How to talk about porn
I know, I know. This one sucks. None of us want to imagine our little love actively seeking out porn. While this does happen more often than parents think, let’s consider another alternative. Your sweet kiddo simply googles ‘Dicks’…he meant to go to the Dicks Sporting Goods website, but still….what comes up isn’t that.
For this reason and more, all experts recommend talking about porn with a child as soon as they have a device with access to the internet. We need to prepare them for what they might encounter.
Melissa Pintor Carnagey has these scripts in her wonderful book Sex Positive Talks to have with Kids
Ages 4-8
If you ever come across pictures or videos of people naked or touching each other’s genitals or private parts, this is called pornography or porn. These images are for adults not kids. If you see things like this, you’re not in trouble, but I’d like for you to turn off the device or step away from it and let me or a trusted adult know so we can help explain what you’ve seen.
Ages 9-12
It’s normal to be curious about bodies and sex. Porn is not a safe place to learn about these things. If you ever have questions, you can come to me, but if you don’t feel comfortable for any reason, let me show you some reliable, safe resources that will answer questions you might have.
Ages 13 and up
What’s shown in the porn that you can find free online is not a realistic or fair representation of bodies, relationships and sex. It’s made for entertainment and to make money and is often not ethically produced. It’s important that you know this, so you don’t enter into sexual situations thinking you or your partner have to act like or look like what you might see in porn.
Another script from Michelle Icard’s book, 14 talks by age 14:
“We live in a world where you are likely to see pornography. You may already have. You don’t have to say. Sometimes it’s by accident- it can pop up on your screen when you Google something, or sometimes you might click a link that looks fine, but it takes you to a weird website. My point is, you’re bound to either run across it or hear people at school talking about it, so I want you to know something. Porn is not a representation of real sex any more than a Spider-Man movie is a representation of real crime fighting. This matters- that it isn’t real- because if watching porn videos is how someone learns about sex, they could end up with an unhealthy and unhappy sex life by comparing real sex with these totally unrealistic portrayals, not to mention some porn can be violent and degrading. People need accurate information, and porn gives a lot of wrong information, which is why I will buy you books about sex you can read in private, or find answers to any questions you have on this subject.”