It's pressure on the workforce to over exert that has cost us parents. It's right-wing ideology that gives us AO education programs, and allow them to focus on teaching that ideology, rather than informing about sex, love and intimacy.

I'm not a psychologist or sociologist, so I am guessing (hypothesizing) that authorities over pubescent adolescents responding to incidents of sexual expression (including flirting, courting, sexting, not just making out ^†^ ) has more to do with instincts than what would best serve the teens or the community. But this is consistent with dominance hierarchy and the behavior of other social primates.

~~Ass~~ As I said, I don't have a societal solution, but we can act locally by acknowledging that everyone, from our disregarded teens to untrained adults are all commonly products of a dysfunctional system that raised dysfunctional kids who are now dysfunctional adults. So yes, cut everyone some slack, including yourself.

† or K-to-9 kids for that matter, who are prone to interest and experimentation, which parents and guardians respond to by freaking out and punishing those kids who are involved.