15 Year old DD and Sexual Experimentation

[Lauzia]

NC for this but I'm feeling really lost and need some advice.

DD is 15, Y11, August baby so youngest in her year and still over 2 months until she is 16. Since Y10 she has been flexi boarding, her school is only 20 minutes away but she likes staying. Most weeks it is Monday night - Thursday afterschool so just the 3 nights, sometimes more, sometimes less. She is also an only child so I have no other experience in this department.
Since just before Christmas we have had 4 separate issues with DD and sexual experimentation, I'll outline them.

1. Just before Christmas DD went to a ski camp in Switzerland for 5 days, she has done this and similar before and really enjoys it, helps to cover childcare for the awkward 3 week Christmas break too. During this we got contacted from one of the leaders and told they had caught DD and a boy of the same age kissing, they don't believe anything else happened. When we picked her up from the airport I asked for her phone, she seemed cagey and didn't want to hand it over. Eventually she did, lots of messages to one lad, nothing super incriminating but some which made me think more did happen. DD insists that isn't the case.
2. In the February we got a call from school, the house matron found DD and her roommate (all girls school) in bed together cuddling in the morning. The house matron believes they were naked. The solution was they got split into different rooms of the matrons choice (so not with a friend any more) and they weren't allowed in the others room ever. DD claims they weren't naked, nothing had happened and they were just cold. Again I don't believe her but she insists.
3. The first sort of confirmed situation, I check DD's phone randomly. In April I checked her phone while she was in the garden, there were messages between her and a school friend, I had to scroll a little but the girl messaged something along the lines of "Am I the first person you have done anything with" DD replied "No, your the 2nd girl and I did stuff with a boy" the friend asked back "Stuff like what? Did you lose your virginity" DD replied with yes. Obviously massive conversations followed, DD wouldn't tell us who/where either of the two times she mentioned to the friend were. Obviously my suspicions were the two times mentioned before but DD insisted no. The time with this friend was at a sleep over in the school break. We got an STD test done and pregnancy all clear. No more flexi boarding at school, no more sleepovers and I increased the monitoring of her phone. We also put her on the pill.
4. DD attends a club on Saturday mornings, she is friends with the other kids there. DD finished GCSE's last week so can now stay home, today she asked to go to her friends from the club while her dad and I were at work. Tonight I've received a text from the friends (male) mum, saying she came home and believes she heard them having sex, she is telling me as her son is 18 (just finished Y13) and DD is only 15. DD is insisting it was consensual and quite rudely said "wasn't like it was my first time". She is now refusing to talk, I've removed her phone.

She is due to go to a summer sports camp in the holidays for 2 weeks and I don't want to send her if she will just be finding someone to have sex with!!
I'm not sure how to handle this. DH thinks we just need to accept she has grown up and trust she is being safe. She is predicted all 7-9s in GCSEs, is smart and athletic and kind, this just seems out of character.

How do I handle this? It can't go on!

@Feelsodrained yeah it felt shockingly young at the time to me, too. We’d barely entered puberty. All the older guys in cars hanging around our school gates repulsed me too.

Yes. I had a classmate who lost her virginity very young, 11 or 12. She was used and abused by so many boys, including being violently raped on two occasions. It was a cry for help but people turned a blind eye to it. At that age you are still a child.

This isn't 'UK' it's mumsnet where casual sex and one night stands are the norm for young people. Sex is more important for many here than a good relationship.

I agree re the 18 year old, and kids these days KNOW it's wrong, are taught that and are conscious of it in my experience.

My take on this as a parent of a sexually active 16 year old who has engaged in some risky promiscuous behaviour…

is sexual activity in this age group common? Yes.
are multiple casual partners common? Less so, can be a red flag, but can be part of a healthy development.
does the parent/child relationship and interaction around this topic sound healthy? Absolutely not.

the key issue here is not her sexual activity but her relationship with you and your attitude towards her. I’ve got it wrong myself and checked my child’s phone and shouted and tried to control. It doesn’t work. You need to connect with her.

Youngsters are going to experiment anyway, with or without parents knowledge/acceptance. You certainly need to have a long conversation with her about exploitation by older adults.
I wish my parents had been so understanding, my father threatened to kill me

I think you need to find middle ground with rules.

I’m not the best example though. I’m in my early 40s and only had one partner, my husband. I didn’t even have my first kiss until my early-20s! Believe me, you don’t want your daughter to have the hang-ups I had. It may explain why my siblings never had partners or got married - my parents were way too strict. It had nothing to do with religion either, we are not a religious family.

My parents are lucky that I learned enough about sex to have a baby otherwise they would not be grandparents!

Sounds like mixed messages you put her on the pill, but then don't expect her to be having sex, she must be really confused. You have clearly decided she is going to have sex so accept it.

I lost my virginity at 14. I look back now and feel like it was so young, but I was very mature for my age and I did all the right things at the time.

flexi boarding, it sounds like your DD has had to grow up quickly (a bit like I did) and is more mature than you’d like.

tbh if she’s being safe she’s within her rights to explore her sexuality. I understand she’s underage but the second she turns 16, will you just leave her to it? If so, why damage your relationship now?

a discussion about your concerns with her age and her safety definitely, but punishing her for having sex 2 months before she’s 16 I feel isn’t going to help.

You take her to the GP and have an implant/injection.
Your biggest problem here isn’t the sex - she’ll do that if she wants anyway - but the risk of pregnancy.
You talk about condoms too.

For the rest, you remind her that there are rules when she is at school/school trips etc… and she needs to follow them.
Ime private schools dint take well to pupils having sex (and being caught!) on trips like that.

Beleive it or not many people enjoy the physical sensation of sex without having to have an emotional connection. Promiscuity is such a misogynistic concept.

Promiscuity isn't a misogynistic concept - it just means having lots of sexual partners (in the context of this thread).

Regarding promiscuity as something bad is the problem. I think it can be problematic, especially if the person isn't taking care (physically and/or emotionally), but isn't necessarily.

I think I would be concerned if my 15 yo child was behaving promiscuously.

Well it’s also based on the health risks of having multiple sexual partners. It’s also concerning when someone is 15 and has four sexual partners in under a year. I would say the same for a boy. Sure someone can enjoy the physical sensation of sex but it’s potentially also a way of seeking validation and acceptance and not necessarily enjoyable. After all, you’d have more and better sex if you had a regular partner than multiple hook ups.

I check her phone randomly

Jesus wept. Is it any wonder this girl is rebelling? Zero respect is there.

It’s also true that for many adult women sex just as sex (and ONS) doesn’t well fir them either.

But rather sex is often used as a poor replacement for emotional intimacy.

Assuming that a 15yo is just enjoying sex for the sake of sex, as if she had the maturity of an adult, is forgetting all the emotional turmoil 15yo experience.
I personally don’t think that any 15yo is ready for that.

She is still a child though 💁‍♀️ there are parents on here who wouldn't let their 15 year olds home alone never mind sneaking about having sexual relations.

I think there's definitely situations where this is warranted tbh. When a teen commits suicide because of something online people are always first to say where we're the parents. Why weren't they monitoring things.
It's easy to read this and judge but in my opinion it's difficult to give OP much advice as it's unlikely this is the only worrying behaviour that's happening. I am willing to bet that there's also signs of anxiety, depression etc. If the girl happily went on the pill than obviously communication isn't completely broken.
Most parents don't just randomly start to check their child's phone. We ended up having to, DD is same age as Ops, and it's certainly not something I enjoyed doing. It was a very dark time and it still worries me.
There's not much wrong with just exploring and even having sex at that age, but it feels the attitude around it is mostly anger and that's not great. It is sad that people think sex is just physical at 15. Whether its a boy or a girl it's not just physical. If an emotionally secure child is doing this that's fine, but it's a whole other kettle of fish when it's an angry, possibly depressed kid.

She sounds like a normal nearly 16 year old to me - she is experimenting like most do.

Buy her condoms, get her on the pill - and talk about safety. With kindness she may now not want to talk to you about this stuff as your response has been quite heavy - she is growing up!! I am 50 and we were all having sex at 15!!

Sex and relationships are not wrong - but safe relationships is the key message, not punishing her by taking her phone!!

I think you need to build some bridges here - your DH is absolutely right!

Omg, the main thing that needs to stop is you reading her private conversations on her phone! I know it’s tempting to do so, but then by confronting her you’re going the right way to ensure she has a complex about sex for life and sees it as something to feel guilty about and be ashamed of. And if ever she does find herself in a situation that she needs to talk to you, she won’t.

@Feelsodrained it's not a given that sex with the same partner is likely to be better than having sex with multiple partners. It absolutely depends on what you're hoping to get out of those encounters. I've had some of the best sex of my life through unattached, no strings encounters. The sex I experience in a loving relationship is entirely different and I have different motivations in that circumstance. We need to do away with the myth that someone who enjoys no strings sex is seeking emotional validation or must have low self worth.