The Sleepover Question

By AMY SCHALET

Published: July 23, 2011

"Amy Schalet is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the author of the forthcoming “Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens and the Culture of Sex.”

Scott Houston/Corbis

 

Amherst, Mass.

NOT under my roof. That’s the attitude most American parents have toward teenagers and their sex lives. Squeamishness and concern describe most parents’ approach to their offspring’s carnality. We don’t want them doing it — whatever “it” is! — in our homes. Not surprisingly, teenage sex is a source of conflict in many American families.

Would Americans increase peace in family life and strengthen family bonds if they adopted more accepting attitudes about sex and what’s allowable under the family roof? I’ve interviewed 130 people, all white, middle class and not particularly religious, as part of a study of teenage sex and family life here and in the Netherlands. My look into cultural differences suggests family life might be much improved, for all, if Americans had more open ideas about teenage sex. The question of who sleeps where when a teenager brings a boyfriend or girlfriend home for the night fits within the larger world of culturally divergent ideas about teenage sex, lust and capacity for love.

Kimberly and Natalie dramatize the cultural differences in the way young women experience their sexuality. (I have changed their names to protect confidentiality.) Kimberly, a 16-year-old American, never received sex education at home. “God, no! No,