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Comment: Thanks. Sounds like good advice.
Questioner: Joni B
Subject: Son views porn on computer
Question: Hello there! A little background first. I am mid 50’s, married and have five great children: 24, 22, 18, 16, 12. All are great kids, good grades, well liked and from a happy and secure homelife. We attend church on Sundays.
Our 18 year old son, is a college freshman and attends a local community college. He has been getting up at night and viewing porn sites on the computer.
He clears the history on his email site but I find it in the temp folder site. He looks at it once or twice a week for about 1/2 hour each time. I did find hidden porn pics he had printed out when I was moving him to another room about a year ago but was not aware that he was looking at this stuff on the computer until it started popping up randomly.
I assumed it was hackers or whatever. My husband has talked to him and he said he was sorry and wouldn’t do it any more. Needless to say it continues. My husband says it is normal and should just give him a Playboy magazine.
My husband does not look at such mags or sites. Our son has not dated much and does not do much socially but is well liked by both sexes. I know that his urges and curiosity is normal and a stress release but don’t like this porn stuff.
My husband said he used to look at mags when he was our son’s age. He is our first son and the youngest is a son also. I am not sure what to do or how to approach this. Any suggesions would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Joni
Answer: Joni, It is normal for teens to be curious about female bodies. There is nothing about PORN I consider to be normal. The women and men who are involved in porn have been sexually abused as children and my value system demanded that I be true to my value system, what I knew was an industry which preys on peoples vulnerabilities and was not allowed in my house.
I did spend much time discussing how degrading it is to women and men with my sons. (They are grown and I don’t honestly know if they do look at it or not however, I am quite comfortable they know it isn’t a good industry and they are responsible for their choices not me.) I recieve calls all the time from men who have sexual addictions and want to find love and happiness in their lives. They have substituted intimate relationships for their addiction to maturbating to porn. After all porn doesn’t involve any form of risk or possible rejection from a partner.
However, your son is 18 and you really have no control over him, what you do have control over is what occurs in your house. What concerns me more is having told him how you feel about this, he is not, and could respect your feelings and check his porn out somewhere else. Showing respect to your feelings has a great deal to do with how he will respond to the women in his life.
A good time for him to practice on his mother showing her respect.
Sincerely,
M Kay Keller
