It sounds as though you and your daughter have the lines of communication open — this is great because when it comes to sexual matters, you can give her better information, advice, and support than she could get anywhere else! It's clear that she trusts you enough to ask you about your experience and your values. To maintain this level of trust, it's important that you give accurate, honest, and simple answers to all of her questions, including those about sexuality. Whatever you decide to tell her should be true. You can choose how much information you would like to share with her about the first time you knew that you were ready for sex. Or you can choose to keep it private and confidential. For example, you can tell her, "I prefer not to talk about my sex life …" Whatever you choose to do, you will be providing a model for your daughter to consider for herself.

It's important to accept your daughter's question at face value. For example, although she may really be asking, "How old do you have to be to 'have sex?'" her question doesn't necessarily mean, "I'm thinking about having sex."

However you answer your daughter's question, speaking simply and truthfully about your experience and how you felt about it then and feel about it now can open a rewarding discussion about the reasons why people choose to have sex — at any age. You can talk with your daughter about how sex play can be a wonderful experience, whether or not it includes intercourse. You can also talk with her about the ways in which having sex with a partner can make people feel very vulnerable, and how they can get hurt — emotionally or physically.

Your daughter may be feeling that everyone her age is having sex — especially intercourse. If she thinks that everyone's "doing it," she may feel that she should, too. But you can help your daughter understand the truth — only about half of high school students have ever had intercourse. Far fewer have intercourse on a regular basis. And many kids who have had sex wish that they had waited.

This is an approval question. The teen, if this is the case, does not really care if you had sex before marriage, but she is waiting for you to approve of premarital sex. If you did it before marriage, it must be okay if she does it too. What needs to be brought up are the circumstances around it — was there a committed relationship? Did you love the person? You should also talk about how you felt about the experience. Be honest. Ask her what she is thinking and why she's asking this question.

EXPERT'S NOTE ON TEEN RESPONSE
The teen expert understands that being honest will be most helpful and also knows that asking pertinent questions will help lead to an engaging and helpful conversation. But the teen doesn't give parents the option of keeping their sex lives private. Clearly parents have a right to privacy, too. The teen also idealizes parents in a way that may not be true, because not all parents' first sexual experience was about love or a committed relationship. As parents we need to accept that what was true for our generation is likely to be true for our children's generation — sexual exploration is not always about love or a committed relationship.