My ds is turning 11 next month, he is autistic and homeschooled. He has no idea what porn is thankfully and has never been exposed to porn. He has known the facts of life since he was around 5 years old ( he loved wildlife documentaries and asked why if humans were mammals they didn’t make babies the way other mammals did) and due to our history topic last year, he knows about rape. He doesn’t joke about this though and doesn’t swear or talk about sex/ rape or porn with his friends.
My 8 year old daughter also knows the facts of life and unfortunately regularly has to ask me what x word or y word means. I find it utterly depressing that little girls are being objectified, degraded and subjected to sexual innuendo/ requests so young! My dd came home really upset and embarrassed as one of the boys had asked her to have sex with him. This was part of a dare, but completely out of order. I contacted the head teacher who was very concerned and took all the boys aside and had very stern words with them as well as calling in their parents.
Unfortunately, children are being exposed to language, behaviour and knowledge that they are far too young to fully comprehend. They are playing games like Grand Theft Auto and other 18 certificate games and often accessing hardcore pornography, which normalise sexual violence, promiscuous behaviour and extreme sexual acts, which they then expect to receive from teenage girls.
A friend of mine at school was in a sexual relationship with a boy her age, she shaved off her pubic hair ( for comfort) and her bf told several of his friends. My poor friend was called a ‘slut’, a ‘whore’ and a ‘freak’ for shaving her pubic hair. This was back when pornography was not as easy for teenage boys to access. Nowadays a teenage girl is ridiculed if she has any pubic hair, being told she is disgusting.
Pornography is destroying the moral fibre of many teenage boys. It is subjecting our daughters to expectations of extreme sexual acts that we as an older generation realise belong in the porn industry and not in the bedroom! I personally think that we need to teach our teens that what they see in pornography is not normal, loving sexual behaviour. They need to know that rape is an evil degrading act, that breaks the soul as well as the body. They need support.
You did the right thing by contacting the head teacher. The more schools are forced to confront the inappropriate language, sexualised behaviour and exposure to pornography the better. Our children need to be taught that real sex is not like a porn film. That women deserve respect, that sex should be between consenting adults and that it is NEVER ok to objectify, harass or bully anyone into sex.