Let your children practice sex at home

Barcelona“My children started bringing their partners home when they were seventeen. It was logical for our way of educating. For me, sexuality is as normal as a kiss; no one should hide it”, says Elena Sánchez, mother of a daughter, Mar, who is 22 years old, and a son, Javi, who is 20 years old. The reality is that Elena is a statistical exception: 40% of Spanish families have never or almost never talked about sex education with their children, according to data from the FAD Juventud Foundation (2025). According to the report, sexual practices and pornography are still pending subjects: families prefer to talk about “more comfortable” topics like love or respect, but they avoid delving into the “how” and the “where”.

“Before, parents couldn't see you as a sexual being; now there is a generational change. Sexuality is still taboo, but it is talked about much more and seen as a need for conversation, not only with adolescents, but also with children”, adds Bruna Álvarez, professor in the department of anthropology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and researcher in the Afin group.

In Elena's case, the next step has been not only to talk about it, but also to open the door of her home. When her children's partners come over, they do the same as they would if they weren't there: they have dinner together, watch television, and when it's time to go to bed, each couple goes to their room. “For me, the limits are set by decorum: not making others uncomfortable, not involving others in any way. When I have relations with my partner, I don't broadcast it to the world. No one finds out; what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom, it's their business”, comments Elena.

The room as one's own space

This new way of understanding sexuality within the family has also transformed domestic spaces. “The bedroom is no longer just a place to sleep, but also a space where social life happens, where one studies, where one is with friends, and where, also, partners are received,” points out the anthropologist. At Elena's house, this translates into very clear rules: before entering any room, one always knocks on the door. “Normally, my children leave the door ajar, even when they sleep with their partner. We always knock before entering, just as my children do with me, whether I am alone or accompanied. We respect each other and we respect that other people may feel uncomfortable with a situation, so these situations do not occur at home,” she explains.

According to Álvarez, this permission to sleep at home is often accompanied by the open-door policy, a kind of supervised autonomy. “This is a paradox of privacy: I give you permission to have intimacy, but I make sure that I can break it at any time. It is a much more subtle surveillance than before, but just as effective,” she details. Among Elena's family agreements with her children are not to bring casual partners, not to engage in any type of violence, nor to have sex in common areas. She assures that if she saw any behavior of this type, she would put an immediate stop to it.

For Elena, opening her home to her children's partners is not only a matter of trust, but also a way to better understand how they relate. “When you have them at home, you see many things: how they care for each other, how they love each other, how they treat each other, how they talk to each other, how they respect each other, and how they respect those of us at home… It gives me a lot of peace of mind.”

What until recently was a rebellious sexuality, situated outside the home, is now beginning to find a place in the family home. “Families have understood that sexuality is a dimension of the person and that, therefore, it must be accompanied, and that if children have these practices, it is better that they have them at home, in a safe space, where, if anything happens, the parents are there,” points out Álvarez, also a researcher at the SexAfin group.

The pact of silence

90% of parents say it is key to talk about sex with their children, but, when it comes down to it, the conversation is postponed due to embarrassment (37%) or fear of not knowing what to say (22%), according to the FAD report. This difficulty – whether because the conversation is uncomfortable or because the parents themselves do not quite agree – leads to two main avoidance strategies, according to Pere Font, psychologist at the Institut d’Estudis de la Sexualitat i la Parella.

The first could be summarized as the “retur ‘operation’”: parents warn before arriving home, in a kind of “Time is up”. Then there is the “I don’t want to know anything, but I’ll let them have the apartment”, a formula they often tell him in the consultation. “Many parents use this tacit agreement: they prefer to leave home – even if they don’t feel like it – so as not to have to face either the conversation or the discomfort of the sounds or the physical presence of their children’s sexuality”, he comments.

The taboo remains and transforms

On this line, Álvarez adds some background reading: “Families have moved from a morality based on prohibition to a morality based on security. Many apply this tacit consent: they know it happens, but they don't talk about it. It's a kind of pact of silence in which sex enters the home, but words do not. This doesn't mean that the taboo has disappeared, but rather that it has transformed”.

For Elena, allowing her children to have sex at home has only advantages. “At sixteen and seventeen years old, they have been very mature because they have felt free to do what they wanted. I have a lot of trust with my children, and they with me too. Allowing it has given me the opportunity for a lot of conversations, for a lot of situations that would not have happened if they had had to hide.” She explains that if they have sexual problems or doubts –for example: the condom got stuck inside me, Mom, what do I do in this situation?–, they have enough trust to tell her.

First experiences that make a mark

On the other hand, there is the family prohibition, often summarized as "Do what you want as long as I don't know about it". Faced with this argument, young people have few options: to have sex in public places, in a car, or, in the best of cases, in other people's homes. "It's not just the risk they run of having sex in an inappropriate place and someone walking by and them having a problem, but, moreover, they are having bad sex, they are having a bad learning experience – points out Font–. If the first experiences are on the street, quickly and with the fear of being seen, it's an absolute disaster."

The psychologist assures that the lack of a safe space for these experiences leaves its mark and consequences: it generates haste, anxiety, and can lead to disinterest, discomfort, or future dysfunctions (such as premature ejaculation or lack of female orgasm) because tenderness and affection are lost. “When they say 'Not here at home,' what they are saying is 'Figure it out for yourselves,' but I think parents who do this are not aware of the alternative they are giving their children,” adds Font.

One of the psychologist's proposals to reach a point of optimal coexistence for all parties is to clearly agree on the difference between "sleeping together" and "having sex while parents are at home". He considers it legitimate to ask that there be no sexual activity if parents are in the next room for reasons of decorum and mutual comfort.

More reservations with them than with him

However, this openness is not experienced the same way in all homes or with all children, and the management of fear is also unequal. “Girls' bodies continue to be much more watched and controlled than boys'. When a girl brings her boyfriend to sleep over, the family often experiences it with a much more protective gaze, almost watching over her safety and her value. In contrast, with boys there is a kind of normalization or complicit silence. This double standard is still very present: we still educate girls in fear and prevention, and boys in silence or action,” points out Álvarez.

The FAD study confirms this gap: in families with daughters, the concern focuses mainly on sexual violence (35.8%), sexual harassment (34.9%), violence by a partner (31.3%), or an unwanted pregnancy (24.1%). In contrast, among families with sons, risk-taking practices are more concerning, such as the misuse of contraceptives (40%), the risk of contracting an STI (30.9%), or addiction to sex or pornography (23.2%).

This difference also helps to understand why, in some cases, opening the door is not always synonymous with freedom, but also with a new form of supervision. “Having children have relationships at home is a risk reduction strategy; parents prefer them to be in a controlled environment rather than in public spaces. But if we only focus on risk prevention –condoms, diseases, pregnancies–, we are emptying sexuality of its affective and pleasure aspects,” warns Bruna Álvarez.

In Elena's case, it was Mar who proposed it when she was seventeen years old. When asked if her partner could come to sleep over, the parents' answer was affirmative, and she assures that it would have been the same if her son had wanted to bring his girlfriend. "In my daughter's case, both her father and I saw it as the most natural thing in the world. If my daughter comes home with friends, goes on vacation with friends, why can't she sleep with her partner?" she asks herself. "I couldn't conceive of her being able to do something different from what they did at home or anywhere else."

This stance, she explains, earned her criticism. "Especially from the grandparents, because they are from another era and have other beliefs and customs. Some friends also told me: 'And on top of that, you'll make the bed for them?' I don't make the bed for them; my children live in my house, and if their partner wants to stay over, then let them stay," she assures.

Another of the boundaries in the sexuality of adolescents and young people at home, according to experts, is bringing homosexual partners. "There are more family reticences. It has to have been discussed more, about what it means to have a same-sex partner. It means that there has been previous work of many conversations, of acceptance and of understanding a whole bunch of things," states the psychologist.