Talk to Your Teenage Boy about Porn

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, we're going to talk about the conversation you need to have with your teenaged son about Porn. 

I know, I know. You don't want to have this conversation. But honestly, you need to. Our kids are being exposed to stuff that *we've* never even seen and at a really early age.  And don't even tell me that your kid has never seen anything.  I'll give myself a cramp rolling my eyes so hard.  Every kid now has a tiny computer in their hands and even if you've put content filters on *your* kid's phone (and if you haven't, I've got a bunch of videos on this topic), I guarantee you his friends have access to everything that is out there -- and it is a lot. 

If this is your son's introduction to sex, he is going to need a little help in interpreting what he is seeing. Okay -- I'm not asking you to break down all of the sexual positions in a porno for him, but you do need to give your teenage boy a basic understanding of what porn is, what it's for, and how it differs from real life. We owe it to our boys to help them understand what they are seeing. 

When my son was 13, I told him I needed to have an awkward conversation with him. He knows that I'm the one that does the sex talks in our house, so he was understandably uneasy. My husband sat in as well, but didn't say much (by choice), and we chose a time that my daughter was out of the house. 

You'll have to judge for yourself the level of discomfort your son can handle. Unless you have a very unusual kid, this will be uncomfortable for him.  I would say you have no more than 10 minutes.  My son at about that point, stood up, put his hands on the table and said, "And I'm done" and walked out. Fortunately, I had made most of the points that I needed to by then, but that's why you need to plan what you are going to say ahead of time. 

And here is how I think it should go:

1. Fake Assessment - do not ask your son if he has seen porn. He will lie to you (unless you've already caught him, that is). Ask your son on a scale from a little to a lot, how much porn he has seen. He will say a little regardless of the actual answer.  Your response should be "Great!  Then this is the perfect time to have this conversation."
2. New to his generation - tell him porn wasn't always easy to access. In fact, when we were growing up, guys might find a girlie magazine under their dad's mattress, but almost no one had seen an actual video of people having sex. The way we learned about sex was by figuring it out for the first time and fumbling our way through it. Generally with someone else who also had no idea what they were doing. 
3. Not real - porn isn't real. It's a staged performance. By a bunch of actors who are paid to look like they are having a good time. Sometimes they are having a good time, but many times they are just making a living. Why?
4. Why? - the point of porn is specifically to make men aroused. It's not geared towards women with a very few exceptions. But there's something about arousal where it requires more and more stimulation each time to get the same level of arousal. So, what does the porn industry do?  Instead of making videos of people having normal sex, they have to make stranger and extreme sexual situations. 
5. Violent/Extreme - so the videos get more violent and farther away from what a normal sex life looks like.  Like 90% of porn involves one woman with three or more men and there is often violence towards the woman including frequent choking.  NONE of that is normal.  So what about the women?
6. Women/Girls - let me answer that question for you. They are not really enjoying it. Particularly the violent and degrading stuff. They are performing for a paycheck.  Real girls do not want you to treat them like that.  They don't.  They don't want to be hurt.  What do they want?
7. Communication, Consent, Caring - they are going to roll their eyes to the very back of their heads when you start in on this, but there needs to be some counterpoint to what our culture is promoting. No one expects you to know what you are doing right away. Ask the girl if it is okay. Do not force, do not try to convince. Just go with what she says. If she seems unsure, back the hell off. Care about her and things will go well. 

That's it!  If you get to the end, your son will have done better than mine!  I was less organized when I had this talk (and let's face it, I take every opportunity to have follow up conversations to the extreme consternation of my kids), but these were the points I needed to make. 

Halfway through, I asked him if this was all stuff he knew already. He looked startled and said -- I haven't heard ANY of this stuff before. Somehow, we all think that our kids are basically walking around with the same stuff that is in our heads, despite the fact that we've never had a conversation like this with them AND that they are growing in a very different world.  Our sons need just as much help as our daughters in navigating some of this rough terrain and it's up to us to make sure they have good info. 

That's it. Let me know how you make out. Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!