My best friend, when I was stationed in Berlin as a young man, was a dual national. His mother was German, and his father American. He had family both in Los Angeles and in a small village outside Bremer Haven on the North Sea.

I remember being shocked the first time I visited his German family for a long weekend. He had a 16 year old cousin, and that cousin also had a visitor for the weekend — his 16 year old girlfriend. They slept each night in his room together, and everyone seemed to just take it for granted.

There was even a little good natured joking about sex.

I was a little shocked, and I supposed maybe my friend’s family were sort of non-traditional. But it didn’t take me long to learn otherwise. Germans tend to be very sex positive. Parents don’t generally try to forbid sexuality for older adolescents.

I wondered about that in the same way that I wondered about teenagers openly drinking alcohol in restaurants and bars.

But you know, German society is very stable, teenagers don’t run around wild and crazy like they can in some other places I’ve lived. And families tend to be strong and supportive.

That was my first lesson in questioning the American puritanical ethos I grew up with.