My 16-year-old daughter says that spending the night in the same bed with a boy doesn’t mean she wants to have sex with him. She brands us (me and my wife) as outdated and small-minded to think otherwise. As someone who tries to have an enlightened and permissive attitude to sex, the implicit accusation that I am a ‘square’ Dad cuts deep.
I know she is not a virgin so the issue here is not about preserving her maidenhood. What it comes down to is the notion (I would say,delusion) that sharing a bed with a heterosexual male can ever be entirely platonic.
She maintains, with typical teenage exaggeration, that “all her friends” go to bed with boys even if they don’t fancy them. Her own chaste motives are that she finds it reassuring to have someone else in bed with her although,significantly, she doesn’t seem to be able to get this same level of comfort from females (apart from her mom!). Continue reading
