Suspect Your Teenage Son Could Be Watching Porn? Here’s What to Do

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Ololade Hector-Fowobaje

The onset of puberty brings drastic changes in the life of teenage boys. Their hormone levels spike, their bodies go through many changes signalling a transition from boyhood to manhood, and their curiosity about sex and sexuality accelerates.

It can be a time of great curiosity and great confusion because boys’ budding sexuality opens them up to many questions, fantasies, and urges that have not existed before. They seek information about sex from friends, hoping that this knowledge will fulfil their new found curiosity and urges. But in today’s digital world, most adolescents turn to porn for answers and pleasure, and when porn becomes an adolescent boy’s primary mode of sexual education, it can be disastrous.

So, suspect your teenage son is watching porn or caught him redhanded? It’s not about seizing his phone, barring him from the computer, spanking him or quarantining him from his friends. Start with his head and heart; talk to him.

1. Let him know that watching porn has serious consequences – addiction, masturbation, infertility (addictive masturbation can lead to infertility), an urge to rape/ rape, low self-esteem and unrealistic expectations.

2. Let him know that rape is evil and he should never be involved in such. Tell him also that you’re going to put a filter on his computer (and please do) to protect him from images that may be too much for his developing brain to handle.

3. Where social networking is concerned, tell him he should have fun but should not go with the crowd to do wrong. Tell him you believe in him to stop, and he should get busy whenever the thought to view porn comes to mind (replacement therapy) and/or visualise the consequences of doing so (aversion therapy) and that you won’t tolerate such in your family.

4. Now is also the time to talk to him in explicit detail about his sexuality; he has seen porn, so what’s there to leave out? It cannot be overemphasized that the communication line with our children must be open, smooth and no-hold barred. We must talk to them in love and wisdom, while we seize teachable moments and structure weekly chats.

As a parent or guardian, you can’t shield your children from every known evil in the world, but it is your responsibility to prepare them for the issues you can anticipate. Since sex education is sorely lacking or wrongly disseminated in our schools, you should involve yourself in guiding and educating your son about sex so that he can grow into a healthy sexual adult.

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IT’S BEST FATHERS LEAD THIS TALK

The onus is particularly on the fathers to sex-educate their sons and inspire them to make the right choices. Mothers, get your husbands to do this as sexuality education coming from a father is priceless and more effective where sons are concerned.

Won’t this conversation awaken more sexual curiosity in them?

The fact that your child/teen has been exposed to porn has already provoked a curiosity about sexual matters. This is not the time to hold back because you are afraid of speaking too soon. Your son or daughter needs your wisdom, not your silence.

Dr. Margaret Stager from Case Western Reserve wisely says that ‘too much too soon’ is a rare circumstance in today’s world. The opposite – your children not knowing your values as they pertain to sex – is far more common and dangerous.