to be very concerned about this?

[cakedup]

A close friend of mine has told me that she caught her 6 year old son (my godson) searching on google for "sexy naked ladies". Thankfully, he spelt it wrong!

She was obviously alarmed and asked him why he was doing this, he just very innocently said he wanted to see some sexy naked ladies! She has now put parental controls on all their devices.

He has always been very computer savvy - a whizz at using the ipad as a toddler, so that aspect of it doesn't surprise me. But I'm still pretty shocked and concerned that a 6 year old was doing this. Am I over-reacting? On the other hand, I know that he is innocent and wasn't searching for porn in the way I would understand it as an adult. I've just never encountered anything like this with my DS.

My friend tells me that he is very into teenage girls, often ogling at them and his dad told her he'll lose his virginity by the age of 12.

She has succumbed to what she believes is the fact that her son has the makings of a 'womaniser.' She says all she can do is teach him to be respectful to women.

I just feel uncomfortable about it all, should I just mind my own business or say something?

GarlicSteak We were born in UK but our parents are from a different country. It's odd because on one hand it's quite strict (in terms of having sex before marriage etc) but on the other hand it's totally fine to refer to a baby as having "sexy legs". But I'll look into the hormonal abnormality thing, she'd be the first one down to the docs if there was any possibility of anything like that.

It is disturbing, but may be innocent or may not - noone knows if abuse is happening until the child tells them - all can look fine from the outside.

Did they ask where he heard it? My guess is playground talk, with kids with older siblings... my son googled similar things at around 9, but he'd heard it and was told to google it by friends. Fortunately we already had the controls in place, so he didn't get an eye-full, but he did get a stern talking to about googling things his friends told him to search up.

Yes I know I can't possibly state that there is no sexual abuse as fact....but you think of someone who you are closest to, see often, have been each other's lives for years....it's just hard to imagine. She is like a sister to me.

Fatmomma, this OP's been posting here since 2014 or earlier.

First of all fatmomma99, as a mumsnet poster of MANY years, can I kindly remind you that troll hunting is not allowed. Secondly, the boy is 6 years old, he may not have known how to pick up on Google's suggestions, or maybe that's when the mum caught him (I'm not actually sure). Don't tell others to not not 'waste time' on this thread when I have come on here genuinely concerned for my cousin's child and asking for advice.

2009 actually!

That's presuming a 6 YO would know how google works and be able to work out that he'd spelt it wrong fatmomma.

I think everyone's aware that any OP could be a troll, especially posting at this time of night about this subject on AIBU, but the OP's been posting with that username for well over a year, no need to openly call them on it.

Yes Jenny70 I'm thinking this might be the case. "sexy naked ladies" might have been a phrase heard in the playground which he got curious about, and on top of that his dad is a bit of a dick who seems to take pride in his son being a future womaniser.

GarlicSteak that belly rubbing phase was a bloody nightmare!!!

that belly rubbing phase was a bloody nightmare!!!

I know 50-year-old men who still do it when drunk! I have photos

Italiangreyhound, yes I agree re the internet and I live in fear of it. Because I know that most probably, at some point, as a child, my DS is going to come across porn, isn't he? Whereas pre-internet that might not have been the case. You can't unsee these things.

I think living in fear of the internet and blaming it for doing crazy things to children is a little insane. I remember my older brother finding a porno magazine(s) he'd found dumped in hedges, bringing them home and my mother finding them. A friend of his used to hire out a black and white VHS of some German porn. He was caught by the teacher. Nothing's changed besides the method by which people find pictures of other naked people.

As for the original post, yes it's weird although I have experienced the way that 'sexy' is used more innocently or differently around the world. However, in this case, the father sounds like a dickhead. The 'watching girls in bikinis' sounds very unusual. My 5 year old wouldn't have a clue about anything like that.

Out of interest, does the boy care about his nakedness? Again, my son has no sense of embarrassment about lack of clothes. We had friends for supper last night. He happily came down stairs to say hello to them butt-naked.

What did you mean by then being very protective of him because of inappropriate behaviour toward him? Could that behaviour be the cause of this?

Also please, please don't assume nothing untoward going on just because you know the parents and family. Whilst children are unlikely to be harmed or abused those that are are normally abused by people in, or known too, the family.

And it's always a shock when something has happened to a child. No one ever says "well I thought uncle X was dodgy" or "I can imagine aunt y being handy with her fists now I think of it". It's always a shock.

There is nothing awful going on, like sexual abuse.

1 as a pp said you can't possibly know this it rarely happens openly or even admitted within families except in extreme cases.

2 grooming (including sexualising) happens first. Abuse doesn't happen in a vacuum or overnight straight to the worst kinds! It starts by isolating the victim, sexualising (so that sexual language and discussion and then behaviour are normalised), then there is 'testing the water ' with incidents that can be explained away by the victim 'misunderstanding' if they do tell - this is to see if they tell/question and it escalates from there.

This is worrying. Even if he is pre-pubescent he shouldn't know of such terms and i suggest you flag this to someone like the school safeguarding officer for monitoring.

I disagree enterYourPassword, pornography is a lot more accessible now. There is a huge difference between chancing upon a stack of porno in the bushes or going to the effort of renting a VHS tape off someone to accessing any type of pornography at the click of a button.

I must admit, when I was told about the watching teenage girls in bikinis, I thought it was probably really innocent, he probably saw them as little fairies hopping around rather than ogling at them in a sexual sense.

The mum is quite strict about nakedness i.e. she is never naked in front of him (another cultural thing) nor would she be happy about him being naked in front of others.

lalalalyra I just mean she is quite strict on safeguarding, nothing over the top but she'd be the first to be suspicious of a lone male adult at a playground watching the kids play, sort of thing. She complained to the school recently when she found out some children had been left in a classroom unsupervised and regularly complains about the school gates being left open.

Also please, please don't assume nothing untoward going on just because you know the parents and family. Whilst I am no fool, we all make a certain level of assumption. I would allow my DS to stay at their house overnight because I trust them. I presume there are family members or friends you'd be comfortable with your DC staying over with, which means you assume there is 'nothing untoward going on'.

However, I will be asking my cousin where he could have got the term "sexy naked ladies" from, although I think she was implying he picked it up in the playground.

Most children aren't harmed by a lone male adult they don't know. The people she trusts and lets her guard down around are the most likely to be a danger.

And yes I do have people that I let my children stay with, but the second they started displaying worrying behaviour staying would be totally curbed. When I said don't assume nothing untoward was going on I mean in this specific circumstance with this child who is showing worrying, sexualised, behaviours, don't assume nothing untoward is going on because his parents are hot on stranger danger.

Yep, point taken *lalalalyra".

I think, that when this sort of thing comes up, he gets a pat on the back from his dad. Perhaps not literally, but the father might say something like "that's my boy!" when the mum tells him he's been hanging out with teenage girls at the pool. I could tell my cousin that by praising such behaviour, it will do the opposite of teaching him to respect women, which is what she wanted to teach him.

Sounds like the mother is hypervigilant on stranger danger but ignorant of other issues. Has the PANTS rule been discussed?

Their attitude toward this is fucked up!! YADNBU

Baconyum the mother is very aware of such issues, she is a TA and hot on these type of issues.

I think there is some confusion here. I don't think (ok, I don't KNOW for a fact) that this child is being groomed, inappropriately touched or sexually abused, in any way, either by their family or anyone else.

The issue here is attitudes around the opposite sex, and the sexualisation of some of his behaviours. Another example, I saw them recently and the mother said "tell cakedup what you say if you see a girl you like" and he said "hey babe, what's your number?". She thinks it's cute and funny. I just don't like it, agree with it or feel comfortable with it.

Interestingly, my lesbian friend reckons a lot of this type of encouragement to pursue opposite sex (and subsequent pats on the back) is a parent's way of confirming their child isn't homosexual.

Cognitive dissonance - just cos she puts it into practice at work doesn't mean she's playing it right at home.

Yes for some men they want reassuring 'their boy is normal'

Hollie, there was a craze at my infant school for licking one another's tongues! Urgh, but we found it extremely entertaining. Definitely not sexual (or sexy)!

PrincessHollie you must be kidding, toddlers are the strangest creatures out there. It could literally have been something like seeing a few second clip of a cartoon character on TV rubbing his belly or maybe just purely invented by himself, who knows, toddlers are bonkers. As a toddler, he'd never spent any time without me so I can assure nothing weird had provoked his behaviour.

GarlicSteak eww me and my sister used to lick each other's tongues when we were kids, thanks for reminding me!