My boss gave me a ride home tonight because it was raining out and he didn’t want me to take a bus. On the way home, he was asking me questions about myself. ALL of them were about my sex life. He started asking me if i was sexually active, when the first time was, if the first time hurt, who was the youngest, who was the oldest, how often, do i tell people afterwards.. and at first i just thought that he was curious because he has young daughters. and he is foreign, so i figured he didn’t know about a teens. but as the questions came one after the other i noticed that i was starting to feel uncomfortable. but i didn’t want to say anything because he is my boss! i need to know what to do? can he get in trouble for asking these questions? what should i do if he tries to take it further,.. i don’t’ want to lose my job,.. and if i tell my dad, he would beat him up! My boss is very nice to me and gives me advice like a father would about my future. This changed how i feel about him.

What’s on your bosses mind is clear enough; he is sexually attracted to you. What exactly he is trying to do or where this is leading is more difficult to know. He may be trying to seduce you into a sexual relationship, or he may be less forward than that and simply wanting to talk about sex (your sex life) with you. It doesn’t really matter, I suppose. In any event, by talking to you about your sex life, your boss is at least engaging in sexual harassment of his employee, which is a criminal offense. Given the likelihood that your boss is not himself a teenager but is instead an adult, he is also probably setting himself up for statutory rape charges. In the United States, so far as I know, it is generally illegal for an adult man to have sex with a young woman under the age of 18 even if she gives consent, the legal theory being that prior to age 18 a person is a child and unable to understand the ramifications of the decision they would be making. So, however you slice it, your boss is almost certainly breaking the law.

How you handle this situation is up to you, I think, and should be decided upon based on what you know about your boss (how forward he may be, and/or how clueless) and your own personality and fears or confidences.

Assuming that your boss isn’t actually going to try to force sex on you (e.g., rape you), or blackmail you into having sex, which it doesn’t sound like so far, he may simply be clueless as to what is appropriate with regard to adult/teenager relationships, what constitutes sexual harassment, and what constitutes statutory rape. There is nothing weird about his interest, I don’t think. Heterosexual adult men are simply built to find youthful biologically mature females to be sexually attractive. What is weird here is that he doesn’t know to not act on his impulses. That he is "foreign" (suggesting that he may be an immigrant to the United States who did not grow up in the culture here) may be a factor in his cluelessness, or, alternatively, his sense of inappropriate entitlement. In other words, what he has done towards you might be something that is more acceptable in the culture he came from than it is in the culture you both live in now. That is not an excuse for bad behavior by any means, but it does help to understand motivations.

If your boss is clueless and you feel confident, you are within your rights to simply shut him down and limit him, by asking him if he is aware that his behavior is harassment and that you don’t appreciate it. There are ways to say this nicely but at the same time put teeth in it. Essentially what needs to be conveyed is that if the sexual discussion does not immediately cease, you will involve other people who will not look upon his behavior charitably. If he is at all smart and the slightest bit sensitive, this will hopefully be enough to redirect his attention.

If your setting a limit on him by telling him in no uncertain terms that you do not want to hear any sexual talk from him at all doesn’t work, I think you will need to take further action or risk becoming a target. Depending on your personality, you might be most comfortable not working in his establishment anymore – that is a non-confrontational way to handle the situation, but not one that will build up your self-confidence. Alternatively, you should tell your parents what is happening, who should be upset and angry, but hopefully not to the point of violence, and enlist their help. If you were an adult needing the work to support your family, it might be worth pursuing harassment charges against this man. Under the circumstances, this being part time employment for a teenager looking to make some spending money, it is far easier to just walk away.

If you feel unsafe in the work environment in any way, I’d suggest that it is time now to tell your parents what has occurred, and/or to stop working there. There is no reason to put yourself at risk, I don’t think, and your parents who are in the best position to protect you ought to know what is going on.

My feeling is, based on what you’ve written, that you will hopefully be able to shut this guy down gracefully by telling him in no uncertain terms that you are not interested in his advances and never want to hear him speak to you that way again. There is no reason to be afraid to deliver a message like that. Though he is your boss, he has transgressed an important line and you need to defend yourself. If he fires you because of it, you are far better off not working there and may have legal recourse with regard to harassment law (which probably would not be worth pursuing, since so little money is on the line).

Good luck!

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