# Should parents tolerate children watching porn? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 29, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344 "2012-04-29T18:46:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/21 "2012-04-30T20:28:29Z")
As a way to alleviate sexual urges, porn is great. As a way to illustrate what having sex is actually like, porn is crap. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/22 "2012-04-30T20:37:22Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Why, real-life partners have a different anatomy? Different behavior patterns. Let’s face it, porn is a dramatized, fictionalized representation of a sexual encounter, designed to **look** exciting to the (mostly male) viewers rather than to **be** fulfilling for the participants. (Hence, for example, all the semen splashed around where the viewer can see it, even though most men having real-life sex most frequently prefer putting it somewhere it can’t be observed with the naked eye.) Sure, no doubt there are some real-life women whose preferred sexual activities are exactly the sort of thing one sees in typical internet porn. But I don’t think it’s unrealistic to point out that they’re probably a fairly small minority. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/23 "2012-04-30T20:41:20Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Different behavior patterns. Now, if that’s the objection though, it takes the whole issue to another plane. “That’s not realistic” is a different claim than “That behavior isn’t statistically common and any sexual partners you find might not be interested in that type of sex.” ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/24 "2012-04-30T20:45:00Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > 1. It doesn’t have to be typical, the claim made was that a ‘pornstar’ style was plain bad, not atypical. > 2. And yes, it’s not controversial, and I think that’s a sad thing since it’s such an absurd claim. No realistic? Of course it is. There’s a vagina, the penis goes inside. Pretty sure that’s how sex tends to work. And since there’s every type of porn from intimate, love-making erotic scenes to whips and chains BDSM, I’m also reasonably certain that “porn style” entails not just the entire gamut of human sexuality, but is still perfectly realistic in terms of its mechanical presentation. > > Why, real-life partners have a different anatomy? It has nothing to do with anatomy, Finn. Porn sex is made for the camera, to be watched. The moaning doesn’t come from sexual pleasure, it’s created for production value. Depending on what you’re watching, there’s the strong possibility that it’s amped up for that visual payoff. Kind of like how a boxing fight from a movie is an exaggerated version of a real boxing fight. Porno is like an exaggerated, spectacle-version of real sex (although depending on what you’re watching and what you’re into, maybe not). If I was a parent with a teen boy, I would just want to make sure he knows that he knows porno-style slam-fucking may not satisfy his girlfriend the way it satisfies himself. That he should take guidance from what she responds to, especially if it doesn’t look like what he’s been watching in Backdoor Bitches 7. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/25 "2012-04-30T20:47:46Z")
Well, but yah, that’s a separate issue. Some people really do prefer porn-style sex. What you’re talking about it a fairly rational bit of birds-and-bees talk to let a teen child know that while the sex in porn is accurate, if posed for the camera, most women will prefer if he learns what they like and not treats them like a porn starlet. ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/26 "2012-04-30T20:56:48Z")
I agree. But I feel like this simple talk isn’t happening very often. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/27 "2012-04-30T21:05:14Z")
> [@B.Serum](#): > > I agree. But I feel like this simple talk isn’t happening very often. How would you know if it were? ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/28 "2012-04-30T21:18:18Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > How would you know if it were? “Abstinence only education” would be nothing more than a punchline. ---
**Author:** ![Docta\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Docta\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Docta_G)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/29 "2012-04-30T21:27:21Z")
> [@gvozd](#): > > Almost all parents seem to think that their kids should not watch porn, and they should prevent them from watching, or least try to. As it is the case for 99.9% of male teenagers, it certainly didn’t stop me, and now that I’ve grown up, I sincerely don’t see anything bad watching porn since young age has done to me. I don’t plan on having children but if I had them, I wouldn’t really try to stop them as long as they watch it in a discreet manner at a moderate level. Certainly, proper sexual education is necessary, so that they don’t believe what they watch on porn is real. In fact you can’t really stop teenagers from watching porn - you just catch them on spot once in a while and humiliate them. > > Mods, I’m sorry if this is the wrong forum. Leave them the hell alone, FFS. ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/30 "2012-04-30T21:49:37Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > How would you know if it were? Good point. I don’t really, any more than anyone else in the thread. I think my impression comes from my perception that Americans are kind of uptight about sexuality in general. I suspect sex columnists might be better equipped to respond on the quality of parental sex ed. I listen/read/watch a lot of Dan Savage and some of the ignorance from some kids on basic sexuality is a little dispiriting. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/31 "2012-04-30T21:57:28Z")
The question isn’t so much “should parents let their children watch porn?” as it is: “Shouldn’t parents have responsible, honest conversations about sex and sexuality with their children? Oh and also let them watch porn.” This is the 21st century. We’re living in the future. Any kid with the 'net can get porn. Hell, that’s quickly becoming ‘any kid with a phone’. Which is also quickly becoming ‘any kid’. Humans like looking at naked humans as well as at naked humans having all sorts of sex. Such is life. There’s no point (and a good bit of hypocrisy) in ‘not tolerating’ such behavior in teens. The real issue is that parents are uptight and would rather not talk about sex with their kids. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/32 "2012-04-30T22:04:58Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Now, if that’s the objection though, it takes the whole issue to another plane. “That’s not realistic” is a different claim than “That behavior isn’t statistically common and any sexual partners you find might not be interested in that type of sex.” Seems to me that what I said, namely, “That’s not typical of real sex”, perfectly conveys the meaning “That behavior isn’t statistically common” in actual sex. You seem to be using “realistic” in a rather, well, unrealistic way to mean “not anatomically or psychologically actually impossible”. Well, okay, and by that standard _Die Hard_ is a realistic movie too. The fact that most porn sex is **not** in fact “realistic” in the word’s more usual meaning of “typical of what happens in real life” is, ISTM, also what **dukette71** was getting at: > [@dukette71](#): > > may not be “harmful” to a person’s psyche but it is a misrepresentation of sex. In other words, men who learn about sex from watching porn are horrible lovers. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/33 "2012-04-30T22:08:56Z")
A majority are also Christian and thus may have qualms about Onanism (if Catholic) or else lusting after women in one’s own heart. Other religions have similar injunctions against masturbation: Taoism and Islam off the top of my head. Hell, maybe they want their children to experience a guilty kind of thrill doing something they’re not supposed to. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/34 "2012-05-01T05:56:13Z")
One practical reason to disuade kids from going to porn sites online – malware. A lot of porn sites are full of it. (Kind of like STDs for your computer) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/35 "2012-05-01T06:04:40Z")
No. When parents watch porn, they should make sure that the kids are out of the room where the porn is being viewed. Locked out, if necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/36 "2012-05-01T06:19:52Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > No. When parents watch porn, they should make sure that the kids are out of the room where the porn is being viewed. Locked out, if necessary. That might be a different question, though. Probably nobody here is in favor of porn viewing as a cross-generational family activity, whether or not they would condone adolescent children watching porn discreetly and privately by themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/37 "2012-05-01T06:55:34Z")
Not every teenage boy is like the protagonist of Richard Thompson’s [Read About Love.](http://www.elyrics.net/read/r/richard-thompson-lyrics/read-about-love-lyrics.html) When I was a kid I was well aware that real girls didn’t look like airbrushed Playmates and that real women didn’t act the way they did in Penthouse Forum. I’d worry a lot more about the kid not wanting to put out the effort to actually go out rather than him being Casanova during his first experience. They do understand that it is only a movie. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/38 "2012-05-01T09:53:01Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > One practical reason to disuade kids from going to porn sites online – malware. A lot of porn sites are full of it. (Kind of like STDs for your computer) 😉 Thing is, it may be the case that when little Timmy tells you that no porn was involved on the reason why the computer got infected, he may be telling the truth! [http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/porn-sites-safer-browse-blogs-personal-sites-report-744304](http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/porn-sites-safer-browse-blogs-personal-sites-report-744304) > [@](#): > > Furthermore, the most common Web threats weren’t found, as one might assume, on the seedier side of the Internet. In fact, it’s the righteous who appear to be the more seriously afflicted: > > > [@](#): > > > > ``` > > It is interesting to note that Web sites hosting adult/porno-graphic content are not in the top five, but ranked tenth. > > > > Moreover, religious and ideological sites were found to have triple the average number of threats per infected site than adult/pornographic sites. We hypothesize that this is because pornographic website owners already make money from the Internet and, as a result, have a vested interest in keeping their sites malware-free – it’s not good for repeat business. > > > > ``` > > Around 52 million of the 8.2 billion URLs Symantec scanned showed malware infections, and of those, only 2.4 percent were porn or adult content. Personal blogs and self-hosted websites were many, many times more likely to have a problem. Mmm, maybe in this case we should use the old saying: _The devil lurks behind the cross._ ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/39 "2012-05-01T10:30:44Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > That said, I don’t think techniques learned through pornography are necessarily demeaning or unpleasurable of themselves: cunnilingus was a positive example given in the other thread for instance. Except that the angle and style of cunnilingus I’ve seen in (fairly tame) porn certainly wouldn’t “work” for me, or for the other women I’ve been with. It’s too removed, the face too far back, too stiff tongued and not enough lip to vulva contact. Why? So the camera can see the vulva. Real cunnilingus is more like sucking a mango than licking a popsicle while being afraid to get your lips on it. > [@FinnAgain](#): > > … I’m also reasonably certain that “porn style” entails not just the entire gamut of human sexuality, but is still perfectly realistic in terms of its mechanical presentation. > > Why, real-life partners have a different anatomy? Apparently. Or rather, we arrange our anatomy to have nerve endings that like to rub on other bits actually touch and feel good in real life, but we don’t care if it feels good in porn. Again, it’s about the camera. It’s not that (some) women don’t like to have PIV with their leg lifted over the guy’s shoulder, it’s that his hips need to be aligned with ours so his pelvic bone rubs on our mons pubis and clitoris. Can’t do that and still get a camera to film the ol’ in-and-out. So the de rigeur thing in porn is to have the male actor angle his hips and enter the vagina at a fairly steep angle (which is possible for him because he has a long penis, probably longer than our eventual real life partner’s), and enter only most of the way - either because he’s too long to enter fully, or because he doesn’t want to block the camera. Sure, you’re right, there may be some women who like that position, but most of us don’t. How do I know that? Because it misses most of the external and internal clitoris, where our nerve endings are clustered. It makes contact with only the vaginal opening and the side walls of the vagina, which have far fewer nerves. We first noticed the online porn around age 14 or so. Our conversations went something like this: “Hey, I noticed some interesting searches in Google’s history. I get that you’re curious, but two things to keep in mind: that’s not how sex usually works in real life and lots of porn websites are crawling with viruses. Please be very careful about what you click. And don’t tell Grandma.” “Hey, I’m getting pop-ups on my computer. Please be more careful.” “Kiddo, you can’t seem to surf without infecting my computer with viruses. So please stop looking at porn on my computer. When you get your own computer, have at it.” “GODSDAMMIT! WTF AM I GETTING ALL THESE POP-UPS OF COCKS FROM??? WHYKID, KNOCK IT OFF!!!” At which point my husband “accidentally” left a fairly safe (and vanilla) website up for the kid to “find”. This was all about 6 years ago. Now, I might include a bit of advice that amateur porn is far more like real sex, easy to find free, and tends to come with fewer computer STD’s. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344/40 "2012-05-01T10:33:49Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > This is the 21st century. We’re living in the future. Factually wrong. It won’t be the future until we have at least one of either hovercars, robot butlers and/or personal laser pistols. I’ll tentatively tack global thermonuclear war and cranial datajacks as further possible litmus tests, review pending. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-parents-tolerate-children-watching-porn/620344.md?page=3)