At 14 years old, my daughter Heidi is a diligent and sensitive girl who likes boy bands and dreams of being a florist. With three siblings, ages nine, ten and 20, she is a constant and mature presence in our bustling home.
I can safely say that finding a boyfriend is the last thing on your mind right now. She tells me she’s just not interested and I’m relieved that she’s in no rush to grow up too quickly.
As for sex, the idea of her embarking on that level of intimacy at such a tender age is horrifying to me. It is evident that she is still a child and that her childhood will last a long time.
Many will think that he is too young for me to worry about such things. But although the age of consent is 16, that doesn’t stop some people from losing their virginity much earlier.
I should know: I was only 12 when I had sex for the first time. And I am painfully aware of the serious repercussions that may follow.
Influenced by the sex-obsessed pop culture of the 1990s (not to mention my schoolmates’ wild claims about their own romantic endeavors), I voluntarily suggested having sex with my best friend, a 16-year-old boy I had met. . at school. It’s something I now find deeply disturbing. I didn’t know then that having sexual relations with someone under 16 is statutory rape; It is illegal to do so, even if they consent.
Now that I’m 41, I’m just connecting the dots about the lasting impact of losing my virginity at such a young age.
Laura Hind-White was 12 years old when she had sex for the first time with a 16-year-old friend from school.
Soon after, I began to rebel in other ways: I went from being a promising student hoping to be a veterinarian to being expelled for non-attendance. I then formed a series of unsuitable relationships and was divorced with two children by the age of 30.
I’m not surprised that one study, which defined “early exposure” to sex as having sex at age 14 or younger, found that women who experience this will generally engage in high-risk behaviors and are more likely to have a greater depressive episode in adolescence and divorce.
Although it’s not often talked about, I’m certainly not alone. A recent report from the World Health Organization reveals that English girls are more likely to have had sex by the age of 15 than their peers in many developed countries.
About 21 percent of 15-year-old girls in England said they had had sex in the most recent year, compared to an average of 15 percent across all countries. And 32 percent had not used any contraceptive method.
An older, wiser person also regrets not even thinking about using a condom. But then why would my teenage self have been adult enough to think about such matters? The younger you are, the less likely you are to realize the risk and consequences associated with such actions.
The idea that my beautiful, fun daughter could ever behave that way is anathema to me.
There’s something about having your own daughters that makes you see your past with new eyes.
Last year, singer Lily Allen, who has two daughters aged 12 and 11, revealed she was “about 12” when she had sex for the first time during a family holiday in Brazil. “The whole thing was a bit traumatic,” she said on Alan Carr’s podcast, “and I didn’t have sex again for a while.”
Although I felt very old at the time, the fact that Heidi is now around the same age reminds me that I was too young. The day it happened, I remember going to sleep in my room afterwards, hugging my teddy bear and my “blanket.”
You may be jumping to conclusions about what my home life was like, but I can’t blame a disadvantaged start in life for what happened. I grew up in a beautiful detached house in north London, attended a strict Catholic primary school and my mother, a care home manager, and my father, who worked in the transport industry, were respectable members of the community.
She learned that sex was a way to please men, which, in turn, attracted the wrong kind of partners later in life.
I was a pretty anxious little girl, struggling to fit in and follow in my A-list sister’s footsteps. I always had friends who were boys and preferred their company to that of girls, who could be mean and competitive.
When I was 12, I hung out with boys older than me in school. One in particular, who was 16, became what I considered my best friend rather than a boyfriend.
He had beautiful eyes, he made me laugh and his mother was also lovely to me. She defended me when other girls picked on me. We spent time at the local park or at his parents’ house.
Although I was one of the first to develop (my periods started when I turned 11), I don’t remember any sex education in school, so I was relatively naive. Instead, I turned to teen magazines, which in the mid-1990s were full of articles like Sex Position of the Week.
Meanwhile, MTV videos showed girls in barely-there outfits bumping and grinding. The underlying message was that to be cool you had to be sexually sociable. It didn’t help that the girls in my class often talked about sex on the playground in a way that made me believe they had already lost their virginity.
Not only did it normalize the idea of sex at such a young age, but I began to feel like I didn’t want to be the exception.
It wasn’t long before I started talking to my best friend about trying sex. I was far from a virgin and I realized that he found me attractive. On a spring Saturday afternoon, we spent the day together at the local shopping center before returning home when he learned his parents would be away.
Shortly after the front door closed, we found ourselves in his room. I wasn’t afraid or ashamed, I just felt weird being so intimate with a friend.
I was so young that when he finished, I stood up, bowed a little, and said thank you. I had to be home at 6pm, so I left half an hour after arriving.
While it hadn’t hurt, I didn’t exactly enjoy it. I was so naive that contraceptives were not discussed; I was lucky not to get pregnant.
At school, I couldn’t wait to tell the girls in my class that I had finally made it too. They wanted to know all the details and it soon became clear that they were not as experienced as they said they were. I felt extremely foolish and like I had been fooled. I never had sex with the boy in question again and we continued as if nothing had happened.
I was normally very honest with my mother, but I kept this secret for six months. Then one day, when we were sitting together in the kitchen, I blurted it out. She had been worried at the time; I think it was a cry for attention.
Last year, singer Lily Allen revealed she was “about 12” when she had sex for the first time and that her experience had been “a bit traumatic”.
She was surprised. When he finally found use for his voice, he asked, ‘Why?’ I told him I wanted to do it and that it was with someone I trusted.
Sex was never discussed in our family home, and despite my shocking confession, my parents seemed willing to keep it that way. Dad was there too, but he continued reading the newspaper. There was no talk of contraceptives or involving the police because I was a minor. I felt like my parents wanted to sweep it under the rug. I suspect the last thing Mom wanted was for the police to come knocking, destroying the family reputation.
Before that I had been relatively studious, but my future fell apart as I became more and more rebellious. I got a tattoo when I was 14, came home and proudly showed it to my horrified mother. I also started going to the pub with older friends.
Things went from bad to worse when, at 15, I left home for two weeks and stayed with a 20-year-old man. Mom told me I would regret it, but I thought I knew better.
Of course, it didn’t work and after a fortnight I returned home. But by then I had already been expelled from school for truancy and was waiting to be accepted into another one.
Shortly after, I left full-time education without any qualifications and, at 16, took a clerical job at the local air force installation. I walked in wearing a pair of stilettos, tight pants, and my hair in a ponytail. I was very happy that there were so many men.
I started seeing a man who was 35 years old and I settled in at home with him. We got married when I was 18 and my parents were determined to do what was best for me.
They paid over £15,000 for our wedding, and even went to France to buy vintage wine and champagne. I suspect they thought I would move on from a respectable marriage.
I thought I had it all: a job, a house and a wonderful man. But it was too soon. Deep down, I knew I wasn’t living the life I wanted. When I was pregnant with my oldest son, I fell into a deep depression. By the time Heidi was born, six years later, my marriage had already collapsed.
At 30, she was a single mother of two children. Only now do I realize that losing my virginity at age 12 put me on this trajectory. She had learned that sex was a way to please men, which, in turn, attracted the wrong kind of partners.
I had other relationships, but the fact that I slept with them the first night meant they were doomed. I waited for them to leave me, and they always did.
Then in 2013 I met Paul who broke this pattern. Friend of a friend, he had beautiful eyes and asked a lot of questions about me. Unlike many other men, he didn’t care about what I looked like but rather what kind of person I was.
I felt like we were getting married, but he refused to sleep with me for the first month. He was horrified when I first suggested sex and told me he had never had a one-night stand. When we finally made love, it was the first time I properly enjoyed it. I was afraid to admit how young I was when I lost my virginity because he is quite reserved. He accepted it, but I suspect that deep down he believes, as I do now, that I was a child who couldn’t really give consent.
We got married in 2014 and had our two children. We have been married for ten years and lead a happy and peaceful life. At first we had sex every day; Now, with a busy family, it’s at least once a month.
As a reaction to my own upbringing, I am open with my children about sex and relationships. If you have questions, I’d rather you ask me than try to figure them out for yourself.
I joke that Heidi will be 40 before I finally allow her to have sex. Although I know I don’t have to worry about her. She is quite upset that I lost my virginity at such a young age; I’m glad she thinks the same way too.
As told to Samantha Brick