I agree.
Hey mipiace - the good news is he ain’t going to get pregnant anytime soon.
I’m not a parent or child psychology expert, so I’m not sure what to make of this situation. I do think, however, that it’s important for you to tell your daughters about child molestation (not necessarily in graphic detail; just make it clear that there are some parts of their bodies that other people besides you and their doctor shouldn’t be touching), and make it clear that they should tell you if anyone tries to touch them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable, no matter how close that person is to them. Even if you’ve told them before, which you probably have, it might be a good idea to remind them.
First, where exactly did you find the pictures?
Second, have you talked to your daughter’s about the control they have over their bodies? Meaning, have you told them explicitly the ways in which it is appropriate for another person to touch them (with the appropriate qualifiers for you and their pediatrician)? If not, you must have this conversation asap and you must reinforce it until it becomes ingrained in them.
Third, you should definitely sit down with your son and tell him about your experience. Not in too much detail - but make sure he understands that this is something horrible that has had lasting repercussions in your life. Perhaps, you could find a seminar or short class about child molestation he could attend?
This I think could help in two ways: 1) if he truly isn’t into child pornography it could help him understand why it’s so bad to even pass it around; 2) if he is sexually excited by this, maybe this could prevent him from becoming a pedophile.
mipiace, I wish you and your family well.
To those who are saying that she’s overreacting and that her son is just a normal teenager, how do you know? We all know that pedophiles exist and they don’t just appear out of nowhere.
I think that, as long as he does understand the process of producing kiddie porn, casual disregard for the product is even more scary than the idea he may be into it. Opposite of good is indifference, and all that.
I agree with Already in use, you need to remind your daughters that not everyone out there has thier best interests in mind.
I also think that, given the gravity of what you found, and the fact that he lied, he has lost your trust. Tell him this.
And this may be a controversial suggestion, but since it was found in his room, search his room (with his full knowledge - but not participation, and don’t let him know ahead of time), as I think he has forfeited any right of privacy in this matter. It will also serve as a reality check and hopefully drive home the seriousness of the situation.
Also, and importantly, this will also tell you where to go next. If you find more of the same, get him help (start with a psychologist with experience in treating sexual assult/sexual problems maybe?*)
If you find nothing but Victoria’s secret and the like, chaulk it up to normal teen exploration and the ‘ha ha’ factor.
*BTW I suggest a person specialized in sexual issues simply because they understand the subtlties and twists of human sexuality.
A lot of young guys don’t understand the devestation that happens to the victims of child porn. They think its funny that she was promiscuous or whatever. I’d try to explain to him the consequences of it for the young people involved so he doesn’t WANT to look at it. I mean if you punish him, he’s going to think that the reason he is stopping is because he’ll get in trouble with you.
I mostly agree with the people that think it’s one of those “wow look at this things” As long as you don’t have any other signs of (for lack of a better term) abnormal behavior.
Quite frankly if people saw some of the stuff I looked up on the net when I was 17-18 people would think I’m a sick sick evil person. The novelty quickly faded.
Drive home how serious this is with punishment but don’t overreact I highly doubt he’s going to suddendly start molesting childern.
I’m amazed at the fairly reasonable reactions here.
I pretty much agree with everyone else. This was most likely a case of “haha so funny” or a casual attempt to push the limits. If he did download this, he probaby did so simply because he knew it was an extreme, and not because it was an extreme that particularly appealed to him. Not all people who look at child porn, even on purpose, are pedophiles. Unless you find evidence that he has stacks of this stuff, I think he’s going to be okay.
I agree with a psychologist, a stern talk to him and one to the girls, and not contacting the authorities. You’ve kept a cool head an I’m impressed with how you’ve handled this- it can be hard, especially when you don’t really want to tell anyone you know what happened. I think the kid will eventually tell you the truth and you can figure out if there is a safety problem in the neighborhood.
You might also send him to the Perverted Justice website, so he can see that there are people watching and his life could very easily be ruined even if he just thinks he is playing around.
And hang in there!
The thing that most makes me wary of the situation is that he kept the printouts.
Even in highschool, if a friend handed me something (“heh, heh - look at this!”) and it was something like that, I would have given it back immediately and not taken it again. Even if it were shoved into a locker, I would have brought it to a teacher or the office, or thrown it away at the very least.
You just can’t be unaware at HOW illegal that sort of thing is.
Me checking in. Had a long talk with him last night. No cops. I talked with his schrink and I feel comfortable that this was an isolated incident. I did go through his room…there were no other alarming things found. He did admit to me that he had given me and erroneous name to try and cover for his friend and that he had gone back and talked tothe kid in question.
I reminded him that if he got caught with these knd of pictures not only would there be criminal charges that his name woudl be permanently placed on a national list of sex offenders and that he could never be around children again. that includes his cousins and all of hi sisters friens, the neighbor kids etc. I don’t think he’d thought of that.
We did talk about the life long effect that this kind of exploitation had on the kids in the photos and how surfing these kinds of pictures supports this industry and further exploitation of other kids.
I’ve always talked to all of my kids about appropruate and inappropriate touching and ownig their own bodies and tellingme or another adult if anyone touched them inappropriately but I will make sure and reinforce that talk withthe girls again.
Thanks to everyone for your understanding and suport!
Mipiace
mipiace, I think you did a really good job in starting to deal with this. I don’t think that I would have been nearly as steady in your place!
Thanks. It was nice to hear people praise me for being a good mom. 
that made me feel good.
Wow, mipiace, you must be one hell of a mom. Good on you for being able to have a talk like that with your son.
Well handled. I can only hope I’ll be half as good as you at motherhood when I eventually have kids. I’d have had NO idea how to handle that situation. Well done.
You guys are too nice…you never know with kids what they will throw at you…just when you think you are doing a good job, they throw you a curve. When you think you must be the worst Mom in the world then they will surprise you and do something wonderful. In the end, it always seems worth it - at least for me anyway.
Unless you’ve been a teenage boy, you have no idea what it is like. We (at that age) explore everything that we find even vaguely sexual. We flip through a library’s worth of books looking for sex scenes. We flip through the TV channels at lightspeed because there may be a hot woman on another channel right now and we’re missing it. We devour catalogs looking for women in underwear. Even the women wearing big old granny panties turn us on.
And when we find some sexual material, we hang on to it. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t turn us on. We’re still learning what turns us on and we would forever regret throwing that material away and later discovering that that was what turned us on.
I’d bet your son was still trying to figure out whether it turned him on or not. It probably didn’t. And that confused him because it was pictures of people (children in this case, but people nevertheless) having sex. That usually does turn him on (when it is pictures of adults having sex), so he held on to the pictures in case he was wrong. Eventually he would have (and will) get his hands on some pictures that do turn him on. Then he would have ditched the crappy ones that didn’t work for him and nobody would have ever thought he was a sick pervert.
I always hid my porn under the carpet and covered it with a small chest. Nobody ever looked there. I know because I had it booby-trapped. My brothers hid it under their mattresses. They never could figure out where their porn disappeared to.
Anyway, my point is that your son is probably just doing what normal boys do and his only fault is that he got caught.
I don’t know if getting caught is his only fault, but I basically agree with what StinkPop said. 16 is really young, and he is probably in an exploratory stage of his sexuality. I, like a number of others who have posted here, used to look at some filthy stuff at that age. I still really can’t say why I did it, but I most definitely grew out of it. I think I wanted the gross out factor. If I remember correctly from my college psych class, which I probably do not, sexual disorders don’t really develop until the 20’s at the earliest. Teenagers don’t really have enough sense of who they are quite yet, so you should be concerned and keep your eyes open, but not worried that he will turn out to be a psycho. But the psychologist would probably know better than I would. Going through all this, I doubt he would do this sort of it again.
And I don’t think your situation could have been handled any better. Except, maybe, have you ever considered giving him a subscription to Playboy? 
I’m just glad I didn’t have the internet when I was 16.
At that age I went to the library, and looked for anything that might have nudity in it. Photography books, even pictures of paintings. If I had had the internet then, I would likely have found all sorts of awful things.
I think what this kind of thing really shows is just how inadequate a sexual education male children get. They have their bodies urging them on, the media just adding fuel to the fire, and yet, do they get any direction from anyone? Usually, no.
It’s like we expect teenage boys to just know everything already, and let them fend for themselves. And then get hysterical when, in fact, they prove that they didn’t know everything already.
Aren’t their books for teenage girls on their bodies and sexuality? Anyone know of a similar book for boys?