Maybe she still thinks that, maybe she’s changed her mind after this incident. Either way, what happened hopefully teaches a valuable lesson to her and kids like her. Sex is a risky activity, for more than one reason, and whether what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom or not is largely out of your control.

Are you an only child? Ever know the feeling of being thrown under the bus by a vengeful sibling? I have three siblings, all older. I know the feeling of being called out over something and being left vulnerable to parents’ scorn (I’m Asian too so I know how bad and strict punishments can get). I’m trying to get you to understand what it’s like to be ‘thrown under the bus.’ I empathized with Chris’ situation. His reaction was extreme but, at his age, I really don’t think he understands the deep repercussions of what he did to his sister.

My rebuke of Katie would not be nearly as strong as yours - because we don’t really know the circumstances of Katie’s connection with these young men. We know that she is looking for a mutual connection - both giving and receiving pleasure - from a number of young men. But we don’t know her actual age (very different response if she’s twelve versus nineteen), and we don’t know how the young men actually feel about these connections. You guess that they feel hurt and discarded, but we have no evidence of that and no way to actually know.

So the only thing we really know about Katie is that she is interested in engaging in sexual behavior with a list of young men, that she has engaged in sexual behavior with some of those young, and that she’s written it all down.

If I could sit Katie down and have a conversation with her, there are a lot of questions I would ask. But a rebuke of her without more information is both judgmental and probably mis-aimed.

Indeed, rebuking most sexual activity of young people, even with full information, is often a waste of energy and attention. Sex and sexuality are moral choices - and as much as adults may want to make those choices for teenagers, it isn’t possible. A much more effective approach is a conversation where the young person talks about their perspective with the kind, listening ear of an adult. Allowing the teenager to come to his or her own moral standpoint without being pushed there is a far more effective approach to help them come to a place of healthy sexual expression.

As far as I can tell, you only reluctantly rebuke Katie, as gently as possible, saying she’s “too young” to engage in this behavior, and that her view of sexuality does not include a “deep connection. FIRST of all, is someone EVER old enough to treat boys like meat, collecting their “v-cards” like trophies? Maybe publishing this list is sexual bullying, as you suggest, but no more so, in fact much less so, than the underlying events, ie Katie planning in advance to use them with no intention of being faithful or considerate of their feelings. Whether it’s okay to sleep with someone and then trample on their heart and desert them is not a matter of how old the perpetrator is.

Your reader, Ruth, feels that in our society women are punished for “overt and healthy” sexuality. There is nothing healthy about what Katie did here to these boys. Katie’s cavalier attitude towards sex is not only unhealthy, it is cruel.

Anyways, I totally agree with all your points about Katie needing help. While I feel that Katie’s behavior was worse than her brother’s (unless he does indeed have a legitimate alcohol problem and we have no evidence of that), I also agree that he should have been the bigger person and not subjected his sister to revenge. I just feel alienated when your post creates this unrealistic impression of the hurtful consequences of Katie’s chosen lifestyle.

But regardless of our opinions of Katie’s behavior, her brother’s reaction went way, way beyond what she did. This has the potential to be a life-defining event for Katie, forever influencing her trust in other people, how people treat her, her comfort with her own sexuality, and many other aspects of her life forever. Being grounded? Even for a long, long, long time? Annoying, obnoxious, totally uncalled for even, but not life-changing. Katie’s brother hurt Katie on a deep, internal level. It was the wrong thing to do.

If you dont mess with other people, other people wont mess with you

I decided to take it seriously because, well, everyone else is. So regardless of whether Katie exists or not, the story needed to be talked about on the level of it being real. Because even if Katie and her brother don’t exist, the story does, and the general public’s reaction to it was unkind and hurtful. And situations that are similar to this one do happen.