What's so bad about good sex?

I did notice that most of the parents quoted in your book sounded like pretty progressive types. There were several gay parents, feminists, academic families. Do you feel a sense of preaching to the choir in that regard?

I don't actually talk only to progressive parents. One mother I talked to, a working-class woman, was the one who was quoted as being appalled when her daughter came home from school [after a "good touch/bad touch" workshop] and said, "Don't touch my vagina, Daddy." But I think you're right that a lot of the parents I talked to were mostly progressive parents. I was using them as examples of parents who had been relaxed about sex, and their kids were OK.

But even those parents had their fears. One very progressive woman I quoted towards the beginning of the book said that she was turning into an "ironclad conservative" about her son and sex, and not about anything else. I also had a conversation with about 12 other parents from her synagogue, which was pretty conservative.

I don't want to minimize the very real dangers that young people face from sex, but I also would like to try to move the discussion of child and teen sexuality out of the realm of "problem." That, to me, is really the crux of it. Progressives do the same thing. They get a grant, for example, to deal with teen prostitutes. And they can't get a grant just to deal with teens.

You seem to advocate a position of open discussion on demand, balanced with a tolerance for children's privacy, even closed doors.

I talk a lot about respecting the sexual privacy of even very young kids. I'm not sure that barging into their room and seeing them masturbate, then sitting down and saying, "Oh honey, let's talk about masturbation," is necessarily the best thing for that kid.

One early childhood educator that I talked to said, "Children need room for sexual transgression outside of adult eyes and outside of adult commentary." I thought that was a smart thing to say. Sexuality is something that is often private. As long as kids know that if something is hurting them, they can talk to you, or to some other adult, I think we need to respect their privacy.

My mother worked at a birth control clinic, and she would leave out books. And I always felt that was intrusive too; there was nothing she could do that was right.

Does that right to privacy extend into the teen years? Should parents still respect the privacy of their children behind closed doors, even with their lovers or potential lovers?

My parents did. During the sexual revolution, I did a story talking to parents about how they felt about their kids' sexuality. A woman told me a story about her 15-year-old daughter, who said, "Mom, I want my boyfriend to sleep over at home." The mother said that she felt that if the daughter was asking for her permission, she was also in a way asking for her participation. She said it almost made her feel as if her daughter was not ready to have sex, if she needed her mom there. That sounded wise to me. Sexuality is a way of moving away from your family, it's about forming intimacies outside the family; it really is not about the family, it's about the not-family.

This woman said to me, "Would I rather she were out under a bridge having sex than on the Upper West Side in my apartment? No, I wouldn't." But by the same token, in France it's very common for a teen's boyfriend or girlfriend to sleep over. I do think that teens are much more likely not to want to do it in the house when their parents are home, just as parents don't like to do it when their kids are listening. These are issues in which a hard and fast rule is not adequate. The aim of the right is to try to simplify what are very complicated issues.

When I gave my book to my mother, I inscribed it: "Thanks for teaching me the difference between right and wrong." And I feel my mother did that. But she also left me room to explore my sexuality. And as a result, I made some mistakes, and I recovered from them. But I do think what she and my father gave me were the tools to make good decisions and to be a moral person in the world, and that stood me well.

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