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

Well the main reason young people are thinking that the sex they see in porn is what 'real' sex is for everyone is becaue no one is telling them enough about 'real' sex. ON the one hand theyve got 'anal gangbang teens' on the other they've got sex ed which is all about preventing pregnancy and disease. The single key fact about sex that has to be conveyed to teens (and preteens if they are old enough to be asking questions or instersted) is that sex is enjoyable and if any of the participants in a sex act is not enjoying it, then there is something wrong and it should stop.

As to the 'texts from an unnamed woman' I used to work on one of these text chat services. We used to bar any callers that we thought were under 18 and would block numbers if they were reported to us, but further than that, we had no way of proving or disproving a caller's age - but please be assured that text chat workers/chat line workers are not predatory pedophiles - we have no interest in contact with customers other than the service they are paying for.

Also WRT studies of teens and porn and porn blaming - as with all studies on sexual behaviour, they have to be taken with a few bucketfuls of salt because respondents lie. They either want to blame something or someone else for behaviour they are ashamed of ('porn made me do it, society's to blame) or they want to ensure that they sound 'normal'.

(Or they are people like me who give exaggerated answers purely to fuck up the statistics).

DS1 is 14 and ds2 is 10, really nicely we chat about sex/ porn/ drugs and all sorts really easily.

they are also used to me having paintings and drawings of real nudes about, and never really bats an eye lid.

so IMO it is all about communication ( and respect when they are a bit older that they don't always have to tell you everything), a little bit of trust and a whole lot of sex is normal and nice, where porn can be fun to watch or look at.. but there is a lot of nasty stuff about that may really upset you, and it's made up, and there is an age limit on it for a reason etc etc. And I'm not being a big nasty mum by protecting you from the nasty stuff out there.

I have a twelve year old DS too.

Because his dad, my ex h, had rather a nasty porn habit, my ds was exposed to porn, "accidentally" from quite a young age. This meant that we have had to have an open approach to this whole thing.

I think/hope that this horror that we lived through has had the positive effect of him learning that sex should be part of a loving relationship, involve repect and dignity and is certainly not generally a spectator sport. It has had to be openly discussed at a much deeper level and at a much younger age than I had anticipated. It has meant that I have had to get over any embarrassment too.

I guess that these days, it is so "in your face" that it just has to be addressed in a way that it wasn't with magazines under the bed, and maybe that isn't such a bad thing.

I think you're overreacting, tbh.

He is 12 years old. He's hardly going to have some balanced feminist outlook with regard to porn. To be crude, he just wants to look at breasts. It's normal and, all social and moral arguments aside, healthy.

By all means talk to him about the darker side of the porn industry, but I think it's unfair for you to expect him to take a moral stance at his age and stage of development.

I get the distinct impression that he was looking at more than just breasts, branflake.

"also is having a text 'conversation' with a named 'woman' about sexual matters."

I apologise if someone's already said this, but shouldn't you be the one he feels able to have that conversation with?

Rather than a shock/horror reaction how about calmly talking to him, finding out what he's curious about and discussing things like sex and condoms and girlfriends with him. If you over react now, you'll not get a second chance.

er, I don't really think at 12 yo boy goes to his Mum for first port of call to talk dirty

ha ha, not I didn't mean he should talk dirty to mum! Cripes! No, but that at twleve it would be cool if he could exercise his curiousity about sex and indeed those types of conversations, in conversations with his mum.

I had a bit of this with my son about 8 years ago when he was just a young lad. Apart from him we're all females in this house and very open with him about bits and bobs and sex in general, he got to see enough boobs and fannies as we are not shy and hysterical about our bodies around him. He's the same around us.

When this came to light (that he was downloaded the naughty stuff) my little DD (then 5) was using the pc in his room and all these images were slide showing...

Well ... we went into shrieks of giggles at DD's funny remarks and then collared him, blushing and getting all defensive about it, but we did it with humour so as not to make him feel bad. It all passed by as a non event and in amongst the humour we looked on in laughter as the images flashed by and kept it above board. Don't come down on him like a ton of hot bricks, it'll make him more and more furtive and feel bad. This is normal and altho there is a lot out there to behold with ease, you have to bring the element of recognition/sanity/normality into it for both sides. He knows that these women are not real women, that the whole thing is 'make believe'... that is if you have brought him up to know that, which I am sure you have.
The chatting to some woman is a bit but take a light hearted approach and explain that this woman could be some big pervo dude for all he knows...

Oh I see what you mean - yes I agree!

Having used a lot of porn throughout my life, this is what I think:

I disagree that porn breeds contempt for women.
I agree it's normal for 12 year olds to seek this stuff out. And topless, vanilla stuff is not going to harm them at all.

BUT:
I think people who say, 'Oh, it's just a bit of sex and nudity' are basing things on THEIR experiences of porn growing up. Things are very different now.

A few soft-core porn mags behind the bike sheds, or having a 'relationship' with a couple of magazines for many months, is totally different to the accessibility of millions of extreme images at the click of a mouse.

I don't think 12 year old boys can distinguish between erotica and nasty women hating porn. What worries me is that he will grow up thinking this sort of thing is normal. That it's normal for women to have no pubic hair and enjoy anal sex with no foreplay, that women are always up for sex and never say no, or if they do they don't really mean it.

What can you do? You could, I guess, make sure his phone is a voice one only, not one that can play video or even have pictures. Other than that, I'm stumped.

'"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.'

Agreed - it was the first thing about the OP which jumped out at me.
We also don't know whether OP's DS was using a text chat service or something more obscure, nor can we know that he was really talking a woman.

Well I assumed it was a text chat service - but how do you know it's not a 12-year-old girl he's swapping texts with? ie one of his friends?
You've had a lot of good advice on here OP, hope you can sort it out. But please don't make your disgust with porn turn into a display of disgust at your DS developing sexuality, sexual curiousity in a preteen is not abnormal or wrong (he may well be starting or have started puberty) and it's important to make sure he has access to good information about ethical sex.

I think you have to make 'representations' and questioning gender stereotyping part of normal conversation. I know that sounds really idealistic.

At 12 I also don't think viewing porn blokes is going to be that great for his own self image, either.

Cue years of thinking 'why haven't I got a monster cock and do I have to shave my balls etc?'

I'd be very concerned about the conversation as well - numerous incidences recently of older women seducing young teenage boys. it's just as damaging for them as for young teenage girls being pressured for sex by older men.

Meant to add - the Channel 4 programmes were very enlightening, particularly the bits where the teenage boys they spoke to were completely horrified by images of real pubic hair.

They totally imagined that a porn-style landing strip or even hairless was how it grew (or didn't)... and said that if they came across a bushy fanjo they'd be disgusted / ask her to have a shave. In my day, boys were grateful to get anywhere near one! I really pity teenage girls now.

"I have discussed things with him, but we live in a much more sexualised age than when we were children, if you make him feel dirty and ashamed, he will still do it, but hide it from you, this gives you the opportunity to balance out what he is looking at with reasoning and sense from your side."

a very sensible outlook, I agree completely

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.

Really? I'm obviously looking at the wrong sites.

I was talking about this with DH who said that lads of this age are just as likely to be looking at the beheadings, torturing and car crash footage that's available online, and that this material is far more worrying. DS has told me that his friends have watched stuff that gives them nightmares.

Does a child of 12 REALLY need a mobile phone that can do more than make calls and send texts?

We started to watch one of the Channel 4 programmes after my 80 year old mother rang me and told me to switch it on immediately for DS to see. DS said "Eeuurrgh" - why does Granny think I want to watch a programme about men's dangly bits?" - it was the one about penis size and hygiene. I think we may have to postpone viewing the series until a slightly later date!

He's not particularly interested in sex yet, but he already knows that porn boobs are fake, real women have hairy fanojos and that very few men have monster willies.

If you look at Croc Movies, it's a master menu page showing the full range of niches, from pregnancy porn, dwarfs, extreme cartoons, Bondage, over-60s, to topless secretaries and the most mild stuff.

One photo per each category if anyone wants examples of the kind of stuff that can be accessed.

I won't link, not even to the 'Pizza fetish', which seems to involve a man poking his cock through a pizza. Why are there lots of sites devoted to that?

Thankyou all so much for all your thoughtful replies. I waited until tonight to speak to him to gather my thoughts and this is what happened.
Said I found out he'd been accessing porn on his phone, he denied it so I had to tell him it's in the phones history so then he said 'It just pops up' so I told him that's why I'm going to take it back to the shop to put safer blocks on it to protect him because he is too young to be exposed to this kind of porn.(btw it was the horrible anal,no hair, calling women bitches type)
I told him I know he's curous but I didn't want him growing up too quickly by looking at this kind of thing he's too young.
I told him that real sex, real lovemaking is not like that at all, in fact it's better!
I said that it is disrespecting women think of your sister.
He was so embarressed by this time so I gave him a hug.
The named women, one was and older girl at his school (!!!)really had to make him understand that he needed to tell me if this person was a person in real life that he knew and one was a text sex chat line.
Have had a chat with ex and he is picking him up from sports later and I will give him the phone.
Phew thanks for sticking with me.