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agonyaunt2022-03-22 12:23 pm
ermingarden) wrote in agonyaunt2022-03-22 12:23 pm
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The Ethicist: My Daughter Is Having Sex With Her Best Friend. Must I Tell Her Mom?
My daughter is in a newly romantic relationship with her best friend, who is also female. Both are in their midteens. My daughter recently confided in me that they have had sex. She insists, however, that I am not allowed to tell the friend’s mother, because the mother wouldn’t let them have sleepovers or hang out as much. My ex-husband is the one who hosts the sleepovers, and he looks the other way when they are in the bedroom, reasoning that (or so my daughter tells me), “It’s OK because there are no penises involved.” I am not as close with the friend’s mother as my ex-husband is, but we are friendly. Am I obligated to tell this woman the truth about the nature of our daughters’ friendship? Are my ex-husband’s actions egregious? Name Withheld
Your ex-husband’s attitude has a couple of points in its favor. Forbidding physical intimacy under his roof is unlikely to stop it from happening. And it’s surely better to have a daughter who feels that she can tell you both what she’s doing. If the two girls are having a sexual relationship, you don’t want it conducted furtively. It’s best when there’s a parent in the picture who can help pick up the emotional pieces if things fall apart. Even when unwanted pregnancy isn’t a concern, physical intimacy can entail other forms of vulnerability.
But the story quickly gets complicated. I mentioned picking up the pieces: Intense adolescent relationships can blow up badly, in all kinds of ways. If that were to happen, her girlfriend’s mother would most likely find out and feel that you had wronged her. That’s reasonable enough. Letting a child stay with others involves trust. And keeping the sexual relationship from her would be a betrayal of that trust.
Unlike you and your ex-husband, she would be completely unprepared if anything went wrong. A further complication: Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that one-fifth of girls have had sex by the time they’re 15, many states in the country lack a “close-in-age exemption” to their statutes against sex with minors. Depending on where you live, a sexually active relationship between two minors may be a felony. (There could be scenarios where even condoning it creates legal exposure.)
Whatever the statutory situation, parents rightly think they should have a central place in shaping the context of their offsprings’ sexual development. The girlfriend’s mother is entitled to know what’s going on.
Unfortunately, a tangle of ties is in play here. You don’t want to damage your relationship with your daughter (this is someone who trusted you with a confidence), with your ex-husband (parents who share custody need as much cordiality as they can manage) or with the girlfriend’s mother. You and your ex-husband will have to tread carefully around the fact that you’ve already betrayed the trust that allowed her daughter to sleep over at his house.
The right place to begin, I think, is to have a conversation with your daughter and your ex-husband, explaining why the mother has to be told of the girls’ sexual relationship. This conversation isn’t going to be easy. Your daughter will feel you’re sabotaging her love affair. Your husband will think you’re getting him in trouble with his friend, the other mother. And you’ll have to consult with the girlfriend too. You don’t need her consent, but she’s entitled to fair notice; she might want to be the one to do the telling. These are all tough things to have to deal with.
It doesn’t sound as if the other mom will absolutely forbid her daughter to see yours, even if she stops the sleepovers — as she has a right to do until her daughter reaches legal independence. Still, in talking to the mother, you might want to point out that you parents aren’t really in a position to stop the two girls from having a sexual relationship and that your ex-husband’s permissive attitude may be a reasonable one.
Your ex-husband’s attitude has a couple of points in its favor. Forbidding physical intimacy under his roof is unlikely to stop it from happening. And it’s surely better to have a daughter who feels that she can tell you both what she’s doing. If the two girls are having a sexual relationship, you don’t want it conducted furtively. It’s best when there’s a parent in the picture who can help pick up the emotional pieces if things fall apart. Even when unwanted pregnancy isn’t a concern, physical intimacy can entail other forms of vulnerability.
But the story quickly gets complicated. I mentioned picking up the pieces: Intense adolescent relationships can blow up badly, in all kinds of ways. If that were to happen, her girlfriend’s mother would most likely find out and feel that you had wronged her. That’s reasonable enough. Letting a child stay with others involves trust. And keeping the sexual relationship from her would be a betrayal of that trust.
Unlike you and your ex-husband, she would be completely unprepared if anything went wrong. A further complication: Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that one-fifth of girls have had sex by the time they’re 15, many states in the country lack a “close-in-age exemption” to their statutes against sex with minors. Depending on where you live, a sexually active relationship between two minors may be a felony. (There could be scenarios where even condoning it creates legal exposure.)
Whatever the statutory situation, parents rightly think they should have a central place in shaping the context of their offsprings’ sexual development. The girlfriend’s mother is entitled to know what’s going on.
Unfortunately, a tangle of ties is in play here. You don’t want to damage your relationship with your daughter (this is someone who trusted you with a confidence), with your ex-husband (parents who share custody need as much cordiality as they can manage) or with the girlfriend’s mother. You and your ex-husband will have to tread carefully around the fact that you’ve already betrayed the trust that allowed her daughter to sleep over at his house.
The right place to begin, I think, is to have a conversation with your daughter and your ex-husband, explaining why the mother has to be told of the girls’ sexual relationship. This conversation isn’t going to be easy. Your daughter will feel you’re sabotaging her love affair. Your husband will think you’re getting him in trouble with his friend, the other mother. And you’ll have to consult with the girlfriend too. You don’t need her consent, but she’s entitled to fair notice; she might want to be the one to do the telling. These are all tough things to have to deal with.
It doesn’t sound as if the other mom will absolutely forbid her daughter to see yours, even if she stops the sleepovers — as she has a right to do until her daughter reaches legal independence. Still, in talking to the mother, you might want to point out that you parents aren’t really in a position to stop the two girls from having a sexual relationship and that your ex-husband’s permissive attitude may be a reasonable one.
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Now that I have slightly calmed down I would also, in the shoes of LW's ex, take the following steps (Adapted from friends who are also parents of teens, and whose teens trust them with information about their sexuality and sexual health):
If you are going to be having sex in my house, we are all taking a field trip down to meet the Queer Youths Health Educator (chicago resource). The "punishment" aspect of this parent-daughter-daughter's girlfriend field trip is that it is going to be awkward and uncomfortable as hell for all of us.
If you are going to be having sex in my house, you will both be having regular screenings for STIs, especially if either of them is involved in team/contact sports.
Dental dams (and condoms because why the fuck not) are in the now in the teen's bathroom next to the menstrual supplies and spare toilet roll; please stick a post-it to the outside of the box when they have disappeared and they will magically reappear. Please also do not flush them down the toilet.
*
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I run my workplaces peer sex education program and sometimes we have a lot of fun, or very sweet interactions when teens' parents come along. It doesn't have to be a punishment.
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Contact sports is the #1 nonsexual way to spread HPV (which ideally everyone should be vaccinated for but some parents don't like the idea of their kids being receiving it because [asinine purity and antivax reasons here].
It also provides everyone the polite fiction that no one would ever be intimate with more than one person if that fiction is necessary to get over the regular sti screening hump. Which not everyone needs.
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Politely, I'm down with my first cold in 3 years right now and I'm not going to go digging through pubmed to pull papers for you right now.
You're just going to have to trust that I fact-checked before I posted on this one.
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