Explicit hentai cartoons and 13 year old boys

[MrsPang]

My 13 year old has a friend who has shared very explicit hentai cartons with him. He came and told me last night and said that he had told him that’s enough and he doesn’t want to see it. He has also shared it with my other son who is 11. Both my sons have ASD too and are quite easily influenced.

The friend, S, is very socially isolated, can’t attend school and has quite severe anxiety and ASD. My younger son is almost his only contact and they game online a lot, talking constantly with open FaceTime. Older son said that’s how it was shared.

S’s mum is a good friend and is very worried about him, but I haven’t tackled this with her. If I’m really honest I don’t think S is a good influence on my younger son, who is somewhat in S’s thrall. But if I cut them off from each other then he will be absolutely furious. They talk to each other constantly.

How do I handle this?

No more facetime unless its in the same room you are in

Well some people saying it's usually children and some saying it's not usually children... 😅

Either way, I would treat images where it's "borderline" as to whether it's a child or not exactly the same as if it were a child. It's not acceptable, especially not being sent to a ten year old.

If an adult did this we would call it grooming. The 13 year old who sent it is also a child so there could be a risk to him too. Nevertheless, he needs to understand in no uncertain terms that what he did was not okay.

This is the first search result on Google. Pornhub is the 2nd.

It’s great that your son has told you, OP, and I agree with others that you need to speak to the parents. I’m sure they will be as horrified as you and want to nip this in the bud.

My 13 year old was very clear that he believed it was meant to represent very young female forms, not adults. And included ejaculation and “you could see up their insides.”

I’m enormously proud of my son. He knew it would get his friend into trouble but he has a strong sense of the right and wrong of things and his own ASD makes him very keen to follow rules.

I think @ZenNudist is right. The fact your ds told you is really important. Punishing him will only teach him not to be open in future.
A word with S’s mum would be the right thing, especially if he is isolated. He might be the one being groomed? At the same time, 13 year old boys love lurid stuff and are perfectly capable of finding it themselves, so bear that in mind.

Hentai is cartoon porn. It can border on the paidophiliac, yes, but either way it is generally quite disturbing in content and also almost always deeply misogynistic, yes, even for porn. It also seems to be the porn of choice among the TRA community/movement, fwiw.

I can't help feeling the "honest, trusting bond" might be damaged if it results in a month of punishment. Personally I'd rather my kids felt they could confide in me, that's far more likely to keep them safe than fear of a gaming ban.

Hentai tends toward the extreme, and also tends towards depictions of younger people. I would be telling the parent - not in a pearl clutching way - just a OMG this is mortifying but thought you would want to know way.

The gaming doesn’t concern me too much. The influence S has on my younger son, is my worry.

I don’t intend to punish anyone. But I do need to put space between my sons and S, and need to do that in a way that causes as small a fallout as possible.

the conversation with his mum his likely to be highly uncomfortable. She is a lovely person and I’ve known her for years. S is not an easy child though, on any front.

Christ.

It doesn't matter that it's a cartoon. It's what it depicts that is important.

Don't paedos use such cartoons depicting children to groom children?

I think we all need to take such things seriously as parents and not minimise or normalise it.

Yes. It's normalising children being in that sort of situation. It's very dangerous and I agree it shouldn't be minimised.

Regardless of how lovely your friend is, her child is not your responsibility. You must protect your sons at all costs. That might include cutting contact with her son. (Frankly, I would.)

I too had a lovely friend who had a nightmare daughter. She wanted the daughter to have play dates with one of my daughters, and I said no. Her daughter's behaviour was awful and my DD was very impressionable. Friend's daughter is now an adult and has a car-crash life because of her continuing bad behaviour and poor life choices.

I still have the friendship with the mother.

Eurghhh. Not done it yet. Am worried about my friend and also what this will do to S too. And framing this as “not a punishment.”

Similar, though mine is older. It’s a gut punch when it comes and it stemmed from this. It’s not cool, it’s not what all boys do, it’s pretty horrifying.
Your son is asking you to do something, take that first step. For him.

@fUNNYfACE36

Are you for real? They are often wearing school uniforms in the TAME stuff, of course they are supposed to be children. I'm absurdly sick and tired of child abused apologists trying to justify why this filthy crap is allowed to peddled freely in the internet.

I’m not necessarily agreeing with @fUNNYfACE36 ’s slightly odd comment about Japanese women, but the schoolgirl trope is well established in Japanese culture beyond porn. Make of that what you will, but school uniforms do not equate to child pornography unless they are actually being worn by minors.
Im not trying to minimise it, but I don’t think knee-jerk catastrophic is is helpful either.

@Palmfrond

I can promise you that in this country, a tentacle rape cartoon of a female in a school uniform is 100% illegal. I know because my son was arrested, prosecuted and charged with having similar. It's an image that depicts child abuse, beastiality and is against the law

This is such an education. Horrified as I have been, I didn’t know a cartoon (or drawing or painting or whatever) depicting an act was illegal, I had thought it had to be photographic. I’m very glad to know better.

For those with children who have gone through this, I am so so sorry, it must be hideous.

I spoke to S’s very lovely mum and the boys will not be in contact. I’ve also spoken again to my sons, the older one I’m so proud of, and the younger one too because he told me everything when pressed on it.

Well done OP.
Teen boys are exposed to all sorts of horrible things unfortunately. Lovely that yours trusted their instincts and you on this one.

You've got a couple of good lads there @MrsPang

I'm glad you have approached it with the mother op. Just so you are aware, if somebody (A) sends somebody else (B) over of these images it's classed as A sharing the image and B, if they open the communication, read the message and see the image then it's also classed as making/creating child abuse images as the communication is electronic and it's "made" when it is addressed by the recipient. Making is not, contrary to what proper believe, always somebody drawing or filming. Often it's simply opening that message. So I am very glad your child will be away from the other one. The repercussions can be horrific. My son is 23 and his life is pretty much over already. He has no friends, he can't get a job and his "rehabilitation" has taken almost 4 years to start from arrest. Our entire family will be getting the role effects for a long time

It’ll probably just get swept under the carpet so I’d contact social services about it, accessing such content at such a young age could be a sign of not very nice things in the household sadly. Red flag.

I won’t be doing this - I have every confidence that his parents will deal with this and at the moment I don’t think more external pressure will help. But I take your point.

I am so so sorry to read this. Knowing what you know now, if you could go back in time what would you have done differently, if anything?