Has he expressed any wish to go on either of those sites? When do you intend to let him be on those sites? For the record while many of my friends lied to get their FB accounts underage, I didn’t get one until I was well into the legal age of 13. I’ve never had a problem with YouTube access however.
Nm
I noticed that nearly everyone is hung-up on the porn issue. As Bricker has said, it’s not necessarily the porn itself (see post 11). There is a great deal of highly inappropriate sites out there for a child.
Forget porn, what about ISIS videos of beheading Iraqis or spattering someone’s head with an AK. Recently there was a case of a Japanese 15 year old that decided to beat her friend to death and behead her. It’s showcased on several websites in all of it’s glory - (she posted the pics to 2chan and asked for advice in cleaning up the mess).
Personally, I would be more concerned about stumbling across that than any tentacle rape they may see.
Same here. I’d be much less worried about the dirtiest of porn than stuff like Ogrish or BestGore. I’m not sure if that’s logical but that’s what I think.
So far, no interest in Facebook. But in an interesting bit of serendipity, this past evening he asked about YouTube. So I added YouTube as a permitted site, although not a referrer.
Whew! OK, I’ll call off the child protective services, or whatever they are called in whatever state you’re in.
ETA: That would be Virginia.
Bricker, what exactly are you afraid that seeing some tentacle porn would do?
That’s a good question.
I guess I’m afraid it might cause or contribute to the development of a paraphilia.
I don’t think that’s actually possible. My understanding is that paraphilia are developed much, much younger than twelve.
Also, so what? There’s nothing harmful about a little kink. Paraphilias aren’t even listed in the DSM anymore. Except in cases where, usually due to upbringing, the patient experiences shame or distress at having a non-standard sexual interest.
And yet I can’t shake the feeling that it’s undesirable.
Certainly we criminalize efforts by adults to expose youngsters to similar material.
I grant that I am having a difficult time articulating a precise harm.
Well the kid will come into contact with all manner of goofy stuff at some point in his life. As you are presumably training him for a post-porn adulthood, you presumably want to ease the restrictions slowly, rather than suddenly at the age of 18. Then again, some of this will happen naturally given his access to friends’ homes and the like.
I know. But - and again I admit this is to some degree arbitrary – the age of 12 seems too young for most goofy stuff.
If you look at AskReddit threads about how people discovered their fetishes (NSFW text content, obviously), overwhelmingly, the response was due to some kind of non-pornographic media or real life encounter.
I’ve not seen much evidence that you can “develop” a fetish in someone through exposure to some kind of media. It seems like fetishes are mostly latent and can become uncovered through exposure but no amount of exposure can create a fetish that wasn’t there in the first place.
First of all, Bricker, I think your concerns are valid even sans a specific defined harm. Your son isn’t even old enough for Algebra yet, so why plunge him into images of hardcore kinky/fantastical sex from the minds of the world’s preeminent pervs?
One thing you ought to keep in mind as you enter into parenting a teenager is that, philosophically speaking, the fact is that the world is forever out of control. One simply cannot control events. It is okay to try, and maybe you will or maybe you won’t achieve success at it, but for your own mental health it is best, from the start, to take an attitude of non-attachment toward the results. This is going to be hard for you, being such a successful professional and all, “I conquered the business world, why can’t I succeed in all things?” Well, nobody can, and some things aren’t your fault. See Mama Tried.
Full disclosure: the first time I was introduced to the internet at all, I was a sophomore in college. You could send text messages to other people across the phone line without seeing them or knowing who they are?!? Big whoop! I was into guitars and differential equations at the time, I thought the whole thing was for social misfits. Later it was pointed out that there was an entire universe of porn out there, which got my attention.
But before that, know how I got exposed to porn? First, magazines at home. Doesn’t sound like you are the type to leave those lying around. Second, the Boy Scout paper drive. I was a good kid, a member of the Boy Scouts, and we wanted to promote recycling, so we rented a giant trailer and collected paper from everyone in town to sell to the recyclers to fund our camping trips. Some people donated boxes of Playboys and that sort of thing, and about 1/3 of the troop ended up going home with porn. It led to some whacking off, but nonetheless I turned out to be someone who got a scholarship, always had jobs, friends, was in sports, music, all kinds of stuff. It didn’t break my mind. A few other kids who got into porn at the same age became socially isolated misfits, and I can’t tell you what was the difference, or if porn was even the relevant factor.
Let’s see… pretty much exactly at the age of 12, birthday parties at kids’ houses who had HBO meant staying up late and watching tit flicks with the crowd of kids. The same crowd induced young girls our age to come over and strip in front of all of us. It didn’t make me nuts, but then again I voluntarily quit hanging out with those people, no parental guidance or even knowledge ever involved.
Then there was all the porn we found by the side of the road, in dumpsters, etc. It just literally littered the landscape if you just wandered around a little, not even looking for it. Or people got their hands on it and showed it to you, traded it for this and that. It was just around, before I even heard of the internet.
There were dial-up message boards at that time. By the age of 12 I had racked up thousands of dollars worth of computer piracy. I could have gotten into phone phreaking if I were interested, but I just wasn’t. I was presented with information on how to hack into the utilities, the phone companies, and so on, but I didn’t want to. Computer porn was available through my telephone-line piracy network, but I really wasn’t interested in it- I wanted the latest games and that was about it. One time some greasy taxi driver dude came over to our house to trade games with me via the telephone piracy network, much to my parents dismay, who sent him away immediately and refused to talk about it. Bummer, but then again I could dig it.
Anyway, take all the porn, all the drinking, all the marijuana in college, and not all of it together is as bad as, say, Don’t Take Your Guns To Town. Don’t get me wrong, I was messed up, but it wasn’t the hooliganism. It was dealing with a drunken, violent, inarticulate Navy dad that messed me up- something I don’t worry about in your situation. It was being forced to waste my scholarship in shitsville, Midwest, when I could have gone to school anywhere, that messed me up. You could say I was poisoned with protection, but nonetheless I turned out to be the guy living in the lovely town, with the fantastic apartment, the six-figure income and the 20+ year pattern of dating gorgeous, interesting women with whom I connect on a level deeper than just my enormous whanger (unless I’m just kidding myself of course). I’m not opposed to getting married, but these things just seem to fizzle out after 1-5 years. Still, in retrospect, not a regrettable life at all. I was messed up and it didn’t matter, I overcame it.
I can really relate to that last song I cited. I had some of the same problems, or worse, as my peers, yet there is a whole gallery of people I used to know who turned out to be bums, addicts, losers of various kinds. Me, I don’t even drink caffeine any more, and seem headed for riches, possibly even influence. What was the difference? I was literally breathing the same air as dozens of people who went down the tubes, and I didn’t go down with them. Why not? Well in any case, it wasn’t porn. More like meth, crack, heroin, LSD, cocaine, and some kind of rebellion against working for a living on the part of the failures, while I took the other path.
I don’t know what to say, Bricker. The world really is forever out of control. Do what you think is right, to the best of your ability, but let go of the results.
From your first link, interestingly, people seem to realize that their sexual behaviour isn’t the norm :
I don’t believe that, either. People with kinky fetishes seem IME to fall in two categories : those who knew about it from a very early age (say, 6-8, even though obviously at this age they don’t realize what it is exactly), and those who, as you said, have latent fetishes, and suddenly realize it by random happenstance (typically a sexual encounter, but not always). It seems IMO that either you have it in you or you don’t.
I was with you till about right there. You’ve spent a ton of time and effort on your internet controls, and all to prevent this rather unlikely outcome?
I look at this much more simply. A 12-year-old is still a kid, though perhaps on the cusp of being less a kid. As a parent, you want to insulate your kid from all the realms of adult rubbish – not so much tentacle porn as all the other crap fills the adult world: man’s inhumanity to man, and suchlike. God knows they’ll have to deal with this stuff eventually, but for me at least, I just don’t want to get into talking about sexting, child pornography, ISIS, the Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Stalin, Ebola and all the rest of it with a ten-year-old, as the case is with me.
It’s not a matter of grand principle; I just don’t want to do it. Let kids stay in the kid realm while they still are kids.
He shouldn’t? Of course he should. He’s the kid’s father. It’s his job to think about what will influence that kid, for good and for bad. And I don’t buy the argument that porn, any porn, will have no negative effect whatsoever on an adolescent. It is hardly inappropriate for a parent to be concerned about what a child sees or hears or experiences.
What I find inappropriate is saying “well, they’re going to see stuff anyway, so I abdicate my parental responsibility to at least try to exert some degree of control over what they’re seeing and doing.”
Oh, for Pete’s sake. There’s one in every thread, isn’t there?
Those opinions, on this board? There could easily be a dozen in any thread.
But I stand by the statement and think I can plausibly argue its merits. It’s not a blanket statement, of course. Some religious practices are reasonably physically beneficial, some are physically dangerous, while claims about the harm of porn exposure are tenuous at best.
Wait, did you just say your twelve-year-old isn’t even allowed to stay home alone by himself, not even for an hour? Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? At twelve I was already babysitting my sister. (I think my mom started letting me stay home alone while she went shopping when I was about, oh, eleven?)
I’m all for protecting the innocent as long as we can, but I think the OP’s draconian measures are a bit much for a 12 year old.
Having the conversations that many parents want to avoid (i.e. sex, porn, etc.) are what actually bring us closer to our kids and permit us to transmit some of our own value systems to them in a meaningful way.