Reply to How young is too young for sex?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Young teens having sex is not healthy.[/quote]

Young teens can have healthy sex or unhealthy and risky sex. Much the same way anyone can have healthy sex or unhealthy/risky sex. I don't think a blanket such determination can be made.

IMO healthy relationships, access to information, access to health resources, and a true understanding of informed consent are the necessary ingredients for having sex to be healthy. Not all people or all relationships are equal, and I certainly think it is possible for a teen to be having safe, healthy sexual relations.

Not that I did not say it was ever ideal. The only reason I believe it is inherently a bad idea for young teens to have sex, however, is the practical aspect of our laws. Frankly, I find our age of consent laws utterly ridiculous, and I wish our laws were more similar to the laws in the Netherlands. Were it not for U.S. law, I would say teen sex, like all sex, ought to be a carefully considered choice for each individual and couple.

To give my opinion on the question in the thread title, in an ideal or theoretical world, puberty. In the U.S. right now, any age before it is legal to be having sex with whoever the teen is having sex with, not because I believe the law has the right idea but simply because the potential consequences are just not worth it in our current justice system.

Theoretically and ethically, I do not believe it is best to tell the parent. I don't think it is truly anyone's business other than the people engaging in the sexual activity, unless there is good reason to believe it is nonconsensual sex. What I would ideally like to see is a legal and societal framework where kids in and after puberty have private access to all manner of healthcare, ranging from primary care to mental health care to care for sexual and reproductive issues. I would prefer it if methods of birth control were easily available to all people, including teens, and if legally teens could choose to involve their parents or other trusted adults in their medical care. I think parental notification laws and requiring teen patients to be accompanied to (any type of) medical appointments by their parents are inherently unethical. I don't think it is a parent's business whether or with whom their teens are sexually active, unless the teen chooses to share. In my case as a parent, one of my DDs told me as soon as she was considering becoming intimate with her BF, one told me a bit after the fact, and one told me only years later that she had been sexually active for a while. They always had access to birth control and regular appointments with the gynecologist regardless, and none of the kids appear to be having any problems resulting from having first had sex at a range of ages from 12 to 21. I always told my daughters that they were in charge of their bodies and that they were the ones to decide what to consent to... and IMO if this is going to work for empowering people to say no, it also needs to apply to choosing to say yes.

That said, that's all a theoretical answer to the question posed by the title, which I think is a bit different than the question in OP's situation. That question isn't "is the teen too young?" it is "do I need to tell the parents?" While I would argue against the morality, I think practically speaking yes, OP did need to do as she did and inform the parents.
The young lady didn't appear from OP's post to have had access to reliable sources of information about her sexual health and the choices she was making. The current legal situation doesn't really allow anyone other than the parents to truly step in and provide all the resources needed to make safe and informed decisions or see to the girl's medical care. The legal situation is potentially precarious for the young teen and older partner. And there is some minor possibility OP could become viewed as complicit in the situation if anything was legally off and she allowed it to go on when she had suspicions it was occurring.

Thus, although I truly think it is wrong to inform anyone about anyone else's sex life unless abuse is suspected, and although I believe it is wrong to restrict teen sexuality the way we do and especially to allow parents to be the ones to do so, I would reluctantly agree with the consensus on this thread for purely practical reasons.[/quote]

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