Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex by Amy T. Schalet Page A

and Trudie Knijn, “is to encourage the student to think about what he or she wants before the situation arises and then to act responsibility.” In other words, acquiring self-regulation means developing not just the capacity for sexual self-knowledge—knowing what one wants and does not—but also exercising foresight and engaging in planning. Knowing one’s responsibilities, a Dutch expression, means car- rying condoms and making timely appointments to see the family doctors, who provide the bulk of primary care in the Netherlands, and who, as a matter of policy, provide contraception to adolescents. 13
    Even when teenagers have all the pieces of being ready in place—they recognize the desire for sex inside themselves, have established the right relational context, and have taken the right preventative action—parents require a fourth component to permit the sleepover. Parents say they them- selves need to be ready. What enables adolescent sexuality to become “nor- mal” in the sense of being non-emotionally disruptive seems to be less a matter of age, or any other absolute criterion, than a matter of proper pro- cess. For parents to trust that a child is er aan toe , they say they need to witness the gradual progression of his or her desires and attachments. Loek describes the process that she thinks will enable her to become ready to recognize when her children are ready: “When they get a relationship . . . I
    think as a parent you anticipate . . . [Sex] is going to happen. . . .” And once you know that they are going to bed together. . . . Well, then it doesn’t seem such a problem to let them spend the night together.” Parents are much more inclined to accept the sleepover when they know that a relationship, and the sexual component of that relationship, have built gradually over time.
    Marlies de Ruiter says her daughter Frieda developed sexually “step by step” in the relationship with her boyfriend until they eventually had sex- ual intercourse. But that only happened after they had spent “many a night together that they did not go to bed with each other.” If Barbara Koning’s son were to have a girlfriend, she would let them sleep together. But per- mission is not unqualified. Barbara hopes her son’s first experience is “as innocent as in our time.” Such “innocence” means not doing what she has heard about: “That they just have a girlfriend and it is just a love of a few weeks, and then boom, they dive into bed. That is a bit exaggerated. Get to know each other first.”

Normalization as a Cultural Process
    We have seen that three cultural frames interact to create a web of meaning and feeling that gives the practice of the sleepover its cognitive, emotional, and moral sense. 14 The first is normal sexuality: the sexuality of teenagers can and ideally should be talked about and dealt with in an open, friction- less, and matter-of-fact manner. Things sexual, including bodies and their functions, should inspire as little discomfort or turmoil as talk about what and when to eat. The second is relationship-based sexuality: sexual desire and sexual acts grow out of a teenager’s feelings for and relationship with another person. Finally, self-regulated sexuality dictates that readiness for sex is a moment when emotional and physical desires are united and sen- sible preventative measures are taken.
    On the one hand, the three cultural frames lead parents to interpret adolescent sexuality, and their own role as parents, in such a way that the sleepover makes sense. On the other hand, the sleepover itself is a practice through which parents normalize. Conversations about when the sleepover is allowed and breakfasts where boyfriends and girlfriends join other fam- ily members give an everyday quality to adolescent sexuality. When parents permit only serious boy- and girlfriends to spend the night, they encourage a relationship-based sexuality. And when adolescent sexual development