Mike it's great to see you're so knowledgeable about porn. Sounds like you may have been able to handle watching it and controlling your sexual desires. But obviously your wife wasn't.

Porn is a fantasy. It introduces fantasy into the mind and sets the individual up for creating a separate, secret fantasy life.

In other words...facilitates affairs.

JL, you make some interesting points. I would agree with about half of them. But I would have to strongly disagree with your initial statement that there is not enough data. If you go to focusonthefamily.com you will find plenty of data. If you go to everymansbattle.com you will also find large amounts of data about the affects of pornography. recoverynation.com is another website. You can even read on this board and see the devastation pornography has caused. The list goes on and on.

I would suggest that curiosity is normal, curiosity about a great many things in life. Our inability as parents to channel this curiosity into healthy and contructive patterns is what leads to unhealthy consequences for our children and their future.

I would also suggest that the women on this thread have a much clearer understanding of healthy sexual boundaries.

Hi Mike,

tst, I would hazard a guess and say that a large fraction of men have seen what is defined as porn at some point in their lives. I would say that most of societies ills are NOT due to porn.

I would also point out that women don't seem to use porn as it seems to be defined and yet their levels of affairs, lying, cheating, etc, is reaching the same levels of men. I am sure the female half of the population is so happy to have reached parity with men in this area.

The "data" that you point out are mostly opinions, selective census' etc. I am not saying it does not have merit. I am saying that ANY addict causes devastation, male or female. And it can be drugs, it can be alcohol, it can be sex with people other than ones spouse.

So if pornograph watching by men is the cause of all ills with men, what do we blame the extensive and ever increasing mess ups of women? Since apparently they don't use porn at near the levels of men?

I will agree alot of this has to do with parenting and proper channeling of curioustiy into healthy and constructive patterns, but that is not done by vilifying the male sex drive or curiosity.

I definitely would not agree about women having "healthy" sexual boundaries, unless you consider little or no sex healthy. Most of the men that come to this site complain of the lack of intimacy with their W's. I know it is the males fault. :RollieEyes: I say nuts to that. I say their boundaries are often as unhealthy as males.

The main point however is how does one address these issues with teenagers? It is not easy, but making it "forbidden" doesn't work for drinking, it is not working for drugs, it is not working for teenage sexual activity. Yet, SOMETHING works because really most teenagers are good kids. Most teenagers actually turn out to be good adults. Most teenagers need structure and guidance while being allowed to explore within their capabilities.

Finally I would suggest that girls growing up reading Romance stories or Bodice Rippers as they are often called receive just as distorted picture of sex, romance, intimacy and life as boys do reading porn. Both, desensitize the reader to the reality of themselves and the people they will meet and marry.

My real suggestion was a discussion with her son about how limited the view of the world is when seen through the lens of porn. If he comes to see this, its attraction and its influence will be greatly diminished.

The reality is a Victoria Secret show can be just as enticing as many things one finds on the web. Clearly showing violence and seeing it for hours a day has not turned the general population into serial killers, although I think there is evidence it does influence those susciptable to resorting to violence in the first place.

I am NOT arguing for porn, but I am arguing some of the studies I have seen suggest a lack of thought so deep it is astounding.

There was a study that claimed that porn caused killers to be killers. Why? Because it was found that most killers had looked at porn. Ok, but given that most boys and young men had looked at porn and were not killers or even bad citizens suggests that there is not a causal link other than porn is available to be seen by anyone, even killers.

The question was asked "what is normal?" It is the title of this thread. More importantly she is asking for suggestions on how to address this issue with her son. She received my suggestions to do with as she pleases.

1. Limit access to the internet.

2. Don't vilify him or his natural urges or curiousity.

3. Point out the extremely limited picture of himself and of women as portrayed by porn. He needs to know he is capable of more in any relation with women, and they are capable of more as well.

What I forgot to say, is that this needs to be an ongoing discussion appropriate for his emotional development, not necessarily his physical development.

Those are my thoughts and suggestion, no more or less.

JL

I've done quite a lot of reading and thinking about this recently.
I found my Dad's collection of porn when I was a young teenager (and even before) so its something I've been aware of for a long time. It definitely shaped and affected my sexual development as it wasn't just soft stuff. It took me years to get some of those images out of my head and find normal healthy loving sex as exciting. I'm a girl. I'm supposedly programmed to respond to loving romantic stuff and yet I wasn't. I wonder now how many guys are unsatisfied with a normal married sex life because they've been exposed to the variety and everchanging extreme stimulus of porn. It had given both me and my husband unrealistic ideas of what the female body should look like and made it much harder for me to accept my changed body after having 2 children as the women (girls?) we'd both seen for years were nothing like how I looked at only 25.

That said, its everywhere and its naive to suggest he won't see it, but I believe the harm comes when its a regular habit during teenage years and especially a secretive furtive shame. By limiting computer access you can reduce the exposure to times when he's not alone for hours. I think magazines etc are less harmful, they are not forever just one or two clicks away from something illegal or violent.

Oh, whap! Well struck.

WW only watched porn with me a few times a decade ago.

Honestly....you want to know what I think influenced her ethics, if anything? Desperate Housewives. Daytime soaps. Dramas in which the compelling lead characters have affairs at the drop of a hat, usually without consequence or remorse.

Porn is sexual fantasy. Romantic novels are romantic sexual fantasy. Soaps are romantic sexual fantasy. Affairs are living an entirely separate romantic/sexual fantasy life.

I think you all point out how indulging in romantic/sexual fantasy can easily lead a person down the wrong path.

So for the original poster, the book I recommended, Preparing your Son for Every Young Man's Battle addresses your questions. And if you have a daughter, Preparing your Daughter for Every Woman's Battle addresses exactly what Mike and JL have brought up about romance novels, soaps, and so much more.

That may be your experience, but it has not been mine. My H and I occasionally take out a video and turn it on; I have found that, for some reason, it releases some of my inhibitions (family-related), and we enjoy a better SF experience. I might add that we really barely even look at the TV screen, it becomes more like background noise, and it gives us something to watch, giggle over, and talk about how ridiculously exaggerated they make sex look like. In essence, we completely keep in mind at all times that it is just people making a film for a living. Not once have I ever thought about what goes on in those films at any other time, nor have I compared what they do to what my H and I do. And in 30 years, I've never found my H going behind my back to look up anything online, look at magazines, or watch one of the tapes. It is merely a 'tool' to use during SF.

Grievingdivorcee, We went through a similar situation with our 15 year old son.

The books mentioned are very good. The problem is getting them to READ them.

Each time that we found evidence of porn viewing he would get to not only READ one of the books, he got to give a BOOK REPORT TO BOTH OF US ON IT.

Homework is bad enough from your teacher, it really is BAD coming from your parents.

By the way, he got to pay for the books.

Good luck and God bless.

Jim

Jim, what a great idea! I only have 6 more months with my D18 before college, but I'm kinda wishing I had a reason to try that out!

My H asked her recently why she never gets in trouble like most of her friends, who are always getting grounded, or their cars taken away, or whatever. She replied: "Why would I be that stupid?" Out of the mouths of babes...

Replying to catperson, DH and I had used porn occasionally together that way too and it was fun, once I'd had years with him learning to respond normally to him and not having to run a porn movie script in my head to be excited.

I don't think its always harmful, but I think the internet is a really dangerous place for a teenager to be viewing it because of the really despicable content available and because its so easy to keep looking and looking and use up hours and hours because its a never ending supply. I don't think teenagers are equipped to deal with that responsibly. It seems rather like giving them the keys to a liquor store. Alcohol is not inherently bad either.

I totally agree! Teenagers have no place anywhere near such stuff. They're not equipped to understand it. I do hope, however, that all parents will sit down and discuss it all with their kids, whether the kids have access or not.

I would do this more if I could find tapes with only poorly endowed males :-)


lol....possibly only funny to me, sorry :-)

I really appreciate your balanced stand on this issue. The truth about the damage done by porn, soaps, R-rated movies and trashy romances can NOT be overstated.

Thank you all so much for your input. So many of you have been truly helpful and I appreciate it.