I do think it's important to talk to teens about the kind of porn they may see online though. I mean, it's not the stuff we stumbled into (ok desperately sought out) as teens. I had a number of conversations with my kids about the fact that a lot of the scenarios they may see are fantasy and shouldn't be taken as real, the nature of consent, etc. Having an open relationship helps. Then one day you may have your 15 yo come to you as mine did and say Mom, whatever you do, don't watch anime porn. Neither of us is ready for it. Words to live by.

What was he doing handing the mom a phone with porn on one of the tabs? Especially considering how easy it is swipe accidentally from one window to the other, etc. Oh and what thirteen year old doesn't know basic wireless router troubleshooting? And who asks their mom for tech help unless they are in IT? It's usually the other way around.

It's a myth that all teenagers are somehow magically computer experts. My kid asks me for help all the time and I'm certainly not in IT. I also work with college students who don't know how to attach a pdf to an email, how to search in Google, etc.

@2 how do you know his mom wrote this?

Just a crazy hunch but I'm thinking POPS might be his dad.

Ha sorry, not sure why I just assumed mother while being blind to the acronym. Full disclosure I typed out my little screed right after coming home from work.

@1 I am curious why the advice to not watch anime porn? I always thought it the most likely to be abuse-free in production since there are no real people depicted.

A little something for those parents who have no SS friends and also would prefer a straight child to a gay/bi one but who want an SS child not to fear coming out to them might be in order as well. How, for instance, would Mr Savage, could he go back in time and be a stranger, advise his own parents when he was a teen in a (possibly not) hypothetical similar situation?

When my youngest son was maybe 14 or 15, he wrote, directed and performed in a short gay film. It was about being harassed as a gay person. Hang about I thought. Not long after, he got with a girl.

Mr. Venn @8, with due respect for the awfulness of your upbringing, I think the "little something" for parents who would prefer a straight child has to be "a little counseling" so that they accept that they prefer *their* child instead of some abstract other child with different traits.

Each child will have issues of one kind or another -- behavioral, academic, social, or health issues you wish they didn't have. But you don't get to keep the child you love while excising those pesky issues.

Besides therapy for your hypothetical parents, I gather PFLAG is also a good resource.

And as Dan says, a good interim measure (before the child comes out) is to make evident the parents' support for LGBT issues.

Granted, I am old (not as old as Our Dear Dan) but I didn't look at porn when I was 13. The closest I came to porn was the neighbor Guy's stash of Playboys, which I found when I was mowing the lawn for him when he was in Europe for the summer. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed.

I think Dan's about right with this one, but I'd add one other thing to talk about with the kid, which is safety. Given the horrible state of sex education in our schools these days (I'm a schoolteacher. I KNOW what gets taught, apparently, since my Biology students almost literally don't know their ass from a hole in the ground) it's crucial that kids understand about the use of condoms.

That said, I'm not sure how one might casually drop this into a conversation. But it's really important, especially given how much misinformation is out there.

Catherwood @12: In my experience, pretty much the only topic addressed in sex education is safety. "Don't do it, but if you do, use condoms" is pretty much the extent of it.

Love the advice about how to signal that it's cool to come out of the closet.

So at some point the kid will need a conversation about what healthy sexuality looks like. Thank Dog we're past the '70s and '80s when I was a kid and there are some actual real life gay role models out there. I kinda reached the conclusion that there were different rules for gay men and straight people, because nobody ever mentioned how to lead a virtuous life as a gay man (heck, in those days, to most people, being gay meant that you couldn't possibly be virtuous). That turned out to be a really deep rabbit hole that took me decades to climb out of.

At some point, and very, very soon, POPS needs to sit down and have the big talk. His son needs to know what expectations his parents have for what is and is not appropriate behavior sexually and romantically. Among other things, he also needs to know about the downsides and potential pitfalls to porn. There have been times I've used porn as a how-to guide for sex and relationships (I'm still disappointed that the Army was nothing like the recruitment videos 😜). As a gay man, you can actually reasonably do that if you want to. But that, too is a whole rabbit hole that leads to a lot of problems in the long run.

So a lot of really uncomfortable conversation is in order, and on an ongoing basis. Hopefully his high school is big enough so that same sex dating is actually an option. How I wish I could have done something as silly as go out for a movie with another guy as a teenager as a real, honest to Dog date! How I wish I could have had a real tempestuous teenage love affair complete with the broken heart!

Kids these days... They don't know how lucky they are.

Catherwood @12 cont'd: Re-read Dan's response, "safety" is literally the last word.

@8 Said parents must recognize that orientation isn't chosen, and their preferences in the matter should remain unspoken.

Having said that, there are places to find gay role models to vet. If they are a churchgoing family and belong to a liberal denomination, the pastor can probably help find someone good. If there's a gay-straight alliance at school, the sponsoring teacher might be a good resource. You might also look out at some of the more distant branches of your family tree. Chances are reasonably good there's a homo uncle or cousin or something out there (although if they are of the long-lost variety, some careful vetting might be in order)

Great suggestions. And for parents whose kiddos are younger, or those just considering becoming parents, it's remarkably easy to start equality/acceptance talk from day one. Stuff like, "when you grow up, you may decide you want to marry a person you love" (instead of "when you marry a woman..."). And not calling out difference explicitly like a warning or the only thing that is noteworthy, "my work friend, Jack, and his husband are going to meet us at the restaurant" (instead of "my work friend Jack, THE ONE WHO'S GAY, ..."). These may seem stupidly obvious, pardon me if so. An innovative where-do-babies-come-from book for younger audiences is "What Makes a Baby" by Cory Silverberg/Fiona Smyth.

Tempest in a teapot if you ask me. The kid might be gay, he might be curious, he might be lazy in regards to internet searches. He might be totally weirded out he found that. One doesn't know until they ask. The dad was cool, just wanted some words.

I found bondage stuff on the family computer when my son was about the age of this kid. When asked, he said they stumbled on the page (whatevers), and actually what he wanted was to unsee it and get debriefed. I think the main thing is for kids to understand that most porn is not representative of real life sex.

Ms Erica - My upbringing was actively hostile, which isn't what I was envisioning.

People seem automatically to assume that LW is on the side of the angels, but there isn't anything in the letter that actually confirms that, though the assumption is perfectly probable. I'm sure Mr Savage has a large share of followers who "tolerate" his sexuality because they find his perspective valuable and unique, and who don't have the pro-gay views Mr Savage attributed to LW. I'm envisioning the sort of neutral who, just to take marriage as a sort of bellwether, never cared much either way and eventually settled on a position somewhere between: the standing MF requirement being unlucky for L/Gs but fair enough not to make changing the definition desirable, and not particularly liking the idea of SSM but eventually supporting it just to settle the issue and get gays to go away.

The closest I can come to a parallel in the limited time I have this morning might be dedicated meat-eaters whose child adopts or is recommended (perhaps even required) a vegan diet.

Curses - now I've gotten the idea in my head of Le Fils going vegan to Mr Savage's dismay (if memory serves, Mr Savage can't stand Mr Morrissey?). It's going to take concentration to avoid fleshing it out all morning.

When I was 13 , first year of high school, I fell in love with the older girls. Girls would write notes to each other. An all girls Catholic school, shades of some book I'm sure Venn.
My guess is to leave it LW. Keep an eye out for danger signs as Dan mentioned. Otherwise, forget about it. Your son's sex life is his own.

@11, Ms. V-DR: "Granted, I am... (not as old as Our Dear Dan)..." - which would therefore make you younger than 29. I am surprised, for it belies your wisdom.

@22, I had just assumed Dan had now jumped to "39."

As for POPS, I was thinking that some gay-supportive books left on the shelves might be another low-key way to show support, as well as educate.

Also: I LOVE me some anime porn, but I'm a freaky freak.

@10 Good answer.

@20 The solution to the possibility that your kid is gay, vegan or likes Miley Cyrus (ugh, that last one!) is to think about it, deal with your own distaste, and get over it. Push past your preference, and then treat all possibilities as viable equal Goods.

There are valid reasons for people to eat vegan, ranging from medical to ethical, and the family can make a point of preparing vegan main dishes, having animal products as an optional side for those who choose. At our house, we talk about needing protein in our meals, and point out that you can get it from meat, nuts or legumes.

People are attracted to and fall in love with who they're attracted to and fall in love with, and talking about hypothetical 'partners', 'spouses' and 'dates' allows for the possibility of any sex and gender. At our house, we talk about 'your husband or wife', (or 'your wife or husband') and resist assumptions about which one it might be, because the kids are still young to have settled on a romantic preference. (Reading that, I see that I have some work to do around gender-inclusivity.)

Miley Cyrus... probably has interesting characteristics to her lyrics or music. Ugh. I haven't yet brought myself to find the good. I will force myself. I will! Ugh.

Phuni @44: "I think the main thing is for kids to understand that most porn is not representative of real life sex." Good point. In fact, this is probably the most important thing parents should tell their kids about porn, and it has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

Aealias @24: Miley Cyrus is raising awareness of people with non-binary gender identities. Does that raise her value in your eyes? :)

saxfanatic and Sandiai, I am Fifty-one. That's all I will say ;-)

It's not likely that Pops looked at porn when he was 13. Pops was probably 13 somewhere around 1986, at which point you could not get porn on your own.

This could be another case of the Freudian Slipping. The boy left those tabs open when he gave his dad his mobile/ computer, I forget. His unconscious may have wanted his dad to know.
A 13 yr old who is scared of any negative reaction from a parent, would be much more vigilant than this boy was.
He's not scared of his dad and he wants his dad to know. Let the boy initiate the conversation.

@28 lol, by what definition of "getting it on your own"? You could find it in your parents' bedroom, or your older brother's, or a friend's dad's collection. Granted, it wasn't as diverse as what's available now. My friends and I passed around Penthouse Forum at school because we were into stories; I imagine people who liked images also passed those around at school.

I didn't look at porn when I was 13 ... but I would have if I had any access whatsoever. By 15 I had a few pages from the male underwear section of the Macy's catalog ripped out and hidden. That was pretty much it until I got into college. Though we did have HBO when I was around 16, and my Mom didn't censor what I watched, and I did make a point of watching R-rated movies that seemed like they might have male nudity.

My cousin once thought his just-starting-puberty-son might be gay. He did exactly what Dan's advice here was. Had gay couples over for dinner occasionally. (Also had inter-racial couples and other people of varied backgrounds.) But also, as a teacher he was in a position to do something even better: he volunteered to be the faculty adviser for his high school's gay/straight alliance. He very much sent a signal that being gay was a-okay. As it happens, his son is straight and has had a girlfriend now for many years. That's okay, the lessons instilled are still valuable, and his son and his son's friends, like many of their generation, have grown up so much more accepting and tolerant than previous generations.

Another approach parents may consider is showing vulnerability themselves, telling their child an embarrassing/ funny incident they experienced as youngsters, share some of their struggles, etc.
No need to go into any potentially embarrassing details, just keep it to what you can both relate to and possibly laugh together. Or shed tears. Or both.

Japanese anime-
Years ago I got to see some of the printed comic books, and was quiet unpleasantly surprised as to the amount of violence and sexist sex it contained.
What was even more alarming is realizing that this is what people from all walks of life are reading on the train,

When my son was in middle school, I used the family desktop to troubleshoot a problem with my Kenmore washer. When I input “Ken--” it autocompleted “Kendra Wilkinsons naked ass.” This was back when anything autocompleted had definitely been searched on the same computer. I immediately looked at his browsing history and saw that, in addition to being (probably) hetero, he was also looking for answers about normal development. I knew we needed to talk.

I waited a few days until we were on our way to hockey -- a 45 min drive with a captive audience! I started by telling him that I’d found he’d been looking at porn. It’s totally normal to look at porn, I said, and he jumped in immediately and said he knew it was normal. He was confident and unapologetic, but not belligerent. So I affirmed the popularity of porn. But also the banality of it. It isn’t representative of real sex or relationship and it shouldn’t be construed as such. And besides, I teased, he was supposed to be doing homework after school, not surfing for porn. Getting him to laugh made the rest of the conversation easy.

Because he was so young (13?), I encouraged him to, as Dan has said in the past, make himself datable at 18. Focus on making yourself smart, funny, fit, I said, all that stuff that makes people attractive. I also encouraged him to wait. When children delay sex and drugs they make better decisions about both. I made sure he grasped that this wasn’t a big fat no but rather a take your time. Wait. You’ll make better choices when you do engage.

But I’m a realist. So I got him to laugh again by saying if you decide to have sex anyway, make sure to use a condom because any girl stupid enough to have sex with you at 14, isn’t smart enough to be the mother of your baby.

This conversation -- not our first about sex but funny and thorough -- was the start of an openness about sex and drugs that has persisted as he’s grown into a man.

These main points (desire is normal, take it slow, love will happen for you, be safe, be smart, do your homework, I love you) should be communicated parent to child, regardless of orientation, and probably whether or not you find your kid’s stash.

People, people - I had no trouble getting porn when I was 13 - in 1976. Don't underestimate kids.

I look back to when I was that age and knew next to nothing about real sex beyond the crap they taught at school: it's a dangerous, sinful, repulsive thing and then you get married and it's instantly beautiful and the ultimate expression of love.

Seriously, though, there's some pretty extreme porn that's very readily accessible and if, as a 13 year-old, I saw that and thought THAT was what I was expected to do, I'd be a bit freaked out by it. You might want to touch on the fact that porn isn't real and that there's lots of kinds of sex.

Some of the anime porn is really bizarre. Like demon snuff film bestiality all in one bizarre. Pretty sure that's what my kid stumbled into.

I think above all else, talk about 1) Porn is not sex any more than a monster truck rally is driving. 2) Porn sites often contain or lead to upsetting things instead of sexy things. 3) Porn sites or - god forbid torrents - often contain viruses/malware and s/he could fuck up the computer or get my credit card charged a lot of money. Safety is important!

While all this advice is good, my kids mess with each other's phones (and phones of friends) all the time. There is every possibility the boy was looking at the site. And there's also a distinct possibility a friend or sibling left the tab open there as a joke. One of my kids wrote fake diary entries in a sib's journal suggesting the sib was gay. Stumbled on that completely by accident and mulled it over for a few days before I realized it was a prank. But, yes -- take every opportunity to demonstrate love and support for all.

My son used our computer to access porn at around the same age. His younger sister found out and freaked out and told me. I talked to him and reminded him that a) looking at porn is a normal desire in a teenage boy; b) what he sees is over exaggerated; c) he could come to me or his father with any questions; d) try not to use computer for porn since we ended up w/a virus that caused countless porn-y pop ups and cost me $ to have someone come and fix it!

@#2: my 18 year old daughter would no more know how to troubleshoot anything to do with a computer or router, (or even how to use anything other than the most basic parts of her new cell phone) than a little kid (and her 20 year old brother is not much better). And why wouldn't a teen ask a mom for tech help? Are you saying don't ask parents, or specifically don't ask a mom?

@38: "Porn is not sex any more than a monster truck rally is driving."

Great analogy!

@7, to add to what @13 said, while there's nothing wrong with liking/watching anime porn (aka hentai), it can be pretty bizarre and not for everyone, especially if you're not expecting it. Since it's animated and real people are not involved, there are no limits to what you might see, and it can range from vanilla softcore porn to extreme "what the hell did I just watch" territory. I've seen hentai where girls are raped by demons until their heads literally explode, a 50-foot woman grabbing a full grown man and using his body as a sex toy while he screams for help, a girl bending over to reveal that her vagina is about ten times the normal size and is located where her butthole should be... and all this was just one movie, and just a fraction of what you see in the movie, at that.

And then there's hentai of popular anime series, which, if you're an anime fan, will not be kind to your favorite anime characters. One of the most notorious hentai movies is Sailor Moon and the Seven Ballz, which is mostly a mash-up of Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z, but also throws in references to other popular 90s anime - for example, there's a scene where a Gundam and Eva have giant robot sex, while the Eva pilot runs away saying "I'd better get out of here before they cum all over me!" Other highlights include Sailor Moon getting raped by a dragon ball and sprouting a penis (which Tuxedo Mask later jacks off) and a scene of Goku just walking along while thinking of sex. The animation is pretty cheap and horrible (this is standard for most hentai), and, from what I've heard, there's an even more low-budget sequel.

Frankly, I find most hentai to be pretty hilarious rather than sexy, but I do highly recommend knowing what you're getting into if you try it. The first time I watched it was when I was an extremely naive and sexually-inexperienced college student (I was at a friend's house when some people came over and said "hey, we brought over this movie, let's watch it," without mentioning it was hentai), and I was *really* not expecting to see a woman getting stripped and raped by tentacles that went into her mouth, butt, and vagina.