Let your children practice sex at home

Barcelona“My children started bringing their partners home at seventeen. It was a logical thing given our way of educating. For me, sexuality is as normal as a kiss; no one should hide it”, says Elena Sánchez, mother of a 22-year-old daughter, Mar, and a 20-year-old son, Javi. 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 Fundación FAD Juventud (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 avoid delving into the “how” and the “where”.

“Before, parents couldn't see you as a sexual being; now there is a generational shift. Sexuality continues to be taboo, but it is talked about much more and is seen as a need for conversation, not only with adolescents but also with children”, adds Bruna Álvarez, a professor in the anthropology department at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and a researcher at 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 at bedtime, each couple goes to their own room. “For me, the limits are set by composure: not to make others uncomfortable, not to involve others in any way. When I have relations with my partner, I don't broadcast it to the rooftops. No one finds out; what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom, it's their business”, comments Elena.

The room as a personal 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 for social life, for studying, for being with friends, and for receiving partners”, points out the anthropologist. At Elena's house, this is concretized in very clear rules: before entering any room, you always knock 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 mutually 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 over 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 moment. 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 exercise any type of violence, nor to have sex in common areas. She assures that if she saw any behavior of this type, she would cut it off immediately.

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 take care of 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, located 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 shame (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 fully agree – leads to two major avoidance strategies, according to Pere Font, a psychologist at the Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Relationships.

The first could be summarized as the “returnturn 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 mention in their consultations. “Many parents use this tacit agreement: they prefer to leave home – even if they don't want to – so as not to have to face either the conversation or the discomfort of the sounds or physical presence of their children's sexuality,” he comments.

The taboo remains and transforms

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

For Elena, allowing her children to have sexual relations at home has only advantages. “At sixteen and seventeen they have been very mature because they have felt free to do what they wanted. I have a lot of trust in my children, and they in 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 it.” She explains that if they have sexual problems or doubts – for example: the condom has stayed inside me, mom, what do I do in this situation?–, they have enough trust to tell her.

First experiences that mark

On the other hand, there is family prohibition, often summarized as "Do whatever you want as long as I don't know about it.". Faced with this argument, young people have few options: having 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 are taking by having sex in an inappropriate place and someone finding out and causing them trouble, but also, they are having bad sex, they are learning badly – points out Font –. If the first experiences are on the street, in a hurry 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 a mark and sequelae: 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 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 an optimal point of 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 the parents are in the next room for reasons of decorum and mutual comfort.

More reservations with them than with him

However, this opening 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. On the other hand, 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%). On the other hand, among families with sons, risk practices are more worrying, 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 homes, opening the door is not always synonymous with freedom, but also with a new way of supervising. “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 part,” warns Bruna Álvarez.

In Elena's case, it was Mar who pushed the proposal when she was seventeen. Faced with the question of whether her partner could come to sleep over, the parents' response was affirmative, and she assures that it would have been the same if it had been her son who 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 the idea that she might do something different outside than what she did at home or anywhere else."

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

Another boundary in the sexuality of adolescents and young people in homes is, according to experts, bringing homosexual partners. "There are more family reticences. There needs to have been more discussion about what it means to have a partner of your own sex. It means that there has been previous work of many conversations, of acceptance, and of understanding a whole pile of things," states the psychologist.