Sometimes after French kissing and heavy petting, I did feel guilty
and I'd start to cry. Perhaps the worst part of it was the fact that I
felt I was letting my parents down because I knew how much faith
and trust they had in me.
My high school boyfriend and I only progressed to "limited petting."
Here was the cause of our split, for I could become involved no
farther. It appears that I had an "automatic timer." There was
something I owed to my parents for being so open, frank, and
concerned about my personal questions. I tried to call it fulfillment
in their eyes. Coming from my permissive background, it is
extremely easy for me to want to give love and affection, for it is an
inbred part of my sexual identity. I have become too physically and
mentally involved without really wanting to, and that is only to the
extent of "limited petting" and humping with clothes on. Then the
"automatic timer," a concept hard to relate to others and hard for
them to understand.
I refrained from intercourse during high school more out of respect
for my parents than anything else. I know that if I would ever get
in trouble with an unwanted pregnancy, my parents would die from
humiliation. The family name meant more to me than sexual
intercourse, although at times this conviction was very hard to
uphold.
Her folks were usually in bed by 10:30 so it was not necessary to go
into the country and park. I feel from analyzing my experience that
it would be a good choice for all parents to go to bed relatively early.
This does not force a person to find a place in the country where
things can progress almost uninhibited. It is true that things can
take place in a girl's home quite easily also, but I believe a couple is
more aware of the trust that has been placed in them in the home.
Incidents that one might regret are not as likely to occur in an
atmosphere like this where reality is much closer at hand.
Many parents do only a minimal amount of chaperoning of their adolescents'
dates, and allow considerable room for personal discretion.
Limited adolescent or no overt parental chaperonage of dating
We had many chances for petting even though we weren't old
enough to drive a car and park in it; we were alone so much of the
time. I think this was a big contribution factor in our sexual
relationship. This all lead to intercourse, which took place when we
were about fourteen and a half.
We had too many occasions to be alone. My parents completely
trusted us. They went out many times, and many nights they went
to bed too early.
My parents had a cabin a short distance from our home, and that's
where we headed to be alone. Everything was lovely there. We felt
nothing could go wrong with the atmosphere of safety. We were
more relaxed and had less self-control.
The night it happened (first coitus), we were watching television on
a large couch in the cabin. We fell asleep in this position many times,
and when his parents woke us up in the morning, they never said
anything about it. On this particular evening the show was boring.
My mother never set a curfew for me to be home; it was left up to
me to be in at a decent hour. As a result we would park or sit in my
yard for an hour or more before going in. This made petting happen
very often, whereas if we would have had to be in earlier, I don't
think it would have happened as frequently.
Usually these "make out" parties would be held at a person's house
whose parents were away for the weekend. During these sessions,
once in a while we would have access to a liquor cabinet.
His parents went to church every Sunday, and we usually occupied
the house while they were gone. He had seen me without clothes
before, and neither of us felt especially guilty.
We were alone quite a lot of the time, either at his home or mine,
and our involvement became quite serious. Many times we would
be in bed with no clothes on.
During the summer, the personal, intimate moments progressed.
Since my room at the lake was in a separate cabin some distance
from the main cabin, and since my boyfriend usually slept out in a
tent at night, nocturnal visits occurred.
All parents act as sex and family life educators for their adolescents, either
implicitly or explicitly, positively or negatively. Some parents give no explicit sex or
family life education, at least none that their offspring recall or are aware of as
adolescents. The majority of adolescents (57 percent of boys and 53 percent of girls)
deny that they were taught that sex was natural and healthy (Sorensen, 1973, p. 76).