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Teen Sex Causes Physical and Emotional Trauma
DR. WALLACE: I'm 16 and so is my boyfriend. We have been dating for more than a year and only recently have become sexually active. We are both intelligent teens who are in love. When we have sex, he uses protection — 100 percent of the time.
My parents are very protective. They were both born in Japan and do not believe in premarital sex for teens. I keep a diary, and every time my boyfriend and I have sex, I list it in the diary along with certain notes about our encounter. I keep the diary hidden under my mattress.
Last night I was reading my diary to find out how many times we had sex together (27 times) and after counting, I started reading about the interesting details of each "love-making" adventure and somehow I fell asleep before I could hide my diary.
You guessed it; my mother came into my bedroom to wake me for school and found my personal diary. Most moms would have left the diary alone, but not my mom. She took it and read all the juicy details and then started screaming at me that she was going to have Gary arrested for statutory rape. I told her that he was too young and couldn't be arrested.
Can you imagine how many guys would be in jail if age 16 was considered to be legal age rather than age 18? Then my mother said I can no longer go out with Gary (I'll handle that later) and that I'm grounded until after I graduate from high school. (This threat will not become a reality either.)
I doubt seriously that a 16-year-old guy could be guilty of statutory rape of a consenting young lady aged 16. Are my doubts fact? —Nameless, Oceanside, Calif.
NAMELESS: Your mother can demand that you stop seeing Gary, and she can keep you grounded until you turn 18, but she cannot press charges against Gary for statutory rape. Gary is not considered an adult. The law states that a person must have reached the age of 18 to be legally an adult — that is, for everything except buying alcohol, for which he or she must be 21.
As to the wisdom of your behavior, I'll give you a 1 out of 2. Using protection during sex was smart. Having sex 27 times and then noting interesting details of these adventures in a diary wasn't. You are making a serious mistake equating sex with love, and if you believe that sex will make a teen relationship stronger, you are misinformed. Teen sex causes more serious physical and emotional trauma than it creates lasting happiness. I have thousands of responses to prove it.
Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at rwallace@galesburg.net. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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11 Comments | Post Comment
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Nameless, Dr. Wallace missed the boat a bit here. If your only protection is a condom, then that is NOT protection. Condoms fail. They come off without either partner realizing it. They break. They can have tiny pinhole defects. They come off easily if your partner doesn't withdraws before he starts getting soft. Even meticulous use, as you described, generally means about a 2-3% chance you will become pregnant, not over your lifetime, but each and every year.
Double up! Use a sponge, diaphragm, or spermicide, along with the condom, each and every time. Please.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Carla
Tue Apr 16, 2013 7:55 AM
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Um, a two-parter here.
First, I've heard different arguments about whether a parent should be allowed to read whether on demand or in a situation such as the LW describes their daughter's diary, to see what's going on. Here, the mother learned that her daughter was sexually active, which angered her mother so.
While I agree with Dr. Wallace on the wisdom of having sex as teenagers, I wonder what the LW is upset about? Is it the fact that she is no longer allowed to see Gary? That they threatened to have him jailed (which their attorney will tell them is impossible to do)? Or that her mother simply read her diary without her knowledge, much less consent, and saw this as a betrayal of some sort.
I'm confused.
That said, even though it probably won't happen heck, I think the LW is even suggesting as much could this mother be crazy enough to indeed ground her daughter for a year-plus for her behavior, justified or not?
Personally, while she has a right to be mad, even by saying it I think she (the mother) is overreacting, and certainly if she follows through with the indefinite grounding threat she's nuts. If the LW's mother is reading this, I'd suggest calming down, backing off the threat and then talking to your daughter about why you don't want her having sex now. The initial response if you hold firm will likely cause a lifetime of estrangement, and that's not what you want, I'm sure.
The second part is probably what Dr. Wallace said. This needs to be the mother's response not threats.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Bobaloo
Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:02 AM
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Bobaloo, good post.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Danielle
Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:11 AM
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If it makes you feel good, how can it be bad? But be a little more "private" about this sort of thing. If your best friend gets a hold of your diary, she'll xerox it cna show it to everyone. As for the grounding, don't obey your mother. She probably never had sex until she was married, and after that her sex life probably stunk. Chances are she's jealous of your good looks.
And get an I.U.D. Condoms can break, you know.
Comment: #4
Posted by: Dooley
Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:57 AM
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gree with much of what you say, Bobaloo, but I don't think LW1 sounds upset or angry -- just that she's asking for clarification of the legal question. She was providing the background as explanation of why she wants to know.
She sounds to me confident that either her mother will relent on her initial pronouncements (not seeing Gary, being grounded until 18) or as if she knows how to work around them, which leads me to think she and mom have had some showdowns before. Perhaps Mom has issued similar exaggerated punishments in the heat of the moment that she has later gone back and rescinded; it happens.
Dooley: No school today?
Comment: #5
Posted by: hedgehog
Tue Apr 16, 2013 11:23 AM
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Re: hedgehog
So I take it choice D which on some exams would be an "A and B" (A. Is it the fact that she is no longer allowed to see Gary? (and) B. That they threatened to have him jailed (which their attorney will tell them is impossible to do)?) is what you sense?
Yeah, maybe. I can see it that way. Either way, I do hope things work out they must, or else we'll no doubt read about this years from now in Annie's Mailbox ("Dear Annie: I have been estranged from my mother for 10 years now. We had this argument back when I was in my teens about me having sex with my boyfriend ... " and on it goes.)
But regardless of the diary situation being her motive OK, I give here, it may not have been the reason I'm still curious as to what people BTL think about reading your daughter's diary without permission or certainly suspicion that some dark material is in there. Since you have been a parent, what's your take on parents reading their children's diaries without them knowing it or asking or even the parent asking the question, "Hey, dear, may I read your diary?"
Thanks! Glad we're almost on the same wavelength today. After Annie's yesterday, it's a relief.
Comment: #6
Posted by: Bobaloo
Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:52 PM
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"Teen sex causes more serious physical and emotional trauma than it creates lasting happiness."
And yet he encourages teen marriage. So I guess it's ok for a teen to have sex when married but when unmarried it creates serious physical and emotional trauma. Tell that to the 22-year-old divorced parent with three little kids.
Comment: #7
Posted by: jjmg
Tue Apr 16, 2013 4:40 PM
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So I take it choice D which on some exams would be an "A and B" (A. Is it the fact that she is no longer allowed to see Gary? (and) B. That they threatened to have him jailed (which their attorney will tell them is impossible to do)?) is what you sense?
***************
Yeah. She's not questioning whether the punishment is just, she's not asking if Mom was wrong to read the diary, she's not in hysterics about being separated from her boyfriend, the way some LWs have been. She seems pretty confident that her life is going to continue as before and that Mom's rant is but a minor inconvenience to be brushed aside. Her only motive in writing Dr. Wallace, it seems to me, is to fact-check her understanding of California law. (Maybe so that she can wave it under Mom's nose and say "Told ya so!"
***************
But regardless of the diary situation being her motive OK, I give here, it may not have been the reason I'm still curious as to what people BTL think about reading your daughter's diary without permission or certainly suspicion that some dark material is in there. Since you have been a parent, what's your take on parents reading their children's diaries without them knowing it or asking or even the parent asking the question, "Hey, dear, may I read your diary?"
**********
I strongly suspect this is an old letter that predates blogs. (Who knows, maybe we HAVE seen her write in to another column as an adult about problems with her mom! Or boyfriend...)
From what I've read, teens today tend to spill their secrets online, writing anonymously, to make it harder for parents to stumble upon than a hard copy.
But that's sidestepping your question. I didn't read my daughter's diary. I believe we're all entitled to some degree of privacy, so long as we're not abusing that trust.
I believe I would have if I'd seen signs that let me to believe she was lying to me and engaging in potentially dangerous behavior: shoplifting, drinking, drug use, and yes, sex. I'd rather be hated by a living child for nosiness than wracked with guilt over a dead one... and not doing everything I could to get her the help she needed.
Comment: #8
Posted by: hedgehog
Tue Apr 16, 2013 6:53 PM
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Addendum: One thing parents of teens are hyper-aware of (or should be) as their kids enter their late teens: the clock is ticking louder and louder on the amount of time you have authority to get a kid into treatment.
So... if you suspect your 17 YO needs treatment , you need to act sooner rather than later to get her into treatment. By the time she's 18, she's considered an adult able to make her own decisions, and may not seek or follow through with treatment for her depression,schizophrenia,alcoholism, cocaine addiction, etc. Your only "or else" is "you can't stay here if you dont...." And if they don't, that can be a truly frightening prospect.
So again, I'd err on the side of nosiness here.
Comment: #9
Posted by: hedgehog
Tue Apr 16, 2013 7:04 PM
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Re: hedgehog (#8 and #9)
Y'know what me too for the most part.
I'm going to admit something I read my *grandmother's* diary. This wasn't really a "write down all your secrets"-type diary at all just an everyday listing of what she and her husband (my grandpa) did on a given day, the weather, notable events on the day, who visited ... on and on.
Yeah, I got scolded more than once about reading it. (Just to preclude what you might say.) And she was probably right. But she's been dead 15 years now this year, and if any of those diaries were around today, it'd make for some nice reading.
But that's different than your daughter's situation, which I believe you when you suggest she was entitled to her privacy. I sense she wrote only her secrets that she didn't want to share with anyone else.
I just can't give a firm yes or no, the parents were right or justified reading the daughter's diary. Since she kept it hidden until the fateful night in which it was found, it's possible the parents may not have even been aware of its existence. So I don't know. I guess I can see it both ways that's my best answer.
Comment: #10
Posted by: Bobaloo
Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:53 PM
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I'm notice Dr. Wallace had nothing to say on the diary reading. I think it was a side issue here. If Mom was worried about her daughter's behavior, I'm not going to jump on her for reading the diary. LW doesn't devote a lot of time and energy to bewailing any "invasion of my privacy!" or ask about that. So I think it's a red herring.
Journals are generally regarded to be kept as private until such time as the author allows others to read; I I'm guessing that's why you were scolded. Journals such as hers do often provide a fascinating look at what was important in the daily lives of the people we love -- or even as historical documents, such as with Civil War diaries.
It's too bad your grandmother didn't bequeath them to someone, especially if this was not a place where she jotted down anything more embarrassing than "Forgot to wash my floors today". In earlier times, people often didn't realize how valuable those records of daily life could be to descendants.
Comment: #11
Posted by: hedgehog
Wed Apr 17, 2013 4:44 AM
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