So sad, just found out my 12yr ds has accessed porn on his phone

[mamas12]

I couldn't sleep all night as I only just found out, he has videos and pictures and also is having a text 'conversation' with a named 'woman' about sexual matters.
So sad that he has access to this kind of thing so easily and yes I know he is 'curious' but this is way too much, it is pornography.
After the wonderful thread on feminist books and discovering that I have read a significant number of the books mentioned I was feeling quite good about myself and planning on reading more of the reccomended ones I haven't read. Am feeling so sad now.
Tell me what sort of reading material I can give my 12 yr old ds to BALANCE or help me to explain how horrific the porn industry is. (Don't want to get into a debate about porn pls just help about this)
Plan
Take his phone and my laptop to work with me today.
Take phone to shop to make sure he can't access anymore (will bollock ex and tesco on how a childs phone hadn't already had this in place)
Check computer child safety measures haven't been bypassed by him.
Wonder how these 'companies' can have these text sex without checking.
Talk to him tonight about how sad I am and tell him he will not be allowed access to phone or comp on his own I will be monoring him.
Zero tolerance on disrepecting me or his sister now or there will be consequences = loss of priviledges. (he has lately been quite aggressive and I put it down to hormones)

Can anyone think of something else please?
As I said am v. sad today. Will come back on about 5pm tonight to read posts as I have to work and can't post until then. Thank you in advance

He's 12. He's curious. He's clearly not got the same 'feminist' outlook as you and that disappoints you. But could you really expect a 12 year old boy to have that?

If he wants to find sexual images, he will find it, it's a phase all boys go through, except in our day it was Razzle stuffed under the mattress.

I think you are overreacting slightly TBH. He's probably mortified he got caught. Do you really think his more aggressive attitude is down to looking at porn?

That must be really hard for you but I bet most twelve year old boys have seen similar. What;s important is how you deal with it - you don't want to totally shame him as he's at that age of becoming sexually aware and this could be a damaging experience for him if you come down hard on him.

I think a frank conversation about the implications of porn in respect of aggression towards women, and the differences between that and a loving, healthy relationship is the right way to go.

Poor you!

I think pornography does breed contempt for women mrsm.

Although I think most porn is degrading to woman, weren't you ever curious at that age? I know I was. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Don't make him feel like what he is doing is dirty, it's not. He's about to become a teenage boy. Maybe get his phone and laptop blocked etc, because he might find things which are disturbing but don't come down hard on him.

For heaven's sake don't tell him how 'sad' you are and that you wil be 'monitoring' him. He needs some privacy you know. You're not his jailor, you're his mother.

Do you seriously expect him to not be curious or not want to look at women's naked bodies?

i have a teenage boy who i know has done this - i did tell him i thought it not a good idea and that he should be careful what he looked at online ect - but it is normal for boys to do this ime.
I trust my son will respect woman and i think it is just a phase they all go through at some point.
The fact that it is so available and normalised i think is the issue.

I have pretty strong views about porn (akin to Mary whitehouse sometimes ). But he will have to make up his own mind with some guidance of course .
Sometimes it is harder to avoid it.

I think the "sad" and "monitoring" are fine actually...web-based porn is seldom just naked women like razzle. It usually involves acts of violence or degradation which just aren't appropriate for an unformed sexuality. I heard recently that youth workers in some parts of the country are actually having to talk to teens about how to have normal sex, as the boys are growing up believing it involves smacking the girl in the face with their cock and routine anal Very sad, but hardly surprising.

I think that nobody could force a kid to read feminist literature, but a stern talk along the lines of "it's natural to be curious, but this stuff is NOT about sex, it's about trafficking and exploiting women and teenagers and looks nothing like healthy sex in relationships, blah blah", point him in the direction of some good sex ed books for boys (any suggestions folks?), and say that yes, you are disappointed in him...all that sounds fair enough to me.

I don't believe that 12 is too old to make an active intervention in the behaviour of, not at all, but it doesn't make you his jailor. Good luck.

I meant that pulling him up doesn't make you his jailor, just his mum- sorry, that wasn't very clear.

This must have been an awful shock. I do sympathise with you, as a 12 year old DS-owner myself.

But I don't see any point in punishing him. Have you ever discussed porn with him and told him you'd prefer him not to go looking for it and why? If he hasn't broken a rule, how can you justify punishing him? By all means tell him you will be monitoring his phone and internet access from now on, but why oh why weren't you doing this already?

All 12 year old boys can be agressive and disrespectful. They are also becoming sexually curious and will look at "rudery" whenever they can. There is no causal relationship between the two issues. They are both the result of a massive testosterone surge which is out of anyone's control. You will not prevent him being disrespectful to you and your DD by giving him a copy of The Female Eunuch to read.

If you make an explicit connection to him between his recent agressive behaviour and his exposure to pornography you will do your son an enormous disfavour and will make him feel extremely guilty and confused.

My DH operates an unofficial PC trouble-shooting service for many of our less computer-savvy friends. I have lost count of the number of times he has found evidence that the kids (some as young as 10 ) have been accessing, or attempting to access porn on the family PC completely unbeknownst to their parents. Classic example being an unsucessful Google search string spelt
"horney lezbean biatches".

I cannot stress just how important it is to a) porn-proof your DC's computers and mobile phones, b) remind them that you are able to monitor their online activities and c) have the porn discussion with them, preferably before they are curious enough to go looking.

You can explain to him that its natural to be curious but porn isn't the best way to find out about sex because it is just acting, it is illegal for under 18s to see because he might see stuff that is disturbing and will put him off, and that acting in porn isn't always nice for the women.

And please be aware that in spite of the above precautions, our DC's will access porn elsewhere if they are really determined to.

That's a very measured and sensible post, MrsFlittersnoop. We had to have that discussion with our 11 year old a couple of months ago - I did try to convey why we were upset by what he'd been looking at, and why we thought it was unacceptable, and it seems to have worked.

Thinking back, I didn't discuss porn and the issues surrounding it with him before that, because I didn't want to pique his curiosity about it, so that he'd go looking. In hindsight, that was a naive attitude on my part.

Good post, MrsFlittersnoop!

i also tried to make it a bit jokey - and said if my son wanted to see nudity i would show him my body What a horrible thought for anyone!!!!

I also agree that being too strict at home will mean that they will search for it elsewhere anyway.

Try and keep the communication open (very hard with teenagers anyway). Its a thin line between allowing them to have privacy but being able to monitor what they are up to.

Bitoffun, the OP doesn't say what kind of porn he has been accessing so hopefully it might not be the hardcore stuff you're describing.

I understand what you are saying about it possibly having a negative effect on a man's idea of what sex is about but I think a man' attitude to woman will be more affected by his upbringing and personality than looking at a bit of porn in his teens.

Give me a man who hasn't looked at porn, there can't be many and I doubt they all think it appropriate to smack their partner's face with their penis. As long as the op educates her son about 'real' relationships and respect for each other etc I'm sure he'll turn out just fine. I don't think a total invasion of one's privacy at that age is the way forward. I don't think that's having respect for each other.

Its just natural curiosity - I wouldn't be too heavy on him.

I see this as the modern equivalent of him finding a porn mag in the bushes.

Did anyone see the channel 4 sex education series recently - it opened my eyes about what young boys were seeing when they accessed porn - routine anal and also acts I haven't, and don't want to, see myself. The average age quoted for accessing porn was 11 years old. I think this is way to young to see this form of graphic sex. I have no problems with my DS (now 11)seeing naked women but it's way beyond that. Also these boys are then pressurising girls to have this kind of sex - would you be happy for this to be happening to your daughters? - I felt sorry for the girls who clearly didn't want to be getting this kind of pressure. It has made me think that I will have to change the teenage talk I was going to have with my kids. I think you are right to take some form of action now - I would want to find out what he had been looking at and start some form of discussion about what it is reasonable to expect from a sexual relationship - agree it may not be easy as he probably won't want to talk about it to you, but probably more appropriate than punishment. Out of interest, what sort of blocks to people have on their machines - when we blocked ours it stopped us searching for anything at all, but at the moment the computer is in the kitchen which is our main protection. Next year Ds will have access to laptop and i want to get more serious protection.

Just to add, it's probably unrealistic to think that they won't see unsuitable stuff as they will see it round their friends houses, but that doesn't mean i want to let him see it at home. So communication has to be the key, and if you are too heavy on him now that may backfire

Porn-proofing the PC can be difficult when teenagers need to research homework and projects. Most filters are very basic and can block all sorts of innocuous sites.

Confession time - we don't have a content filter on our computer. But DS shares a PC with me and knows that I can look at his internet history and email when I'm PC housekeeping or helping him with his homework. I'm not "checking up" on him as such and I've not yet found anything particularly dodgy. He knows why I don't want him looking up explicit sex stuff online - he's too young and he'll find a lot of it scary and a bit revolting.

Erm, am I missing something here? The OP was talking about her 12 year old. 12, FGS. He is not a 14 or 15 year old which to me makes the world of difference in terms of sexual development and interest. Most of the replies are referring to "teenagers". The OP's DS is in lots of ways still very much a child, and I think that is what is disturbing her. She herself uses the word "child".

"also is having a text 'conversation' with a named 'woman' about sexual matters" - is no-one else shocked at this? If it was a 12 year old girl, and it was an adult male who had been texting her, then everyone would be up in arms about grooming, child abuse etc.

I am either very naive or a lot older than you lot - you seem to be so blase about children having access to this stuff.

And yes, I know it's completely normal for teenagers and men to use porn - I haven't got a problem with that. But he is 12.

I just think it's a shame that kids these days do have to grow up so quickly - sex is everywhere they look. When I was 12, the curiosity amounted to looking up puberty and reproduction in our family health book. If I happened to see the odd pornographic image, it was a rain-sodden magazine in a car park that someone had chucked there. I think there's a world of difference between that, and having access to proper porn videos and images via the internet.

Just to give a guy's perspective. Certainly by the time I was 12/13 I'd seen a couple of porn mages and I'd had, I would say, a relatively sheltered, rather lovely middle class existence. Invariably at least a few kids in your year at school had them, usually courtesy of older brothers so they ended up doing the rounds.

I guess the only two things I'd say was firstly that back then (um, over 20 years ago now) you had pretty limited access to porn - you couldn't get it yourself so it was just on a one-off random basis when some other kid had got hold of a magazine. You definitely couldn't get hold of it in anything like the way kids today can. Secondly, it was all newsagents top shelf stuff like Penthouse or Mayfair - all very soft core photos, certainly compared to what's out there on the net.

I think the world today is somewhat different for 12 year old boys...

Um, that should be porn 'mags' in the first line, in case anyone was reading that as pornographic wizards...

my ds is nearly 17 and I first started noticing his 'history' on internet included a lot of porn from around 12 years.

i know it's a shock when you first realise your lad is looking at women in a sexualised way and porn is so easily available on the internet it's horrible that a curious kid has access to all sorts of vile stuff they shouldn't see but unfortunately this is the 21st century they live in

ds was embarressed at first and tried to deny looking at porn but eventually we started a dialogue which continues. the obvious points about how abnormal a lot of porn is, the nature of the porn industry, exploitation etc, feminist pov etc.. how normal girls would run a mile if he attempted any of the stuff he watches. the balance is talking about healthy loving relationships and how they work, etc

saying that i always insisted on the computer being used in public area, not in bedroom but he's had his own laptop for the last couple of years so i dread to think what he looks at!

our ds's are growing into men and we're only 1 influence in their lives. providing a chance for open communication on all subjects is the best you can hope for. there will be issues of smoking/ alcohol/ drugs/ sex etc to come and if your ds feels he can talk to you honestly you will always have a chance to exert your influence

The trouble is with all of the "new" tech stuff is that porn is very easily available. He has access to a mobile and a pc and that's all you need.. and a bit of playground banter turns into swapping of videos etc.. and if he can't access them o his phone he is bound to come across it on a friends.

where we all looked at soggy mags found in car parks, and at the gratten underwear section.. our children now have access to a whole lot more and a lot of parents have no idea how much they can actually get hold of.

so you make everything a child safe as possable. but the most important bit.. is talk to him, that sex education versus pornography programme was very good.. it might be worth seeing if the do a catch up on the web, and watch it with him.

I know, cestlavie. My two boys are only 3 and 5 but this thread has really made me think about what my approach is going to be when they reach the age of 12, if things are so different today.

I just would absolutely hate for them to have regular, easy access to the extreme videos available on the internet, as I'm sure in their developing brains, it would normalise those images for them. How could it not?

Honestly, I think that when they turn 11, I am going to get them a subscription to FHM or the like and they can just look at boobs! Hopefully they'd get enough satisfaction from looking at those relatively mild images!

ds also had txt messages from women he had met online in chat rooms, totally freaked me out too. talked to him about all angles that this was very wrong

the one control you can obviously have with a 12 year old is limiting their time on the internet and encouraging them to spend their time on more healthy pursuits

sex ed/porn link

I'd suggest watching it first