I don't want to be seen as saintly. I am also a source of great irritation to my wife and children and students, believe me. I am an arrogant jerk. I struggle with these issues.
I don't say this in anger, but there is something wrong with a man in his fifties marrying a 16 year old and there is something wrong, hateful even, with a teenager being turned out like a prostitute for sale to the highest bidder. Personally, the problem is not that my daughters need to break free of my parental supervision to plot assignations with old men; they need to break free from a societally defined sexual identity, especially the identity that is being determined for them by our culture: your value as a female resides solely in your looks, you should compete with other women to be a servant to men, and sex is meaningless. I love my daughters; I don't want them to accept this for themselves.
Of course, raising sons in this environment is equally fraught. When our oldest son was in high school, he was invited to a party (well, a rave on the beach, actually). We were very surprised to see him home early, around 10:00 pm. Somewhat embarrassed, he told us that, after the Ecstasy was passed around, people stood in a circle where the object was to go round, making out with whomever was next in line, male or female. He denied being a participant (no, we didn't believe him), but my wife and I wanted to scream and light our hair on fire. After a few stiff drinks, we were able to maintain our composure, but this was the first time we had encountered the, uh, post-modern deconstruction of human relationships. In our day, free love and "sexual liberation" was all the rage, but there was at least a minimal human relationship. I mean, you at least liked the person you hopped in the sack with. Now, I hear kids talking about "hate-fucks." Do I even want to understand such a concept? My students tell me that they are afraid to voice a longing for relationship, because that will result in being seen as needy. Oh, the horror! Kids even have an internet shorthand for laying out assignation details, DTR, or Define the Relationship. No, this is not a long and soulful discussion about commitment, ha! It's a short housekeeping conversation (I'll do oral if you'll blah, blah, blah...Wednesdays and Fridays). I want neither my daughters nor my sons (thankfully, we married the eldest off, but the youngest is only 1 year 6 months) to be participants in this dehumanization.
It's funny, but I do a lot of Early Music, including the music of the troubadors, who exemplified the virtues of courtly love. This seemed the height of romance to me, so when I knew my wife was the One, I sang to her under her window. My students are astonished by this extreme behavior; they can't imagine going to such lengths, nor can they open themselves to the passion required for singing. There is something seriously awry. One fad is to try to justify the status quo by the pseudo-science of sociobiology: we're just animals trying to maximize our mating strategy. Um, I'm not thinking about mating strategy when I have sex, blech! Oh, my genes are thinking about it? Sorry, but genes have no volition. I know; I poked them in a lab with a hot stick, and they neither moved nor complained.