Letters to the Editor
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Problem with porn...
Many posts have been very neutral about the fact that this CHILD was accessing porn. When he is an adult, he can choose to use/not use porn. In the meantime, the parents need to parent him.
My issue with porn, in general, is that it limits the sexual imagination. I think that this is especially harmful to young people. When I caught my teen with (hetero) porn, I explained my view that sex is a dance and porn is instruction of a very limited type. We cannot understand dancing (as a general construct) by watching people do the minuete over and over. Porn reinforces scripts that are boring. I also was very blunt with him about my feelings, as a woman, about the images of women in porn. Young men who expect a shaved pussy and bowling ball boobs are apt to be disappointed in their female partner. This argument can be used to discuss gay porn, as well.
I do not believe that porn gives young people a peek at the "real world" of adult sexuality.
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Dear Dad,
We 'first responders' seem to be more-less of one mind on this issue - let the kid be. Mercy, isn't a 13 year old boy looking at porn about the most normal thing on the planet? And a 13 year old boy looking at gay porn is probably the second most normal thing on the planet - just because the majority of 13 year old boys are going to be looking at str8 porn. I'll go only this far: If he was alone while looking at gay porn, I do think the probability of him growing up to be a gay man is slightly higher. If he had friends over, all bets are off - peer pressure, wide-eyed childhood fascination, etc., - you can't read anything at all into it in that situation.
So, like the rest of us, I disagree with your wife that it's not 'normal,' - it's perfectly normal, just a little on the gay-side of normal. But, Dad, I'm also going to defend you a little bit. It HAS occurred to me that, while we all encourage you to love your son regardless of his developing sexual orientation, I nevertheless can understand how it might be disappointing to you, and even a bit alarming, to think that one of your children might grow up to be gay. After all, isn't it perfectly natural for a Dad to want his sons to grow up to be quite similar to himself? If you love baseball, don't you kind of hope your son will love baseball too? Sure you do. If gardening is your passion, don't you sometimes fantasize about a future version of your son, home from college, helping you rip out those overgrown bushes at the back of the yard, planting some beautiful new ones, and sharing a beer in the late afternoon while admiring your day's work? Sure you do. You want to be able to share your own life’s pleasures with your son. If you think women are HOT, and you have gotten great pleasure out of admiring women and kissing women and touching women, and deeply love your wife - don't you want your son to enjoy all those things too? Sure you do. And for that matter, due to your own natural ignorance about what it's like to live as a gay man, mightn't you fear for you son, and the basic quality of his life, if he SHOULD grow up to be gay? Sure you would. That fear seems quite natural to me, even if you are quite liberal and have gay male friends, and significantly worse if you're not and don't. So, you and your wife don’t know what the future will be like if your son is gay – it’s no longer so easy to imagine. You fear the unknown – perfectly natural.
But let me assure you of two things – you love your son? You intend to create a home which is a nurturing nest in which he and his siblings can develop into strong versions of their adult selves? Succeed at that, and you and he will be able to develop a strong adult relationship one day that can take in stride a little thing like the chromosomal makeup of the person he brings home to Thanksgiving dinner. The other thing I want to assure you of is that it IS, absolutely, possible for a gay man to have a wonderful quality of life, full of love and friendship and strength and beauty and wonder and discovery and self-respect and accomplishment. Yes, that’s a high bar, but I get pretty close to it myself….so it can happen!
(Apologies for the rather militant-looking username. It’s more appropriate when I’m ranting about some issue of religion or the politics of sexual orientation. Not really appropriate here.)
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What if he had been looking at Playboy instead?
As a fifty-eight year old gay man, I remember (faintly) my adolescent days. The curiosity, the urges, the longings and attractions, but didn't know how to deal with them. Back then I didn't even know what it was to be gay--that there were even other young men or women who felt the way I did (that took another ten years or so). Times have changed.
Bottom line, don't force your son to hide, to lie, to feel shame and most importantly, to feel he can't talk openly to you. If he senses some disapproval from you (not necessarily to the porn itself, but to the possibility that indeed feels same-sex interests), he may close you out and find a "closet" in which to put this part of his life.
To love our children means to accept them for who and what they are. They depend on us for intelligent and mature guidance, even when they say they don't want it. So, be there for him and let him know you trust him to be the young man he is becoming, whatever that may eventually be.
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nice reponses
What a treat to read multiple pages of responses that are all pretty much sane and accepting.
I don't have much to add, other that from my perspective as a gay man I agree that there is a good chance that a 13-year old kid who is looking at gay porn is gay, but by no means is it definite.
I strongly agree that there would not be any point in discussing the issue with the child directly at this point. If he is gay or bi, he may not be quite ready to acknowledge it others, or even himself yet. When I was 13, I was definitely attracted to boys, but I wasn't sure what was going on yet, and I wouldn't have been ready to talk to anyone about it.
I also agree that it would be really helpful for this boy's parents to make it known that they think being gay is OK. They dont' have to be all didactic about it, but could bring it up when it comes up in the news for example - next time there is an antigay ballot initiative in their state, they could talk about why they disagree with it. (That would be good whether he's gay or straight!). When I was 13, I never heard anything positive about being gay from anyone anywhere and that was painful.