FIL introduced DH to porn as a teenager…

[FourForYouGlenCoco1]

I feel a bit grubby even writing this, but we have had an incident with our son’s friend who has somehow stumbled across porn on his tablet (the boy is much too young for this) and it got DH and I talking about the subject.

DH told me that my FIL and him were sitting at the computer together (late 90s, dial-up) and his dad said “You should look at XXX.com” and up came a porn site. DH was 16 but had never seen anything like this on the internet before, and it obviously led to him looking at it regularly thereafter.

AIBU to find this quite grim? I grew up in a single parent, all-girl family, so no experience of this being a thing.

I think it's grim

I'm also aware that in some families it was/is normal for dads to take their sons to a sex worker to lose their virginity. Which is also grim.

Just because a family thinks it's normal doesn't mean it is.

It is grim. I'm a guy and I remember being 16ish when home computers and dial-up internet were taking off. I found porn online because I was more tech savvy than my dad and I knew what browser history was... he did not. 🤣

Not quite the same, though. It was an honest mistake.

Although, I was 16 and had never met another gay person in my life so little did my parents know they had bigger issues with what/who I could find online. Their ignorance was my bliss.

I suppose the father, son porn thing make sense for the time. That was the age were men were sitting around work sites ogling tits on page three. Graphically sexualising women in public was normal. Thank fuck we're moving past that. Actively introducing your son to full blown porn is a bit much, though. Even for the time. Maybe my sexuality makes me fell different but I couldn't think of anything worse than sitting side by side with my dad, looking at any sort of porn.

For another pointless anecdote, the first time I every saw real porn was because I went into my parents bedroom while they were at work assuming my mum had taped the Eastenders omnibus but it wasn't in the living room. Found an unmarked tape and fired it in the VCR. It was not Eastenders...

Yeah, I get it. The whole right of passage thing. Becoming a man. As if that's what ever made us "men". Thank god my dad never tried that. Might have made coming-out a bit easier, though!

Exposing dc to sex and such material is child abuse... The fact dh was 16 makes me think fil was counting the years until he could share his hobby with his ds. Grim.

Totally agree. It's inappropriate. MIL introduced my DH to things like Playboy when he was just 13. Not only grim, but so premature for a 13 year old. She never had the chance to do that with our sons and, if she'd tried, I'd probably have wanted to report her.

So OP does your DH still regularly watch porn and were you not aware of it until you had this conversation?

That’s really grim and quite shocking!

Obviously normal to have open conversations about the existence of porn and so on, and answer questions a teenager might have, but absolutely not normal to recommend or share it. Essentially, it’s not OK for the parent and child to be discussing together what turns them on and what they like to do/watch/fantasise, in any way whatsoever. Sharing or talking about your favourite porn site very much falls into that category. Creepy and boundary-crossing.

Interestingly, he developed quite an aversion to all that sort of thing and it didn't create a habit.

His mother?! Jesus. That's more surprising.

Kind of ties into what @Sunshineafterthehail was saying, too.

There's part of me that somehow gets why it was ok for some people. We had such a basic view of what it meant to be a "boy/man" and a "girl/woman". We talked about sex as if it was just a physical thing without talking about sexuality and emotions - at least not where I came from. It also comes back to how we (men) thought about women. It wasn't necessarily OK to treat a woman badly who's right in front of you but graphically sexualising a woman from afar was completely fine and encouraged as part of being a "man" - without seeing a shred of conflict between those views.

When I say we, I don't mean everyone but it was definitely there.

I don't know, I look back and I'm glad we've moved on because because it was grim but I'm finding it hard to completely to judge it through the lens of what we know now. 13, though. I'm not struggling to judge that so much.

That is grim, but it’s what a lot of men do.

That is interesting? Do you think that's because he has a natural aversion to it or do you think the element of it being alongside his dad put him off?

I think it's quite shocking. I'd not want to leave DGC alone with FiL that's for sure.

In legal terms, it’s actually not an offence for a 16 year old to be shown material depicting a sex act - the law on this is in line with the age of consent, which is 16. (Otherwise we’d be in the odd position where teenagers were legally allowed to have sex, but only if they kept their eyes closed.)

It’s not the fact that OP’s DH was introduced to porn at 16 that I find grim. Most teenagers with web access even then would have been made aware by mates or whatever that porn was out there, or would have been sent links to porn by friends. The disturbing part is that was his dad that did it. Parents and kids shouldn’t be chatting about what they like to look at when they have a wank; it’s creepy and inappropriate. Just no.

This used to be fairly common when I was a teen in the 90s (before most people had the internet).

A fair few of my friends were bought a couple of magazines by their Dad between the ages of around 14 and 17, probably because the Mums were sick of their kids having a wank over the underwear models in their catalogues.

My Dad never did, but I found the few videos he had hidden in a cupboard one day, so had a good nose at them.

It reminds me of the scene in American Pie when the dad buys some mags for his son! I mean the whole point of that scene is that it's awkward and weird, but I think it really is a thing that goes on!

@Towandatowanda no, I knew DH had watched porn, I just didn’t know that this particular incident had happened. DH played a sport very competitively and was always training…described himself as a very late bloomer etc.

His dad is very misogynistic and DH has definitely done and said questionable things (not necessarily sex-related, but could be very transactional in the early stages of our relationship…sex was expected irrespective of how he behaved), but he fully admits he’s had a lot to learn, and I’m pleased we’ve come out the other side.

Appreciate others sharing their experiences and sorry to hear that some of you / your partners have had to deal with difficult parenting decisions.

I'm really glad OP that you and your DH seem to have good communication with each other. And honesty in your relationship.

Yeah it’s weird but my DH said older cousin showed him when he was a similar age.

Men are gross. I can’t ever imagine a mum enthusiastically sharing dick pics with her daughter at 16…

I said interesting because you'd think it would create a normalisation and acceptance of it. When he was in his late teens he decided it was wrong. Might have something to do with the religious phase he went through at that time.

Oh, sorry, I didn't actually intend a question mark there, don't know how that happened. It was supposed to be a statement because it is interesting. Thanks for the response.