Teens and Porn--If you've been there, how did you handle it

[umsami]

Topic says it all.

What do you think is the best way to address it?  I understand curiosity and hormones and such.... I don't think porn is the way, though, and it can be harmful.  It's far more hardcore than in my day, too.  

[Katy]

Are we discussing a 14 year old or an 18 year old?

[bethben]

I knocked him off the computer and am now monitoring everything.  I don't let him access the router and if he does need to use his computer, he does it in a public space with me around.  I will log him onto the router, hide the password, and "forget network" to make sure he can't log back on.  We had to talk to the neighbors into password protecting their open guest network since that was able to be accessed also.  His phone has no data and we signed up with a special program with the network provider to only give his phone access to what we say it can have.  In addition, I have a windows parental monitoring program that only allows certain websites even if he is outside of the home (ie at school) accessing his computer.  It is the most annoying part of my life.  Part of how this is working is that ds wants to be monitored so he can't access stuff.  He never realized the extent I would go to but is ok with it.  At this point, the 13 year old will have even less access to technology than his 17 year old brother.  No, I'm not sure how to help them guard their computer time when they leave our home, but at least I can try to help with their developing brain pathways.  

[umsami]

14 year old.

 

I did find this good NYTimes article https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/magazine/teenagers-learning-online-porn-literacy-sex-education.html

[HomeAgain]

We ran into this at around age 14.  The first thing we did was lock down the computer.  I changed the password on his ipod, too.  And then we talked.  Mostly dad talked, but the three of us managed to open up healthy conversations about what is/isn't real, what the industry is like, how it is often predatory, what relationships really are and what being intimate with another human being was really like (not graphically - but enough to show that porn is not the reality, especially the stuff he found!).  We also were clear about our house rules.  Dad had a later discussion with him about.........alternatives...and how to deal with how he felt and his curiosity.

None of this was comfortable.  Oh, dear heavens was it NOT comfortable!  But it was a lot healthier than how my parents' generation handled things, and my kid....well, he got past the growing pains and was more trustworthy. 

[umsami]

1 minute ago, ___ said:

One of our ds (mid-teen maybe?  can't remember) tried looking at some stuff on the net once.  I shut off the internet instantly.  No other screens back then, so nothing there.

I wasn't really sure what to do about it except what I did.  And tell him to stay away from the stuff.  Later, I found a book called Every Young Man's Battle by Arterburn, Stoeker,  and Yorkey, which I got and had both ds's read.  It's Christian based and we're Christian, so that worked OK for our our family.  

As an aside, for various reasons, I've been doing a lot of reading about such things over the past year or so.  I wish I'd read up on this stuff when my kids were young and talked to them about all of it back then, knowing what I know now.  Most of the books I've read are Christian based, fwiw.  Even having been married for 38 years, and this being my second marriage, etc., these books were eye-opening for me, that's for sure.  I never realized just how little I knew ...  I've also sent a copy of a couple of them to one dd, and will probably send some to other dd's eventually.  And ds's.  (all grown now)  

Your ds may be too young for this, but dh and I are reading some of these aloud, together, and that's been extremely helpful.  We stop and discuss as we read through them.  It's not just about the porn, for what that's worth.  There's so much more to it than that.  However, if I had a kid who was immersed in the stuff, I'd have no qualms about reading through one of these books with him and calling it part of his hs'ing.  I mean, if he thinks he's old enough to look at that kind of stuff, then he's old enough to read about it and hear the 'other' side of the story.  

 

Can you list some of the books you've read or would recommend?

[Ottakee]

I would talk, discuss, listen, etc but then lock down everything possible.  Disney Circle is one way and there are others.

I can say that porn can destroy a family, utterly destroy it.

 

[Robin M]

What we have run into is people on deviantart sexualizing comic book and video game characters such as Sonic and Mario.  Yeah. yucky!  They can get pretty graphic and even if they are anthropomorphic animals it is still porn.  We had all the talks about why it's wrong.  My son's computer isn't tied into the internet and is only used for typing and drawing.  Even at 18 his internet time is supervised and we usually look at things together.  He's quite sensitive to smells so the last time he was tempted I told him if he was going to look at crap, he would to have clean out the crap in the litter boxes.  It was effective but made him super nervous.  I let him off the litter box hook after a while.  As he matures, he's more willing to discuss what tempts him about it and the lines of communication are always open.   This type of thing will always be an ongoing temptation for any guy because it's so prevalent on the internet now.  Yes, sometimes the hormones overrule the brain and it will be a personal battle but he'll have to learn to avoid the temptation because he knows it is wrong.  

[umsami]

21 minutes ago, StellaM said:

https://www.culturereframed.org/compose-yourself/

https://www.culturereframed.org/parents-of-teens/

Written to teens

These are excellent.  Thank you.

[goldberry]

((hugs))  Been there done that, girls also are not immune.  DD was pretty young (under 12) when she stumbled on something accidentally and then kept returning to it.  When we talked about it she said it gave her a sick feeling inside but she couldn't stop. She was actually relieved to be caught.  When she switched computers later she reminded us to make sure to turn back on her monitoring software.

Lots of conversation, but also young enough to heavily monitor access as well.  

[bethben]

My son knew it was wrong and was having a struggle getting away from it.  I think he felt like he could handle things on his own (he's  very much independent and always has been).  He wrote research papers on it for school and knew all the reasons why he shouldn't.  He didn't understand the addictive nature of it (even though he researched this very thing) and still wanted the internet/gaming part of his computer enough that he was unwilling to talk to us about it.  Once we found out about it, we did shut everything down completely.  His dopamine response is screwed up and needs some time to readjust.  I have a friend whose family was very badly affected by porn addiction and she applauds me for shutting down the internet.  If she could do it again and knew about it, she would have done the same.

[SeaConquest]

1 hour ago, StellaM said:

https://www.culturereframed.org/compose-yourself/

https://www.culturereframed.org/parents-of-teens/

Written to teens

 

Thank you for these links. Thank you also, Umsami, for starting this convo. 

[Spryte]

5 minutes ago, SeaConquest said:

 

Thank you for these links. Thank you also, Umsami, for starting this convo. 

 

Times two.

[Katy]

Despite our faith, we primarily used secular articles and blog posts explaining the science of brain health.  This is because I wanted the kid to understand a logical, neuroscience based reason why he should avoid the temptation, rather than a religious, shame-based reason.  Sex is a biological need, and IME shame doesn't stop the urge for a need.  But rational reasons to wait for an appropriate real-life relationship can.

We also discussed two couples we know in real life who got divorced over this issue. Specifically because when a man gets addicted to porn he can lose the capacity to have sex in real life, at least repeatedly with the same woman.  Several years back we discussed this and I think I linked the articles then, but I can't seem to find the articles now. The same thing has been written about many times since then, I just don't have the hours to pre-read articles for you today. I did find this book on Amazon, and from the description and top few reviews I gather that it contains the same sorts of information that was in the articles: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Porn-Pornography-Addiction/dp/099316160X/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=099316160X&pd_rd_r=AEGG0YH0TP9QDFC9TQDJ&pd_rd_w=GC119&pd_rd_wg=A6zjY&psc=1&refRID=AEGG0YH0TP9QDFC9TQDJ

I don't know if the above book discusses it, but another logic based reason we use is that most women who are in porn are there because they were victimized as children. Their boundaries were violated so completely that they now don't have any, and porn is a way of financially exploiting their past abuse.

After we went over the neuroscience we also discuss biblical reasons to avoid porn. Personally I find the bible verses can get you stuck in some circular logic though.  If you're committing adultery by looking at a woman in lust, at what point is it lust and at what point is it merely temptation?  And then you get caught in the whole modesty/purity thing that I HATE.  I hate the purity concept because of Elizabeth Smart and the idea that her worth had anything to do with never having had sex - so when she was repeatedly raped she felt worthless. And I hate the idea that just because a boy stumbled into porn he is somehow now not pure. His brain now may go to the porn he saw rather than catalog images previous generations may have fixated on, but at that age his brain would have fixated on something.

And I hate modesty as a concept not only because it blames women for men's behavior, but because as someone who has lived all over the country the concept is HIGHLY dependent on local culture and relativism than it is on any real measure of what's always appropriate and what's not. A Southern baptist church in South Florida will have teen girls showing up at church events in string bikinis and no one will notice or think it's not appropriate.  The same denomination in Alabama would slut-shame that same girl. The climates are not THAT different but the cultures are. "Modesty" as a church topic also seems to be alarmingly brought up much more often when someone in church leadership is threatened by the attractiveness of young women.  This might be another female her own age in a group leader position, or a creepy old male pastor who should be looking at a 12 year old that's younger than his daughters as the children they are rather than an object, but IME it is specifically used as a weapon against other people rather than a means to reign in one's own temptation.

Athletes don't tend to have the same sorts of body modesty issues that non-athletes do. Their bodies are tools used to accomplish a goal rather than a collection of sexual objects. And other countries have vastly different ideas of what body parts are appropriate to expose and what aren't. So as a family we talk about "ladylike" dress instead of "modest." We also use the terms pretty, appropriate, and trying too hard.   Well, I do.  DH just refers all questions about these topics to me.

[Liz CA]

14 hours ago, umsami said:

Can you list some of the books you've read or would recommend?

 

"Every Man's Battle" by Arterburn. Another version is called "Every Young Man's Battle."

There are also weekend workshops with follow up. There is a fee for this. If interested, check the website:

https://newlife.com/

Just wanted to add to the neuroscientific aspect Katy touched on that it has an escalatory component not unlike drugs as it activates the same dopamine circuitry in the brain.

[Liz CA]

1 hour ago, ___ said:

For the record, I've never been in a church where I would even attempt to deal with something like this, much less bring it up.  The last church we tried, over a year ago, the preacher himself told a gross joke to some of the men hanging around after the Saturday morning Bible study (dh was one of them - he was stunned and very disappointed ... we didn't stay in that church).

The way dh and I use the Christian books is by filtering out what is useful and tossing what isn't - just like we do with anything we read.    

I do believe the 'church' as a whole avoids this topic, or has such a skewed view of it, that the end result is that the white elephant in the living room thrives and grows even within the church itself.  Only my own opinion, of course.  ymmv 

 

Sadly, I find this to be true with some churches.

[umsami]

This is a must watch (from the Culture Reframed course): 

 

 

 

[6packofun]

Education and we told the kid that we'd be randomly monitoring his stuff for a while as he gets educated on the proper context for sex AND treatment of women.  This is in accordance with our worldview, so we made sure that he still held to the same one or had decided to forego that for a thought system that allowed him, morally, to look at sexually explicit pictures of someone else's wife, mother, daughter, etc. that he's not in a relationship with (much less married to).  We talked about the sex industry and human trafficking, we talked about how solo gratification can be selfish and harmful to future relationships. We talked about the danger of addiction.  We didn't tell him that we and/or God are disgusted with him because even though it's wrong that's not how we roll. But we did say it's the wrong choice based on all of the above factors.  Not cool to have that stuff in your head, son.

https://fightthenewdrug.org/

[Scarlett]

10 minutes ago, 6packofun said:

Education and we told the kid that we'd be randomly monitoring his stuff for a while as he gets educated on the proper context for sex AND treatment of women.  This is in accordance with our worldview, so we made sure that he still held to the same one or had decided to forego that for a thought system that allowed him, morally, to look at sexually explicit pictures of someone else's wife, mother, daughter, etc. that he's not in a relationship with (much less married to).  We talked about the sex industry and human trafficking, we talked about how solo gratification can be selfish and harmful to future relationships. We talked about the danger of addiction.  We didn't tell him that we and/or God are disgusted with him because even though it's wrong that's not how we roll. But we did say it's the wrong choice based on all of the above factors.  Not cool to have that stuff in your head, son.

https://fightthenewdrug.org/

This is what I taught my son also.  Almost word for word.  That link looks interesting.

[cintinative]

For younger kids, we read this: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Pictures-Bad-Porn-Proofing-Todays/dp/0615927335

 

ETA: You don't need to have had the sex talk to read this book. 

One of its approaches is to talk about our thinking brain versus our emotional brain. 

 

[Rachel]

2 hours ago, cintinative said:

For younger kids, we read this: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Pictures-Bad-Porn-Proofing-Todays/dp/0615927335

 

ETA: You don't need to have had the sex talk to read this book. 

One of it's approaches is to talk about our thinking brain versus our emotional brain. 

 

I just ordered this, thank you. 

[Tree Frog]

On 5/22/2018 at 9:07 PM, Robin M said:

What we have run into is people on deviantart sexualizing comic book and video game characters such as Sonic and Mario.  Yeah. yucky!  They can get pretty graphic and even if they are anthropomorphic animals it is still porn.  We had all the talks about why it's wrong.  My son's computer isn't tied into the internet and is only used for typing and drawing.  Even at 18 his internet time is supervised and we usually look at things together.  He's quite sensitive to smells so the last time he was tempted I told him if he was going to look at crap, he would to have clean out the crap in the litter boxes.  It was effective but made him super nervous.  I let him off the litter box hook after a while.  As he matures, he's more willing to discuss what tempts him about it and the lines of communication are always open.   This type of thing will always be an ongoing temptation for any guy because it's so prevalent on the internet now.  Yes, sometimes the hormones overrule the brain and it will be a personal battle but he'll have to learn to avoid the temptation because he knows it is wrong.  

My sister did something similar. When she discovered her ds had started watching porn, she monitored what he was looking at and told him that if he watched it again, they (ds and his mom) would sit down and watch it together. He watched again, so they watched the porn together. She pointed out everything that wasn't real, discussed the issues with porn (the industry, exploitation, etc.) She said it was very awkward, but her ds never watched it again.