At what point is a vibrator okay for a teen girl?

[Tadahiko]

Mrs tad here with a sticky question.

i have never hidden my vibrators at home. (i have a LOT of them). my 15 year old daughter has known what they are for and how they get used for a long time. she recently asked me when she could have a vibrator of her own. i asked her if she had any experience with them. she assured me she has not but she is very curious. i told her it was a question of maturity not just age. i said i had to think about it and talk to her father. then the other day, she brought it up again and suggested i get her one for her sixteenth birthday (thankfully, about 5 months off).

on the one hand, it seems like a fairly innocent request. shes still a virgin (which is more than i could say for myself at 15 and 1/2) but she admitted to me that she masturbates fairly regularly and lately has started watching her dads porn movies (mostly out of curiosity, i think). i would rather keep the lines of communication open rather than have her experiment in secret. (which she is going to do -- i was 15 once, too!)

on the other hand, this seems a bit too much encouragement for her to explore her sexuality too fully at too young an age. i dont for the life of me know how i feel about this even tho i knew this sort of thing was on the horizon.

[fun4Ds]

You, are one very cool mom.

Thats all I have, I have to go talk to Mrsfun on this one.....

[TheLorax]

Originally Posted by Tadahiko

Mrs tad here with a sticky question.


on the one hand, it seems like a fairly innocent request. shes still a virgin (which is more than i could say for myself at 15 and 1/2) but she admitted to me that she masturbates fairly regularly and lately has started watching her dads porn movies (mostly out of curiosity, i think). i would rather keep the lines of communication open rather than have her experiment in secret. (which she is going to do -- i was 15 once, too!)

on the other hand, this seems a bit too much encouragement for her to explore her sexuality too fully at too young an age. i dont for the life of me know how i feel about this even tho i knew this sort of thing was on the horizon.

Umm, I hate to break the news to you, but kids start exploring their sexuality in preadolescence... I'm not trying to be flip, and I have a lot of respect for how you are dealing with your daughter on this subject. I've also been involved in sexuality education for a long time now. 15 being too young is only that way from the parent's perspective. From an emotional and developmental perspective she's most likely been experimenting since she was 11-12 (without really knowing that was what she was doing). The more she understands her own sexuality NOW, the better choices she'll be able to make as the inevitable opportunities with other people crop up.


You've just been handed a golden opportunity to open frank and honest discussions of sex and sexuality with your daughter, and she's more likely to listen to you since she initiated it. Look at it this way, if you get her a vibrator it's a great time to discuss what the differences between sex with yourself and sex with other people are, how the emotional component comes into play, and what things can be done with other people safely when she feels she's ready. In essence, you can more directly influence when and where she experiments with other people, and she's more likely to come to you for advice both before and after if she knows she can be open with you. All a vibrator is is an aid to masturbation (in this case) and you can discuss how it differs from a person. In the meantime, she has a better opportunity to learn how to pleasure herself, so if her first experience is some ignorant jerk who doesn't have a clue how to give a partner pleasure (which is about 99% of people that age...), she's better able to deal with that. The urge to experiment with sex is extremely powerful at that age, so the best you can hope for is to guide it, because you aren't going to stop it.

[Ed & Bunny]

Lorax really said it all well. But in answer to your direct question of hwen is she old enough, I would have to say when she is mature enough to ask. HMM she already has. And her having asked you is the most important thing. She trusts you enough to ask. Most teens get all their info from other teens, and we all know how good that can be. As Lorax said this is your oportunity to give her good information. She trusts you enough to ask so she will probobly listen to and trust what you tell her as long as your honest.

[luckycple]

My husband doesn't realize it but my daughter was the same age when she asked me the same thing. We had a long discussion about them and I showed her my collection. I told her how to use each one. Be prepared, she asked me to show her how each was used and help her with them. It was an interesting experience.

[bbarnsworth]

Ditto what others have said.

The only thing I have to add is this...

I don't mean to scare you, but understand there can be legal issues here depending on your local laws. I recall a story a while back about two parents that were arrested for showing their daughter how to perform a blowjob, sex, etc. Obviously that sort of behavior is crossing the line.

I wouldn't think you're crossing any lines by giving your daughter a sex toy, but who knows. People get all kinds of freaked out and speak all kinds of hypocrisy when it comes to sex and young people. Child Protective Services would probably freak out if they knew you gave your daughter a sex toy.

I think it's absolutely wonderful that you and your daughter have a relationship where she feels comfortable enough to talk about such subjects with you. I hope I have such a relationship with my kids when the time comes. I'm trying.

[Miss Sunshine]

i would like to hear the whole story lucky.

I gave my daughter (who lives with her mother) a pocket rocket when she was just 14. Had amazon mail it to her with a gift note, in which I referenced the scarlet teen website.

A couple of months later she asked me about rechargeable batteries for her "device" (as her brother had prepossessed his charger), so it was getting use.

I haven't seen any detriments, aside from the effect on her mother's opinion of me (and that's debatable!)

[fun4Ds]

Originally Posted by rdy46227

I gave my daughter (who lives with her mother) a pocket rocket when she was just 14. Had amazon mail it to her with a gift note, in which I referenced the scarlet teen website.

A couple of months later she asked me about rechargeable batteries for her "device" (as her brother had prepossessed his charger), so it was getting use.

I haven't seen any detriments, aside from the effect on her mother's opinion of me (and that's debatable!)

You twisted man

And to think I was just going to suggest mentioning a CAR as a sixteenth birthday gift and derail the situation

[Miss Sunshine]

Hey Lucky tell us the whole story.

[two4youinswva]

Originally Posted by Miss Sunshine

i would like to hear the whole story lucky

Originally Posted by Miss Sunshine

Hey Lucky tell us the whole story.

Which poster are you referring to?

[Miss Sunshine]

Um, the luckycple post

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by Tadahiko

.... and lately has started watching her dads porn movies (mostly out of curiosity, i think).

I haven't read any of the other responses yet, but this jumped right out at me. No question at all...porn is for ADULTS. Keep that stuff to yourselves. Those movies are limited to adults only for a reason. They are NOT for children. A 15 year old girl is still a child. She is under age. As responsible parents, you should be keeping adult-only movies under lock and key "for your eyes only".

There is such a thing as being too open with kids about adult things (including leaving adult materials laying around). Not everything is meant for them to be privy to at a young age. They have all the time in the world (in a few years) to be adults.

[WonderWhat]

Originally Posted by Tybee Swing

No question at all...porn is for ADULTS. Keep that stuff to yourselves. [...] A 15 year old girl is still a child. She is under age. As responsible parents, you should be keeping adult-only movies under lock and key "for your eyes only".

I agree with the fact that porn should be under lock and key, whatever your kids' ages are. My reasons, though, are different from yours.

Kids are curious, and a 15-year old will one way or another be in contact with porn, either from their peers, friends, neighbors, from the internet, or from questionable people they might meet.

That worries me more than whatever porn they might get to see if they find the key in its hiding place and go diving into the closet of the master bedroom while we're away. (And yes, I did that with my parents' porn when I found it when I was 12, hidden under my father's work papers in the locked filing cabinet in his home office.)

Western society, especially US society, is very prudish, and you open yourself to a legal and social can of worms if there's a hint of porn in a house where kids live.

We take great care in educating our kids about sex: they've had age-appropriate knowledge of anatomy, conception, pregnancy, birth, and general human sexuality and hygiene. For example, we never shouted at them to "Get your hands off your dirty weewee!", or to "Stop looking at your coochie!" when they were toddlers.

When our boy started getting erections when he saw pictures of his favorite female tennis players' butts (he's a ranked teenage tennis player now), and told us about it when he was 11, we didn't tell him it was wrong or shameful. We told him it was natural and part of growing up, and that if he had the urge to touch himself because it felt good (as he volunteered himself), to just do it privately and discreetly.

Beyond that, as parents we can do no more because of the social and legal ramifications. We know for a fact that he is getting distorted views of sexuality from his peers and from mass media (witness the videos and lyrics talking of "ho's and sluts" and "scoring a lay"). We try to head off mysogynistic and unreal views of sex as soon as we can (as when I overhear certain conversations with his friends), but have to limit ourselves to being reactive as opposed to proactive.

I have a 20-year old daughter from my first marriage. As a high school freshman she hung around with the wrong crowd, and I was constantly trying to intervene, and get her mother to intervene, to head her off from risky behavior. In the long run, she turned out a fine young woman when she left that crowd, but it would have been a lot easier (for her and for the rest of the family), if very frank sexual discussion could have been the norm from her early teens instead of just reacting to her behavior.

Many times I think that some ancient or "primitive" societies had it dead right when part of their rites of passage included sexual instruction and initiation as a formal part of their education; where the parents were taken out of the loop but were secure in the knowledge that their kids' sex education was in good hands.

Meanwhile, we have to do the best we can with what our current cultural and legal environment allows us.

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by WonderWhat

We take great care in educating our kids about sex: they've had age-appropriate knowledge of anatomy, conception, pregnancy, birth, and general human sexuality and hygiene.

Ditto. I have raised my daughter the same way as you described. Now age 21, she is a healthy young woman with healthy views about sexuality as well as very knowledgable about how things work. She's successful, smart and has her head on straight, makes great choices for herself. I'm very proud of her. As a parent, I didn't need to expose her to my personal adults-only stuff to teach her that.

There were some things in this thread about underage kids that made me throw up in my mouth a little.