Eleven is the average age that kids view pornography. Sometimes it happens inadvertently via a mistakenly unfiltered search term. Or it occurs over at so-and-so’s house whose parents aren’t so savvy with Google filters and firewalls. But at some point or other, sexually curious youth will access pornography.
I have an eleven-month-old son, and while some might say it’s premature, I’ve begun thinking about how my husband and I will handle the topic of porn with him. I certainly don’t want him viewing hardcore smut as a preteen. But if forced to choose by my Internet provider, as will soon be the case in Britain, would I say no to allowing porn in my household altogether? I don’t think I would.
Let me back up for a second and explain why. Several years ago my husband-to-be filmed porn stars on and off set for a reality TV show. Porn brought up extremely conflicting reactions in me. On the one hand, I considered myself sexually liberal and wanted to be accepting of all facets of sexuality. On the other, I found porn at best, tacky, and at worst, degrading.
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My new memoir, Prude: Lessons I Learned When My Fiancé Filmed Porn is the story of how I reconsidered my prejudices, overcame my discomfort, and ultimately how our relationship improved. In short, we learned to communicate with new levels of frankness and acceptance. Avoiding discussions about porn with my fiancé had created misunderstandings and unnecessary tension between us. We’ve been married five years now and have a very honest dynamic, for which I’m grateful.
When it comes to parenting, I’m of the opinion that absolutely forbidding something often serves to augment the caché of whatever is being denied. So when it comes to X-rated material, I’ve been considering whether some involvement in our children’s exposure to porn could be a version of “If you’re going to try alcohol, I’d prefer you do it under my roof.”
To be clear, I would not give my tween son free rein on the Internet. There will be filters in our house. There will also be early sex education. I certainly don’t plan to defer to my son’s peers in the locker room to coach him on the anatomically correct terms for sex organs or the various ways that STIs can be spread.
Still, I’m pretty sure those chats won’t come close to cutting it in educating him about what’s online—which one way or another, he’ll eventually see. I don’t relish the thought of, say, permitting my teenage son to access hardcore porn, and then having a dialogue about it with us over lasagna. (Undoubtedly, he won’t be loving that either.) But at an appropriate age—and I’m far too novice a parent to know what that is—there are several things that I want him to know about pornography.
I want him to be absolutely clear on the fact that porn represents fantasies enacted by paid performers, with all the glitter, guns, and gore of Hollywood. I want him to know pornography is often not the way sex happens: with little-to-no foreplay or discussion. Or how real people always feel: easily aroused and constantly gratified. Or look: waxed, muscled, bleached, and D-cupped. Perhaps most of all, I want him to understand the idea of consent. A performer in a film has given their written permission to perform a certain act, even if they act otherwise. While porn stars portray submission and dominance, it doesn’t equate to their positions in the real world. And with this understanding, I hope he’ll become the kind of man who has the utmost respect for himself and others in the bedroom.
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It would be all too easy to never get around to these conversations if we felt secure in the strength of our virtual fort. But as sensible adults, we know the firewalls won’t hold. In today’s world, a stance of protect and evade simply won’t work. And personally, I want a certain level of control over my boy’s development into a respectful man.
I suppose I could always just give him a copy of my book and call it a day. Then again, I’m pretty sure it’s one bit of salacious material he’ll happily avoid.