We Could Learn a Lot About Sex From the Dutch

My Dutch relative’s views shocked me, but I immediately realized she was right

Americans are hung up about sex. Because our real religion is capitalism, we are comfortable using sex to sell stuff. Sex that is not in service to advertising, however, makes us squeamish.

This puts us in a dither when we have teenagers, but the Dutch have a better way, and we should learn from them.

I have always thought I was progressive. My mom told me precisely how babies were made at a young age, and I did the same with my children. I took it a few steps further, too. I talked with my kids not once, but many times, adding age-appropriate information as they matured.

Sex ed starts at home

One day, I told my son I needed help piling up brush and branches a storm had brought down.

“I can’t,” he claimed. “I have to study.”

He probably thought that was an iron-clad excuse, but I needed his muscles to help me move the heavy stuff, so I wasn’t going to be deterred that easily.

“What subject?” I asked him.

“Sex ed.”

“Well, then, come on outside. I’ll tell you everything you need to know while we work.”

I invite you to imagine the misery my poor son endured helping his mom drag heavy branches while hearing a steady commentary about contraception.

“So, moving onto the barrier methods, we have condoms, which are good because they help prevent both disease and pregnancy, but keep in mind they won’t always help you with herpes because they don’t cover everything down there, you know? But still, use them. Even if she says she’s on the pill, always wear a condom. Two methods are better than one.”

The yard was cleaned up in record time, and to the best of my knowledge my son has never impregnated anyone.

The Dutch way

So I thought I was doing pretty well. I made it clear to both my children that if they needed my input or help when it came time to obtain contraception, they had only to ask.

My husband is Dutch, and in a conversation with one of his relatives, I realized how backward this approach is. We were discussing this philosophy, and I guess I thought my Dutch in-law would recognize just how open-minded I am compared to my compatriots, but I was wrong.

Her approach was different. The onus was not on her daughter to tell her she needed contraception — it was on her!

“It is my responsibility as her mother to make sure my daughter is protected,” she said.

Such a simple difference, but my mind was blown. Why would I wait for a teenager to have The Talk with me?

The Dutch are way ahead of us with sex education

The American way is to pretend nobody will have sex until they are married. We seem to think if we teach them about healthy sexuality, they will immediately run out and have sex.

So we do a lot of abstinence-only education, which is probably why we are №1 among developed nations for teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. USA! USA!

The Dutch, however, teach comprehensive sex education from an early age and generally become sexually active later than Americans. We ignore these facts because we do not like them.

A shocking difference

In the U.S., teenagers usually have to sneak around to have sex. They have it in cars or in older friends’ apartments or they have to wait until the parents are gone. This is generally true even when the parents know their kids are sexually active. Everybody pretends it is not happening.

This is not how it’s done in the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, an older teen’s boyfriend or girlfriend can just sleep over. I know! I was shocked, too. But why should this be so uncomfortable for us?

When my daughter was in college, for each visit home I dutifully set up an inflatable mattress in the living room for the person she’d been dating for years and would eventually marry.

“I don’t see why you don’t just let them both sleep in her room,” my eminently practical Dutch husband said. He’s my children’s stepdad. I tried to explain why I would not do that, but realized I could not think of a single logical reason.

My insistence that the two of them sleep apart at my house made absolutely no sense. College students are old enough to make their own decisions about such things.

It was just an illogical cultural taboo, and it’s one that the Dutch do not share.

It was surprisingly difficult and uncomfortable for me to address my daughter and her then-boyfriend and inform them they could simply stay in her room together.

It’s impossible for me to imagine

The very idea of asking my parents if my boyfriend could spend the night at our house, or if I could spend the night at his, was unthinkable. I did suggest once, when I was engaged to my first husband, that we be allowed to sleep in my bedroom. As I expected, my parents shot that idea down. Hard.

Years ago, one of my colleagues said his parents would not allow his wife to sleep in his old bedroom with him even after they were married! “My house, my rules,” they were told.

I absolutely cannot imagine having a boy sleep in my room and then both of us joining my family at the breakfast table for pancakes. I was aware of a handful of instances in which a family allowed their minor child to have a boyfriend or girlfriend sleep over, and it was always seen as — forgive me — low-class. “Nice” families didn’t do that.

They should, though. I can see many advantages to normalizing this for older teens in stable relationships.

When do you think teens are more likely to use contraception — when they’re in their own bedroom and have condoms in a drawer, or when they’re parked in a car or drunk at a party and didn’t anticipate sex happening?

What effect does it have on a young person when they greet their partner’s parents before going off to bed and know they will have breakfast with them the next morning? I bet there’s more respect.

Sex at home is safer

Would you rather your teenage daughter have sex in a spare bedroom at a party, with all kinds of intoxicated kids milling around the house, or in her own bedroom, with her parents in the house? (I stopped watching Euphoria after feeling triggered by the party scenes.)

Incidentally, European kids usually learn how to drink responsibly by having wine with dinner at home, too. Their first experience with alcohol is usually not drinking excessively with equally inexperienced friends until they all throw up. But that’s now it went with a lot of us here in the U.S.

We throw our children to the wolves by pretending they will not drink or have sex, which means they have to figure it all out for themselves.

This means American teenagers often end up in completely unsafe situations — everyone drinking and many people having drunken and unplanned, unprotected and sometimes unwanted sex.

The Dutch have lower rates of teen pregnancy

Guttmacher Institute figures show that teen pregnancy is much higher in the U.S., where we just pretend young people will not have sex, than in the Netherlands, where it’s understood they probably will.

In the U.S., there are 15 abortions, 34 births and 8 miscarriages per 1,000 women aged 15–19. Compare that to the Netherlands: 7 abortions, 5 births, 2 miscarriages. Yes, Dutch teens have far fewer unintended pregnancies and less than half as many abortions! How could it be otherwise?

We might think all the sex shaming we do in the U.S. will keep young people from having sex, but it clearly does not. It does, however, appear to be an effective method of increasing abortions and teen births, so if you like that, by all means, let’s keep doing what we’re doing.

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe! I also write a Substack called Untrickled, about income inequality, and have a new book, The Trailer Park Rules.

Sexuality

Sex Education

The Netherlands

Teen Pregnancy

Culture