Help! Teen son's sexual confusion re: anime

[LizLinley]

Lovely GC women: I don't want this post to be novel-length so I'll try and be quick, but I'd really love some advice. I found Magdalen Berns about three years ago and went from a completely blinkered leftist to politically homeless. My son is 14 years old about a week ago, and I've just found materials on his (my) computer that are very disturbing, along with posts on an LGBT reddit thread saying he's confused about his sexuality.

He's a masculine, terrific boy who has social anxiety. No other markers of being gay - he's not effeminate, likes rough sports, very physical, never preferred his friends to be girls, never wanted 'girl' toys or clothes. If anything, I think he's likely terrified of girls, due to his anxiety. He simply can't imagine romance of any kind. He's not ready.

But now, LGBT Reddit has told him that because he's attracted to Link — a video game character in anime style drawn like a woman but said to be male — he might be gay. Despite saying he has crushes on girls at school (with no indications that he has any real-life attraction to boys), this LGBT board is, predictably, affirming that he must be gay, which has sent him into a rapid-flowing current of anime porn, much of it gay/trans, but all the characters being penetrated depicted as extremely feminine. The sex in this porn is typically heterosexual, but with two dicks. I know. Weird thing to say. But it's not two men. It's just not. It's a trick.

Mumsnet, what the hell do I do?? I have no issue with gay people and would love my son either way, but he's getting swept up in a highly toxic online community. I'm talking to him tomorrow and am afraid of embarrassing him; saying something to make him think I'm homophobic; god, saying anything that's the wrong thing. The porn was awful, and I'm not a prude.

I came here because GC feminists have been instrumental. Gay or straight, I trust them more than anyone, lonely as I am being a free thinking, non-woke woman in a progressive bubble. There's no one else I can talk to about this. Please help. Thanks so much.

I see that some posters, having pored over comments the OP made, are now attacking her. I wonder what the actual motivation is to police the OP in such a way?

As with many people who share their painful experiences here, you'll never know how many people you've helped.

You'd think this is a positive rather than something to shut down wouldn't you?

This is a timely article by Angus Fox for the OP. He was recently on the excellent podcast Gender: a wider lens with Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley taking about teenage boys affected by gender issues.

quillette.com/2021/05/11/when-sons-become-daughters-part-v-the-links-between-trans-identity-gifted-minds-categorical-thinking-and-anime

Hi gryphon sounds really good. Does anyone know if there is a cheaper one?

@Chienloup

Your son can't be gay because he never had girls' toys (toys are for all children btw) and likes rough and tumble? Riiiighhht. You do know that the ONLY thing that indicates someone is gay is a sexual attraction to the same sex? Not what games they played as a child, not what toys they had, not what they wear, not what they look like? Please don't talk to your child about sexuality - your attitude is at best ignorant, at worst dangerous.

As for the pp who used the utterly vile term "sissified" - you disgust me.

@Chienloup, I have responded multiple times to explain this: those are not my stereotypes, but the vastly reported indicators as noted by mainstream psychology and sexuality studies. If you're angry that behavioural and preference markers of future homosexuality in children are observed and discussed in a widespread manner, then you can go ahead and rage at the scientists, not at me. I was as surprised at it as well.

And 'sissy porn' and 'sissification' is not my word, but an actual trans porn genre. It's a fetish — the 'forced (medical) feminization' of formerly straight, masculine men into little girls, and then used sexually by other men. It is a fetish hugely popularized by anime, and pointed at as extremely influential in many autogynephile circles.

Just wanted to say that I had a sexual relationship with a man into sissy porn and he didn't identify as either trans or gay. He was hopelessly addicted to it and unable to have regular penetrative sex or sex without wearing lacy underwear or role playing. I couldn't stick the relationship out. It was intense and too much about his needs.

He knew it was a problem for him and was deeply conflicted over it. I wonder whether he hadn't discovered it at a formative age whether it would have been a thing for him or not. He was very mixed up about both his gender and sexuality. Early 20s.

Some of these comments are unbelievable

Hi! Thank you for explaining your dilemma so perfect. I was having a hard time putting it in words. I am a mom of a 13 yr old girl who is also in to anime and is going through the same thing. I of course would accept her regardless but the explanation she gives me of bigender just seems not her… she’s the same as your son anti social and she also so tender for her her age… I think I might have sheltered her too much. she has no inkling in to sexual side of anime it but they always seem so sexual to me in a way. I started searching went in to tick tock, google, Reddit for myself to get more clarity and it just seems so much like a trend of kids that are in to anime find themselves in. Can I ask how did it go if you did speak to your son?