana would want done if it turned out that the child knew what she was doing. Perhaps plnnr could inform her to keep her teeth out of the act. I’m just saying it would be a really unusual situation.
Some people have also said that children should not have to tell their parents that they are having sex. This is wrong because parents have to know. This is not masturbation here, it is something with serious consequences if done wrong. Plnnr was right to give his step-daughter the choice. If she believes her questionable (in this case it is very questionable) behavior is right, then she should have to stand up for it.
I can’t recall now where I read it, but I saw an article within the last few years that talked about the growing prevalance of oral sex among middle-schoolers, and the most disturbing thing about it was that it was almost exclusively a one-way street. Those boys were not doing one thing to give the girls pleasure in return, yet the girls kept going along with it. It’s baffling.
It’s not just baffling, it’s disturbing. It brings about a mindset that women are no more than sex toys for men. I hope that it doesn’t carry over into adulthood. Not that I encourage young girls to have sex at this age, but as plnnr said, what are the girls getting out of it? I suppose…coolness? :rolleyes: That’s so sad.
When I was in school (8th grade in 1983), I found out an acquaintance of mine who was the same age as I, was going down on some members of the varsity football team. I never respected her after that. I thought it was gross. What a difference 22 years makes.
Actually, badmana, I’m pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of you using the exact same argument to support your actions that you’re telling me is invalid. Yes, some kids that age can and will practice safe sex, but that doesn’t make them statistically likely to do so. They’re probably about as likely to do that as their parents are to be “cool” about the whole sex issue. Do you see what I’m saying, yet? If other people can’t get bent out of shape about someone that age having sex based on what you could reasonably expect from most kids that age, then you don’t get to be bent out of shape about plnnr involving his wife based on what you could reasonably expect from most parents in that situation. If exceptions make one argument invalid, it makes both of them invalid. So if you get to have your little hissy about how Mom is sure to freak out, other people get to have their little hissies about how 13 is just way too young. Sauce for the goose, and all that rot.
Why are condoms relatively crappy birth control? Well, because they have a much higher failure rate than other methods. Something on the order of 10% for average use, I believe, as opposed to about 5% for the pill. If pregnancy is absolutely not an option, condoms are really not the way to go. They’re certainly better than nothing, but I’d infinitely prefer my hypothetical daughter a)use the method that fails half as often and b)have the pelvic exams and pap smears a sexually active woman needs to safeguard her health. YMMV.
According to this, condoms will produce 11 pregnancies per 100 women per year. This is not the same as an 11% failure rate per condom unless those 100 women all had sex once per year.
The failure rate for the pill is 1-2 pregnancies per 100 women per year.
At what age do parents no longer have the right to know that their offspring are sexually active?
I think they also need to be aware that if she really, really wants to, there is no way short of locking her in a cell 24 hours a day to stop her. If determined enough, she will find a way. There was quite a lot of oral sex going on at my middle school. Yep. At the school.
At what age does that end?
They would probably get more out of it if they were, on average, as insistant as the boys.
It worked for me. YMMV.
Yeah, when I was a freshman in HS, I wanted them to go down on me. I remember this one boy who used to talk about girls masturbating like it was this horrible awful thing. He seemed pretty shocked the one and only time he tried to tease me about it when I said ‘So? I deserve to get off too.’
Most of the guys I knew though, they didn’t subscribe to the one-way street thing.
Seems to me another solution would have been to break up the encounter tactfully as you did, but rather than give your step-daughter the choice, give her mother, your wife, the choice. Tell your wife what you saw and let her decide whether to confront/bring it up with her daughter and also pick the appropriate time. That way the conversation could go in whatever direction the mother chooses rather than starting our confrontational. While I personally agree that what she was doing was inappropriate from an age standpoint and from a time and place standpiont, if you want to let her parents do the parenting the let them.
13 years old is too young to be having sex. It is, no matter what. Think about it this way: if a person starts having sex at 18, which is rare these days I take it, and say they live to 70 and continue having sex all the time, that’s 52 years. What’s the harm in delaying adulthood a little longer?
Sex brings adulthood with it, you know. A 13-year old should still be able to be a child as long as they can. It’s true that lots of people rush into adulthood too fast.
As for the way the OP dealt with it, it’s so far removed from my experience - my parents would have shipped me to India and married me off - that I can’t even comprehend it. It sounds like a good plan but then again, the fear of them was what kept me straight for a long time.
And if you read my actual post, CrazyCatLady you’d notice I wasn’t specifically talking about plnnr’s wife but the post in which (perhaps jokingly) spoke about grounding/punishing or even attacking the boy in this case.
It’s a bonus that plnnr’s wife is reasonable and I mentioned that his wife should be “prepped” about the talk if she was likely to go off the handle (and as plnnr is the only one here who knows her he’s the only one to make that choice). I wasn’t talking about his wife going crazy, I was talking about Good Egg’s notion that sex is as dangerous as drinking or driving (and voting but that was a little off) and all sorts of pregnancy stuff brought up by him/her.
My argument is basically this; many people who argue that 13 is too young are looking back at their own experience and thinking, ‘damn, I was a retarded 13 year old and sex would have been too much’ yet there are adults in this thread who counter that argument that 13 wasn’t too young and they came out just fine. This only goes to show everyone is different. Don’t discount 13 year olds only because you weren’t a mature 13 year old or the 13 year olds around you were idiot kids.
There is no hypocrisy in my argument. Some people are saying, flat out, that 13 is too young yadda yadda yadda. I’m saying that, just like some parents aren’t ready to accept children will have sex, that some children are ready for sex. I have no idea what those actual numbers are but as this thread points out, at least a few of my fellow dopers had sex while young and weren’t damaged by it (or lost their childhoods or some silly things like that).
I think if dialogue with mommy stops due to this episode… she will make out and give BJs elsewhere. Parents should give support and advice as much as they can… but that is hard if kids are embarrassed and not communicating.
I read that the mom-daughter thing went well… but still it still comes across as too “girls have to be nice”. A bit too sermon. Can’t shake the feeling that its about cutting girls sexuality somehow… irks me. Even if you did handle it very well and calmly.
Cutting girls sexuality? In this situation the girl was giving a blow job to be cool. This mentality is obviously flawed and the mother was right to correct it. If afterwards the child can understand that giving easy BJ’s will only degrade her, then she can feel free to continue as much as she wants too.
Parents here should teach their kids the reality of a situation and hope the kid will make the right choice. That is what I think happened in this situation, the child’s misconception was corrected and she will now move on with life. No coercion, no civil liberties lost, and no loss of sexuality.
I agree that the reason was silly… not defending that.
So giving hard BJ’s will “upgrade” her ? This is where I think boys might get off more easily (sorry for the pun) if they had been engaging in oral sex. But since its a girl there is the need to “not degrade”. Girls naturally will be at greater risk with sex… but the extra care shouldn’t be associated with the moral notion that women should be more chaste.
Well if after explaining and the kid understands the reality… fine. But if she decides to keep giving blowjobs… then parents will stay out ? I doubt it. The wrong message can be given and that is what worries me. In the case of the OP it seems his wife is handling stuff very well… and its not the case here of course.
Shocking a girl into thinking badly of sex or relationships will do much more damage than giving Blowjobs.
In the case of a 13 year old girl, she’s going to end up thinking badly of sex and relationships anyway once the boys she blows start treating her like shit because they don’t respect her.
I gotta totally agree with you here. Owning up to something you’ve done is part of maturity (a part that, unfortunately, is sorely lacking in most of our political leaders these days). Telling her mother yourself to save her the embarrassment would not be doing her any favors.
You should be especially applauded for giving her the choice of telling her mom or you will. If I found myself in such a situation, I’d be apt to just demand that the girl tell her mom. That you gave her the choice allows her the chance to voluntarily act responsibly, which will undoubtedly help her in later life.
Why shouldn’t the boy’s parents know what he’s doing? Are you one of those who thinks sexually active girl = whore/sexually active boy = man?
Rashak, it’s not about girls having to be more chaste. It’s about girls doing all the giving and boys doing all the taking. And about a girl’s social status depending solely on whether or not she puts out. Don’t put out --> no boyfriend. No boyfriend --> no social life. That shouldn’t be.
Oh, I agree he should have told her mom. I take no issue with bringing the mother in… it was the “I seen what you done with that boy. You wait ‘til yer mama gets home, an’ fess up young missy.” tone in which she was confronted.
I agree. I don’t think there’s anybody here saying “What? 13? 13’s old enough. What’s the big deal?” However, no matter how much we all agree that she’s too young to be doing this, a rather important factor exists… the probability that the 13yo’s of the world will not agree with us.
I’m curious where you’d prefer 13 year old girls fellate boys, though. Home is a safe environment. Setting it up as a “We don’t allow that sort of behaviour in my house” situation will at best make sure that it happens somewhere else.
If you want to make sure it doesn’t happen, or happens safely, you’re going to need a completely different set of tactics.
I already said he did better than I’d expect of most in this situation.
Anyway, it looks like it ended up being handled fairly well by the mother.