Upset that 11 year old has searched porn

[GullibleMuM]

My 11 year old daughter (year 7) who is very innocent and still plays with dollls, came down to wake me up off the settee because I had left my phone upstairs. Instead of going to sleep, she had searched, ‘what is sex?’ On YouTube. And then clicked through video, followed by video, of hardcore porn. It is all there in my search history. She was completely traumatized by it. I feel quite shaken by it but have told her she’s done the right thing by telling me. I have heard so much about kids watching porn, but honestly thought my daughter was too innocent to do it. She was traumatized a few weeks ago when they were learning about sexual intercourse and reproduction in school. She has ASD and kept saying she hated learning about it. Now suddenly, a few weeks later, she is searching for videos about it.

So she had taken your phone, and set up a new YouTube account using the app on your phone, then searched for these videos?

That does suggest some planning , meaning she obviously did want to find out more - I’d guess she tried on her phone and got nowhere?

Maybe that’s what I am doing. I do close my eyes and hope things aren’t happening. I think I am personally too worried about clicking on the links. Thanks everyone for the words of advice.

Hi. Look up "OpenDNS". It is free and it is part of Cisco (huge network company). It will explain how to set it up for your router make and what you have to do.

You basically have to set your primary and secondary DNS IP addresses within your router (its not hard) to the addresses of the primary and secondary IP addresses for OpenDNS's DNS servers. You then need to setup an account and then decide what you want to block. This can be by website, by category (e.g. porn, gambling, social media, hate/discrimination etc) or just select "Low" which protects against porn.

Its fairly easy and you can get it done in about 1/2 an hour. I've been using it to protect my kids from stumbling across something unpleasant for a few years.

If it is on Youtube, the "worst" you will get is very factual "documentary" type discussions on sex most likely with diagrams. They do not allow porn and you wont see anything beyond a nipple on a breast feeding guide or someone trying on lingerie. I checked quite thoroughly and they don't allow anything that is for "sexual gratification"

Link to their terms is: support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802002

And not have your settings locked down . She’s 11. The things she’ll hear in school will shock
you so she’s bound to be curious.

What are you worried will happen to clicking links to videos that are (allegedly) on YouTube? There is absolutely no risks to you of watching ANYTHING which is on YouTube. What you have described is not necessarily “hardcore” either - womens genitalia and doggy style are not hardcore.

“From your reactions, I assume all 11 year olds are searching it. That worries me as not all kids will tell their parents.”

Stop worrying about other people’s children and deal with your own. Start by actually watching the links. It’s ridiculous that you’re prepared to let her be upset by what she’s seen, then refuse to watch it yourself so you can help her.

If you type in what is sex into YouTube it comes up with kids sex ed videos first and then a few information videos, there's no 'hardcore porn'!

@KievsOutTheOven Thanks.

I'm autistic so "everything" boggles my mind.

An 11 year old asking google what sex is. You should have explained this to her before now.

What have your conversations about sex and consent looked like previously?

I had. She knows what it is.

Not having watched a lot of porn myself, I thought it was.

It isn’t. Not even close.

Educate yourself for your daughters sake.

I don’t think any other countries think the British are prudish. British have a reputation for being pretty sexually advanced compared to teens elsewhere.

Just look at some of the replies here. Posters telling OP to “educate herself” (awful term) because she thinks videos of couples having sex doggy style and close-ups of vaginas are not porn and she shouldn’t get upset that her 11 year old has come across them online.

Watch the videos op so you know what she saw. As others said, there is no porn on YouTube

That should read British teens have a reputation

Nobody said it’s not porn. I said it wouldn’t be considered to be “hardcore” and questioned if it was definitely YouTube because there are several porn sites styled similarly to YouTube, with similar names. And if OP was truly seeing “hardcore porn” then she most certainly was not on YouTube.

A close up of a woman’s genitals does not necessarily equate to porn though. It’s a body part, and could have -for example - been part of a video to educate about the correct body parts and their names (and, for the record, I doubt it was a “vagina” in the video since the vagina is an internal organ - I think you might mean vulva)

And “doggy style” is not hardcore either. It’s pretty vanilla tbh. And again, without any context, it’s unclear if it was some sort of informative video (like you would expect to find on YouTube) or if it was actually porn (which would imply that she wasn’t actually on YouTube)

Either way, there is an eleven year old who is getting her sex education from the internet rather than from her parents, which is where the problem lies. And That is worth being upset about. The rope has been dropped and that’s where the issue is.

Children are desperately interested in sex. And why would they not be? - it is the fundamental of the continuation of the human race. And it is hedged around with secrecy. They can see everything else, but genitals are hidden, sex is hidden - that is the convention of most societies. No winder it all seems intriguing.

She needs some real parent to daughter sex education. She needs to know about loving relationships. She should not be having to ask her phone "What is sex?" - she should know well and have known from a very young age. Time to fill in some gaps for her I think.

My children had a lovely cartoon book from the age of about 3, that had a story of family relationships and new babies being welcomed. It also tackled sex in detail. They certainly would not have been wanting to know what sex was at the top end of primary.

Many years ago, when the internet was quite newish, I searched for sex sites to see what all the fuss was about. One of the things that concerned me was that full sex was (obviously) behind a paywall, but there were lots of illustrations where the penetration/vagina entrance had been censored with a very jagged looking black star. At the time I joked that many young boys would grow up with a castration complex because of how threatening this made penetration look. Could it be that your daughter has seen pictures like this?

I think what may be missing for her in sex ed is the message that 'when the time is right it will feel that this is something nice, and you will enjoy it if it is right, with a caring partner. It is built into children to think it's yucky and scary because they are not ready for it yet.' And then, maybe at another different time... 'Also, do feel free to tell me or another grownup that you trust if anyone suggests sex or anything you don't want, before you want it. This goes whether you are 2 or 20! Grownups, even, discuss things like this with each other, as it's a very big commitment to have sex with a partner even when you are fully ready.'