boys and porn...

[5madthings]

on the back of another thead and also as the mother of 4 boys who is concerned about this i thought i would start a thread to get advice, tips etc and for a general discussion on porn and its influence on boys.

my eldest is almost 13, the others are 10, 7 and 4, and i have an 18mth dd :)

as my eldest is getting older i am increasingly concerned about the prevelance and general acceptance of porn in society and that it is seen as 'normal' to look at it.

at home we have controlls on the home pc and ds1 has a mobile phone that cant access the internet, we have also not allowed him to have fb yet and the pc is in the dining rm so a main thoroughfare of the house so there is always someone about when he is on the pc.

i am however aware that not all his friends will have parents with the same controls and attitude and that many of them have better phones and their own internet access etc so he WILL no doubt be exposed to it a school or elsewhere. whilst part of me thinks this is a normal part of growing up, in the same way that boys used to share and swop porn magazines, i am worried by just how readily available it is over the internet and how much more 'hard core' a lot of it is nowadays.

we have a fairly relaxed attitude to sex etc so he can and does talk to us about stuff and he sees me and dp nude, ie if i am in the bath he may come into the bathroom to have a chat so he sees me, a fairly normal mum of 5 and therefore knows what a 'real' womans naked body looks like! he is just starting to become more self conscious around us and cover up a bit more but on the whole is fairly laid back about nudity.

i guess i am worried abour raising the issue of porn, knowing that he will probably look at it and maybe fairly soon! i want him to know its not reality and that i is normal to be curious and interested but also have a healthy respect for women (and men)

i guess i can tell him my views on porn tho i am not 100% sure where i stand on the one hand what goes on between consensual adults is up to them, on the other there are aspects of the porn industry that do concenr me, consent and violence etc. so i want to educate him about that side of things a bit i think, so he can make his own choices as he gets older from an informed pov? but how to go about that?

any good links, reading material etc?

and just thoughts on teen boys and porn and the influence it can have, ways to help him negotiate his way through this minefield!

thoughts please :)

Lurking, as the mother of an 11 year old DS.

waves at chickens i am hoping that some of the wise ladies of mnet who post in feminism will be able to help! :)

thankyou complexity i will look gail dines up and the slideshow :)

Thanks for starting this OP.

I think the Stop Porn Culture slide show might be for over 18s only, although they were working on a version for younger people I heard.

This is perhaps more suitable for teens:

I think we've discussed with DS:

The legal element - he is a minor, his friends are minors. There are legal issues with sending porn to minors or them viewing it, and we as adults are responsible for anything going from or to our IP address.

The legal element 2 - does he know enough about anything he may potentially view to know if it is legal or not to view it. Different things are legal in the US, England and Scotland. So what may be okay in one place may not be okay in another.

The ethics concerning the participants and links to other areas of the sex industry and consent.

The impact on his sexuality and how it develops or doesn't really develop if he is viewing stuff.

Consumerism.

We haven't had a long or detailed discussion about it, but in connection from questions from DS or DD when porn is mentioned in popular culture. He is on the computer a lot playing games with his friends, and I can hear them talking as he always has his door open - I can't hear them mention anything that concerns me. I suspect for all young people, peers play a massive part in this.

I would speculate being relaxed about the body is helpful in sex not being a big deal when they are older, but that is just speculation.

I have two ds's 6 y/o and 6 month old. So have yet to encounter this. But have given it thought. I plan to talk to my ds's factually about porn and tell them why people like it, why people use it and also tell them about the downside, how porn impacts the lives of people involved, or that use porn. Many times I've read on mm how relationship's are harmed by the (usually) husbands use of porn. So it could potentially cause many problems in their relationship's.
When we've had 'the chat' if they are curious and would like to watch porn, I would buy it, perhaps from a local sex shop or Ann summers and give it to them. At least that way, I will have some control over what they are watching.
I won't be able to stop what they get shown by friends though.

We're getting talktalk as you can opt out of porn. Also we keep talking DS1 is ten and already ds2's friends (9) have looked at 'naked ladies' online, trouble is that sort of search will bring up god awful stuff.

blueflyer how old is your ds if you have discussed these things? i am thinking of broaching the porn subject iwth ds1 asap! but tbf it hasnt come up, he really isnt that interested in sex yet tbh, he knows all the mechanics of it, he watched his sister being born! and we have talked to him and answered questoins including a memorable one about blowjobs and as i said we are relaxed and open with him etc

porn is yet to come up, i am not sure how to start a conversation with him about it, its finding the right opportunity and context iykwim?

DS is 14, but young for his age. We went through the Usborne 'where babies come from' book when he was about 10. The porn conversation came about as a result of DD, 11, asking what porn was as a result of hearing the word on a sitcom.

We talked about it in quite simple terms, and I think it was easy because DS has been taught a lot of stuff about ethical issues at school. He looked at gay rights and made a booklet on it, looking at things like this advert:

So I felt that we could start from a context that ethics are important when looking at any issue, and that sex itself was not a bad thing or something to be judgmental about. But it was a short discussion in very simple terms, because DD is only 11 and was the one who was actually asking.

And I did stress the legal aspect. DS has recording equipment so that he can record youtube videos of game play, and he and his friends are very competent with technology. My biggest fear would be that one of them would, in years to come, record something sexual and pass it around, and then of course the police are involved. Because that has happened in the UK a number of times, and I suspect none of the parents of those children thought that it would be their child who did that, whether it was a boy or a girl. And I think that is a general point, even if not about sex, that what you put on the internet can haunt you forever. DS is not allowed to upload anything without me or DH checking the entire content first.

I wouldn't conflate sex and porn. I think it's important he knows they're not the same thing. Being open about sex is not the same as being free about porn. It links to the point about porn taking away sexuality and turning it into something very restrictive.

There's a website called something like anti porn men which might have useful stuff.

Just to say my post was general in relation to the theme, not in response or critical of the last post. Just wanted to make sure that didn't come across wrong.

yes i wont address them as one and the same thing, more that i am aware as his sexuality and awareness develps he may be interested in porn and to a degree this is normal but i want him to understand porn is a seperate thing and doesnt have to be part of sex orfhis discovery of sex. equally i dont want him to think he cant talk to us about porn if he feels he needs to, particularly if he ends up seeing stuff via friends, i would rather he be open with us, but i am not going to condone him looking at it! it is illegal if under 16 and tbh its not something i would be happy with at any age, i understand consenting adults etc may be happy wit it, but i certainly have my reservations about hte porn industry etc.

Ds10 looked up anal sex and MILF on the computer- I knew immediately it was him because it was sandwiched between club penguin!
I applauded his curiosity and said that was normal but i explained I didn't like what he was looking at and why. Said this is not real life, real people etc and it could harm him...I said when he was an adult he could do what he liked- but I hoped he wouldn't - he was mortified n there was no discussion it was very 1-way unfortunately. I made the controls super tight and warned all friends parents to do same. I found it quite distressing really.

Good point about feeling they are able to talk about what they have seen. Showing children porn is illegal for a good reason, so if someone is showing it to them they need to be able to discuss their feelings, as with any form of abuse.

I hadn't thought about that element of it, and will talk to the kids about it. It is something the girls talk about in the Scottish teen video, that they feel uncomfortable when other people look at porn at school. So quite a lot of kids probably need people they trust that they can talk to about stuff they're shown.

TBH I would be devastated if my ten year old looked up MILF or anal.

I WAS horrified. He heard the words/discussion in the playground. Nice.
Still, I learnt a lesson about computer controls pretty quickly. (The computer is in the living room btw)

Another lurker here with an 8 year old DS.

When my ds was 14 (now 17) some boys at his school hacked into the system and downloaded porn onto the computers, so we had a discussion about it all.

I seperated it from sex, told him the reality of the industry, abuse, violence etc. I said if he had to have porn I'd willingly buy him a magazine as the internet is full of horrific images. I don't know what was seen at the school, ds wasn't a part of it, but he's not interested in it now. I think the extreme reaction of the school/parents scared them.

A different school had problems with dc's sending naked pictures of themselves to each other which ended up involving the police.

Modern technology certainly gives them a lot of avenues to get involved in it and it's not always the obvious downloading milfs thats the problem.

Hate to brake it to you, I'm a boy and I know for a fact no matter how hard you try your son will get porn! Men don't swapp it or anything like that your son will simply find it and if it's not hardcore it'll be simple "soft" porn. Let it happen most boys and men I know do it and they're absolutely fine and don't have any sexual concerns, people seem to panic about it but it's nothing