Should I Let My Teen Be Intimate at Home?

The Ask Lisa Podcast does not constitute medical advice and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have concerns about your child’s well-being, consult a physician or mental health professional.

The following transcript has been automatically generated by an AI system and should be used for informational purposes only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information provided.

Reena Ninan:
It feels wrong, but I don’t want him to do it in the car. Help.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Today, only about 30% of kids have sex while they’re in high school. When we were in high school, it was way over 50%. The Dutch have the best adolescent sexual health outcomes in the world.

Reena Ninan:
What should we be articulating about sex?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
There’s four things that you have to pay attention to in this order.

Reena Ninan:
This week, we’re talking sex in your house.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
We like our teens spicy and they give us much to work with.

Reena Ninan:
Oh my gosh. I can’t wait to dive in. I’m just going to read you, this is probably the shortest letter we’ve ever gotten. It just says this.
Dear Dr. Lisa, should I let my 17-year-old have sex with his girlfriend at our home? It feels wrong, but I don’t want him to do it in the car. HELP in all capital letters!

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s got all the information I would want. How old? Who’s he having sex with? I mean, the kid’s 17.

Reena Ninan:
So what do you think? 17-year-old wanting to have sex in the house?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, okay, let’s take the 17-year-old wanting to have sex. Well, first of all, and I really appreciate that this parent’s like, the kid’s going to be having sex. They’re going to be doing it in our house. They’re going to be doing it in the car.
Given my role as a psychologist who cares for teenagers, it does not on its own make me anxious that a 17-year-old’s having sex. I worry about younger kids having sex, of course. I know that there are plenty-

Reena Ninan:
Is there an age that you worry about where it’s questionable?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I mean, I think there’s certain ages where we’re just like, that’s a kid. It just doesn’t even make sense for them to be having sex. I think once things start to move up in age and maybe you’re in some zone that feels like, “I don’t know. Is this appropriate?” I would have a lot of questions about, can they take very good care of themselves and their partner through this? Is this something that both people want? Is this mutual? Is this loving? Is this … We’d like to think there’s a high standard generally, though of course I think that there’s certainly … It’s interesting, you’re making me question all my sexual ethics here.
I think there’s ages where we can say, if people want to have one night stands and that’s how they enjoy physical intimacy, that’s their call. I don’t feel great about that for teenagers. I have real questions about whether that is really mutual, whether that is really safe, whether consent is really entirely worked out. So I think as I talk it through, I would probably hold higher standards for young people, adolescents, and even young adults around what’s all around the sexual intimacy. Are they able to know what their partner really wants to have happen? Are they able to express to their partner what they themselves really want to have happen? Is it mutual? Is it kind? All of those things, I think for young people especially, is it in the context of an ongoing relationship? That would always be my preference.

Reena Ninan:
But I feel like they’re 17. When you think at 17, this is my forever after. I just feel like your perspective is so warped. What I believed in high school is very different from what I believe as a 46 year old and what I can see down the road coming, right?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, that’s exactly right. I mean, how the kid feels about it or the teenager feels about it and how they may see it when they’re an adult. Now, this is a girlfriend and this person’s being called a girlfriend. And one thing I can say about teenagers is that’s a pretty high bar these days to refer to somebody as a girlfriend or a boyfriend. In today’s adolescent world, and I don’t know that the parent’s view of it maps perfectly out of the kid’s view of it, but let’s say for the sake of argument that this boy calls this his girlfriend. In today’s adolescent world, that’s a big deal. That label is a big deal. So I think for the sake of argument, it sounds like they’re in an ongoing relationship that’s like, we have very little information to work with. Let’s also assume it’s just a healthy one.
What I’ll say, Reena, is 17 year olds having sex in the context of an ongoing relationship with somebody they’re calling, especially some sort of labeled partnership is not a flag for me. Of course, parents’ values, parents’ religious views, that is all individual family stuff. One of the flags we actually have is kids aren’t even having sex these days. Kids are having so much less sex.

Reena Ninan:
Tell me about that more, the research that shows, because I actually feel like in this day and age, it’s okay not to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. I feel like telling people it’s okay that you haven’t had sex. You don’t have to have sex by the time you’re in the 11th grade.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, definitely it is. And actually, it’s more the norm not to.
We’re at a place where today only about 30% of kids have sex while they’re in high school. Whereas when we were in high school, it was way over 50%. So today’s kids are actually having sex later and with fewer partners than their parents’ generation did. And make of this what you will, right? I mean, some of it is probably good, right? That delayed intercourse is probably going to be healthier and safer and happier than early intercourse. Some of it may be that kids don’t have to leave their house to be having a sexual interaction. Kids are now using their phones to have all sorts of sexual activity and sharing images, which is its own thing. If we wanted to mess around with someone when we were in high school, we had to go be with them physically. Kids don’t have to do that anymore. So when the rates of intercourse drop, a heterosexual intercourse for sure, we also see things like unwanted pregnancies drop.
We see STD transmission drop. There’s a lot to be said for that. The STD transmission question’s a little bit tricky right now because increasingly girls are using long acting birth control and not using condoms because they’re using long acting birth control. And so I think the STD numbers are probably not tracking as much with the intercourse numbers as maybe was true in the past because of the shifts in birth control. But bottom line, kids are not having that much sex compared to their parents’ generation. And so there’s a part of me that’s like, if they’re having sex, and if they’re having sex in the context of an ongoing relationship, unless it goes against your cultural and religious values, there’s a part of me that’s like, “Well, okay. Okay. This is part of what teenagers do.”

Reena Ninan:
But even in this very short two sentence letter, the dad still, or whoever this parent is, I should say, feels a little bit wrong about them having sex in their household. So what do you make of that?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think a lot of families would feel that way. And I get it. I get it where you’re like, okay, it’s one thing for you to be having sex. It’s another thing for you having sex in your childhood bedroom, whether we’re home or not, and even probably weirder if we’re home. This is an American value that we don’t necessarily serve our homes up as the place for our kids to be sexually active. Maybe there’s even a line like, “Well, you can make out, but you can’t have intercourse.” I mean, who knows? Not every country sees it this way.
Well, the view of Europeans, I think generally speaking for all Europeans as though I have the right to do that, is that Americans have a lot of hangups around sex, they’re much more easygoing about it. And then the Dutch really lead the way in treating sex and intercourse as just a very natural part of healthy development, even to the degree that parents will be in touch with their adolescents about like, “Is this sex good? Are you having a good experience?” I mean-

Reena Ninan:
Can you imagine? I could never imagine having that conversation.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Not in the US, we do not do it that way. We do not do it that way in the US. I mean, which isn’t to say some families of course do it.
So I think the question of sanctioning, like openly being like, “Oh yeah, what time should we come home?” I mean, whatever it is where you’re openly doing it, it’s just not so much American culture, which then raises the question of if you’re going to do it, you need to talk about why you’re departing from it. I guess where I’m driving with this is it’s going to strike American kids as weird for their family to say, “We’re going to make room and space and make it easy for you to have sex in the home.” And it actually, it’s interesting, it attaches very much to our conversation about their needing to be friction, kids needing to have something where they’re doing or wanting something the parent doesn’t want in the name of just like, that’s what teenagers are supposed to do.
So if you roll over on this thing, which at least in our culture, we’re pretty uniform in the US about, not across the board, but it’s sort of our view. I think a kid might be like, “Really? You’re okay with this? ” And then you’ve got that problem.

Reena Ninan:
Yeah. Oh, that’s interesting. I never thought of that as being a problem. What about the girlfriend’s family? Do you think … This is so awkward. I don’t want to pick up the phone and talk to my child’s partner’s parents about this.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah. So hey, hi, our kids are having sex. Let’s talk about it.

Reena Ninan:
Yeah. What?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think there is a question mark here because I can easily picture a scenario where a parent of a child of any gender finds out that another set of parents have knowingly given their home over for their kid to be having sex at that house, having a hard time with it. I mean, again, in the US, I could see that being something where people are like, “No, wait a minute. You are knowingly letting my kid have sex at your house with your permission or maybe when you’re there, hold the phone.” And so I just think we want to be considerate on this point. Now, I do love that this is a two sentence letter and it actually has so much in it, but so I’m going to defer to the letter writer’s broader contextual knowledge about whether there’s something to be said to the son of like, “You know what, dude, we’d be fine with it, but if I run into her mom in the grocery store, I’m not going to be able to feel good about it knowing that I am letting her have sex in our house. So you need to come up with another solution.”

Reena Ninan:
What about sex in the car? Where do you stand on that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think it’s really funny. I don’t know. Where do you stand on sex in cars, Reena?

Reena Ninan:
I’m not the psychologist. I’m deferred on this one.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
You got to wiggle out of this one? Okay. First of all-

Reena Ninan:
Is it some of it at that age, like the thrill of kind of getting away? I find this sort of like … I almost can’t believe we’re having this conversation because when you’re a teen, it’s all about sometimes pushing up against those rules and not … And so does it change the nature of what you’re doing if you’ve got permission from your parents to do all this?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, I think a little bit, right? I mean, I think that is the problem of the like, “Yeah, sure, just let us know when to come home.” I mean, I think it may not sit right with some kids.
You know how Dolly Parton put out that Rockstar album where she covered all of those rock songs and like Dolly Parton, she is like on my Do No Wrong List, right? I mean, she is like a goddess of all goddesses. Yeah, we love Dolly. So one of the songs that she covered is Night Moves and she and Chris Stapleton sing it. Reena, you got to listen to this song because it’s like, I mean, I should know when it came out, but it came out a generation ago and the whole song is about teenagers having sex everywhere. They’re like in the car, in the woods, right? And first of all, it’s such a crack up to listen to it because it’s a song we grew up with, a song that nobody felt was scandalous at all.
And the whole thing is about teenagers having sex. I mean, the title is about teenagers having sex and then very casually about all the random places they were having sex. So I do think there is a little room in here for the parent to say or any parent to say, “Look, I get it that you’re sexually active. I trust that you are taking very good care of yourself and your partner and everybody’s doing what they need to do and doing what they want to do and doing it safely. We’re not going to be in the business of providing a place for you to have sex. You’re going to figure this one out on your own.” And there are a lot of compromises in parenting teenagers and you might be like, “I just don’t want to know where you’re having sex.”

Reena Ninan:
Yes. Well, I just think that we don’t even have basic conversations about sex, like early on, preteen or tween years, maybe we’ve spoken a little bit about the birds and the bees and quick, fast conversations. You’ve taught us that sometimes in the car where you don’t have to make eye contact is a good way to drop some information. But what do you want parents who have teens that might be 16, 17? What do you want them to say? Doesn’t have to be a long conversation, but what should we be articulating about sex in this moment, especially with the generation who’s really not, as you said, as sexually active? What should we be saying about that?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think the overriding approach to this, there’s two trains that need to be considered. One is what are the family’s values around this? And I think it’s really important that we communicate our values as families. And families are going to have different values. And what we know, and I’ve shared this before and I think it’s so important, when you communicate your values about things, like kids actually listen and we also know from the data it shapes their behavior. Now, they’re going to roll their eyes and grunt at you when you do it, which is normal and to be expected. So I think the first thing, once you get to the question of like intercourse, I think the first thing you say is like, “Here’s what we believe as a family.” So some families may say that happens when you’re married. Some families might say when you’re engaged, that some families might say at least somebody bought you dinner.
I mean, you get to decide as a family what your values are and tell your kids your values, right? That is, that’s part of what we’re here for. Doesn’t mean you can control your kid, doesn’t mean you can make them do what you want them to do, but there’s every reason to say, “This is how I think about it as a family or as an adult, this is what I think.” So that’s the first train. And then I think the second train is, whenever I’ve talked in classroom settings, which I’ve done often with adolescents about physical intimacy, I’ve said like there’s four things that you have to pay attention to in this order. So number one, what do you want? For kids, if you’re going to be physically intimate, it’s because you want this, right? And I once said this to a group of ninth grade girls and one of the girls just blurted out.
She goes, “No one has ever said that.” And I’m like, “That’s right.”

Reena Ninan:
No one has ever said, “Is this what you want?”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, tune into what you want. There’s such a presumption of desire in boys and we tend to leave that to the side in girls or we don’t even acknowledge it. So number one, what do you want to have happen? And then number two is, what does the person you’re with want to have happen? And then I would say like, you have to know them well enough to actually find this out and have this conversation. And I would say, this is the problem with drive-by physical interactions, is that usually you don’t have enough of a shared relationship or trust to find out what each of you want, right? And those are so central to healthy intimacy. And then the third question is, what do we both want? What’s in that bullying overlap of mutual desire? This is usually where we use the term consent.
I actually don’t love the term consent, to be honest.

Reena Ninan:
Really why?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Consent is, did you get permission? I have seen it, unfortunately, used in a way where a kid will badger another kid into doing something until finally the other kid gives in and like, okay, yeah, great. Technically they got consent. This is not what this should look like. So it should be a, what do you want? What does your partner want? And then what’s a hell yes for both of you? And then the last is, what are the hazards? What are the risks? Could somebody get pregnant if this is heterosexual? Could somebody have an STD? Could somebody think that this now means that you’re a couple where the other person doesn’t think it means that? How do you manage the downsides, the potential downsides? And what I love about this model, so what do you want? What does your partner want? What do you both want? Are there hazards? You can use handholding as an example. You could start this conversation way younger, long before we’re talking about things like intercourse. So like, well, do you want to hold that person’s hand? Do they want to hold your hand? You can use those sort of, for lack of a better term, like JV examples to lay out the model. So if we’re talking with kids about physical intimacy, number one is your values and communicating those. And number two is communicating like what it looks like when it’s healthy and treating physical intimacy as part of healthy development, but what you do at what ages, may be viewed differently by different families, it certainly will be.

Reena Ninan:
Yeah.
What do you think this parent should do? What would your advice be for this parent?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think it’s so slim in its data, which is still fine. I really like how short this letter is. I think if it doesn’t feel right to the parent, it doesn’t feel good to the parent to make space in her home for them to be having intercourse. I don’t think she should. I feel like we get to have our opinions, we get to have our views of things. I think I’ve actually seen families handle this where they just say like, “Just don’t do it here.” But then sometimes they are aware that the kid is doing it and kids figuring it out anyway, but they just sort of like leave it a bit to the side. They don’t get deep into it, but they just do make that one rule. It’s interesting. The other thing about sex is like, it is private. It’s something we see as private.
And this came up when we were talking about masturbation. It’s actually not necessarily something where there should be no boundary between the kid and the parent about it. It’s actually, at least in our culture, you keep a boundary around adult sexuality and whatever adolescents are up to. I think that it would be okay for the parent to say, “Don’t do it in our house and make sure it’s safe and loving and mutual and just stop there.” I think that that would be an acceptable thing to do. And then you run the risk of the kids doing it in the car. Well, okay.

Reena Ninan:
Great advice, Lisa. And thank you for also saying that kids are having sex at lesser rates because I think when you’re of a generation where maybe some people have had sex in high school or had been around a culture, let’s say, of just this being okay and acceptable and the norm, I guess the norm. I think that there are also a lot of parents who are worried developmentally like there’s no boyfriend, there’s no girlfriend, and it feels very different. And I grew up the opposite where my mom looked down on being too skinny, wanted me to eat and body image, that was important. And the second thing where there were no boyfriends allowed in conservative, you’re just not allowed to date. And so I focused on the books and other things, which I can’t tell you how much that affected who I became later. Not that I’m saying boyfriends and girlfriends are bad things, but I think sometimes we have such an emphasis in American culture, like this is the way you have to do it, that it can’t look differently.
And I am actually grateful that things have changed a little bit over a generation.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s just interesting to watch it unfold. And I guess the way I sort of see it is like teenagers can’t win. When they’re having lots of sex, everybody’s like, “Oh my God, they’re having way too much sex.” And then when they stop having sex, they’re like, “Oh my God, they’re broken. They’re not having sex.”
And so I sort of feel like whatever else, we want to set them up up for healthy relationships now and in the future and having good open lines of communication about setting aside the question of where they’re having sex and doing what makes sense for you as a family and certainly not doing anything you don’t want to do. I think then the question about just health and it is part of normal development. And if kids are going to be having sex, I am not sorry to hear that it’s happening in the context of an ongoing relationship. That is to me always a reassurance that it’s likely to be more safe and healthy than not.

Reena Ninan:
Lots to think about, what do you have for us for Parenting to Go?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, one of the really key findings when we look at the Dutch is, first of all, they’re like way more easygoing and it’s much more openly discussed and desire and pleasure are very much at the center. A key finding is they also have the best adolescent sexual health outcomes in the world. So when their kids are having sex, first of all, what we know is if you take this sort of, we’ll call it sex positive view of things, kids don’t have more sex, but we also know that when they do have sex, they do it in a safer, healthier way. They’re more likely to use contraception, they’re less likely to have unwanted outcomes. And I think sometimes that’s what the worry is. If we’re sex positive, then it’s going to be like back and all and they’re going to be buck wild and they’re going to get pregnant and STDs.
Actually, it’s the opposite. When we talk openly about desire and taking good care of oneself and taking good care of one’s partner and this being part of healthy development, you get all the outcomes we are hoping for, which is healthier, safer sex.

Reena Ninan:
Conversations, conversations, conversations.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
They make

Reena Ninan:
The biggest difference, even if they’re short conversations.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Even if they’re short, which is about all a kid can tolerate when it comes to talking with them about sex.

Reena Ninan:
And for some parents like me too. Yes. Well, thank you, Lisa. I think this is just a difficult subject to broach, to think about and to articulate. So grateful for your thoughts on this.
And next week we’re going to talk about college readiness. Your kid might be accepted to college, but are they really ready to go? Lisa weighs in.
I’ll see you next week.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’ll see you next week.