My Eighty-Year-Old Father Is Watching a Lot of Gay Porn

I think my dad’s browser history just outed him. He’s nearing 90, and recently I was helping him with some stuff on his home computer, and I noticed a couple of browser bookmarks for what were obviously gay porn sites. My first thought was to wonder whether perhaps he’d picked up some sort of malware, because he’s not the most sophisticated computer user, so I opened up the browsing history, and let’s just say that it’s pretty clear that those bookmarks were there intentionally. He’s the only one who could have been doing that browsing since he lives alone and nobody else has access to his computer.

I’m straight, left-liberal, and an LGBTQ ally with a ton of gay close friends (and female, however relevant that may or may not be), and although this was a pretty big surprise, it really makes no difference to me what his sexual identity is. He’s always been a great dad, as far as I can see he was a devoted husband to my mom, and I’m quite tickled that he obviously has a healthy active sex drive at his age, because I’d say that bodes well for me in the decades to come! And it’s certainly safer for him to be satisfying his sexual appetites via internet porn than to be cruising the bars or Craigslist personals, etc.

I’m wondering whether I should let him know that I’ve seen these things. One set of reasons is practical: I know that porn sites can often be vectors for malware, and I want to be sure he’s taking appropriate precautions like virus/malware scanning; also, my brother (who lives overseas) occasionally stays with him when he’s here on business, and he’s more conservative than I am and I don’t think he’d react well to stumbling across this, so I’d like to be sure dad knows how to clear his browser history, browse incognito, etc. The other reason would be just to let my dad know that he never has to hide anything at all about who he is from me, and maybe open up the door for whatever conversation he might want to have about this part of himself. But he’s always been an extremely reserved and private person, and if my assumption is correct he’s obviously gone to considerable effort over a lifetime to keep this to himself, plus it’s just none of my business, and I’m honestly not sure whether it would be a relief for him to know I know or if it would be a disaster and a burden.

What would you do in my shoes?

Too Confused To Come Up With A Clever Signature

Me? I would keep my mouth shut. Stapled shut.

But I would also have a conversation with my dad about malware and computer viruses without bringing up the huge amount of gay porn I stumbled over in his browser history. And I would take a moment to walk him through clearing his browser history and tell him it’s a “best-practice” thing and not an “I’m fine with all the gay porn and psyched you’re still jerking it at your age—you go, dad!—but my homophobic sibling would totally lose his shit” thing.

And I would tell my dad, either well before or some time after the above convo, that I’m always happy to talk with him and that I want him to be happy and that there isn’t anything he can’t tell me.

I think you should do all the above—everything I’ve laid out—but since you’re straight, TCTCUWACS, there’s one more thing you should do: Find a good time to share your gayest anecdote about your gayest friend with your dad. And then maybe invite your dad to join you for lunch and arrange to have your gayest friend run into you at that restaurant. This isn’t about setting your dad up on a date with your gayest friend, TCTCUWACS, it’s about letting your dad know he can come out to you without telling him directly. It’s about creating an opening that your dad can choose to walk through or not. If he prefers to keep this private, he can. If it would be a relief for him to come out and tell you he’s gay or bi, he’ll know he can do that too.

UPDATE: Oh, and… just wanted to add… BETTER GAY PORN THAN FOX NEWS!