[mcv]

I think the important part is that parents talk with their children about the nature of porn. It's unavoidable that they're going to run into it at some point, and I think it's important that they understand that's not what real sex is like.

I did catch my son watching porn when he was 13. We talked about it, I blocked some stuff at my router (hardly comprehensive, but mostly to make it easy to avoid the thing he was watching), and then stopped worrying about it. He's 17 now. I'm sure he knows how to find it if he wants it, but I also trust he's able to interpret it responsibly. He seems like a well-adjusted kid. I worry more about his gaming addiction, but it doesn't seem to be interfering with school anymore.

[neonstatic]

I don't have kids yet, but I remember what it was like as a teen. Now from the perspective of the adult, all that stuff about how porn supposedly damages young person's view of what real sex is like was exaggerated. In fact, porn ended up being a pretty decent educational experience for me. Definitely filled the gaps that the "responsible education" left behind. On the other hand, as a young boy I saw some very drastic self-harm pictures online and it's been with me since - almost 30 years later I still remember.

re: gaming addiction - my parents were obsessed with me being "addicted". Now, as an adult, I don't care about games anymore. Everything I have I owe to computer skills and English. What my parents didn't want to see (or couldn't?) was that at the time games were the only interesting thing to do. We were glued to the screens mostly because everything else sucked.