The male teenager and pornography

My good blogger friend Linda wrote an interesting post on parenting the teenage boy. As I am currently preparing a workshop on child development I thought I would make a statement about it as it is something that gets presented to me as a counsellor from time to time. It is usually the mother who is more concerned than the father.

She may have found her teenage son has been looking at porn either on the computer or in some magazine. Occasionally a mother will present to me a drawing done by her son which is sexual in nature.

She comes to me concerned about this and wonders if he has some psychological problem. The problem for the mother compared to the father is she grew up as a girl and thus has no first hand experience on how the teenage boy’s mind work in relation to pornography. The father obviously does and thus is usually less concerned because most often there is nothing to be concerned about.


Should I be concerned?

Here I am only talking about the psychology of male oriented pornography. Some parents may object to pornography on moral, political or religious grounds, that is another matter that is not addressed here.

In the vast majority of instances there is nothing to be worried about and it is all perfectly normal. Teenage boys will find a way to access some kind of pornography, they have been for centuries. Either in their own home from father’s collection of playboy or some boy will have raided his father’s collection and it will be passed around the school yard for a few weeks. Or from the school library in a national geographic magazine. Some boy would have discovered a story on an amazonian tribe which has pictures of bare breasted native women in it.

Now of course there is internet porn. Even if you have protective soft ware on home computers how many children have lap tops they take to and from school these days that friends can look at. They can even access images on mobile phones.

As I have mentioned before men and women can have different responses to pornographic images and sex in general and thus mothers can find it hard to understand why there lovely little boy who is now a teenager suddenly wants to look at pictures of naked women and pictures of men and women having sex. Understandably so as they have never experienced it them self as a teenager.


Does a woman want to dine here?

They will want to know what it means and it really does not mean much at all. I have searched for a metaphor to try and help women understand the male psyche and pornography (and of course I am generalising here but I think I am talking about a large group of men). I think I have found one that kind of makes the point.

To men looking at porn is like eating an ice cream. When you buy an ice cream you’re not eating it because you need it. It’s not being eaten to avoid starvation. The act of eating the ice cream is not making a statement of some kind. It’s not an attempt to make a philosophical or political statement. It’s eaten because it feels good and that’s about it. Teenage boys discover that when they look at porn it feels good, so they do it and that’s about it.

Mother’s may ask if it will make their son a misogynist. Porn has never made a man a woman hater. That happens because the boy was beaten by mother or he saw father treat mother with no respect as he was growing up.

Yes it is important to talk to the teenager about it and make sure he realises that pornography is fantasy. Especially that women most often will not have the same reaction to it that he does. That women can have quite a different view of sex and that sex and relationships and love go together.


People can enjoy fantasy. It doesn't mean they actually want to do it.

Some men have no idea. I hear women tell me about some guy who is trying court her. So he sends her some internet porn and then is surprised when she suddenly wants nothing more to do with him. The teenage boy needs to realise that a woman’s reaction to pornographic images may be very different to his own. And of course you talk to the boy about the importance of respecting other people in relationships including women who you have a sexual relationship with.

On the other hand pornography can be quite a good lesson in sexual anatomy. It can show the boy what the various bits do and so forth. And if you find some porn he has been accessing you will find out if he is straight or gay. BUT don’t base your conclusions on just a few images he has been looking at

Some mothers fear this means their boy is becoming a sexual deviant. In the vast majority of cases this is not so. The reason why he looks at people having sex with animals is because he’s curious, The same can apply for gay porn. If he looks at images of group sex that does not necessarily mean that he wants to go and have group sex. There is a very big difference between fantasy and behaviour. People fantasise all sorts of behaviour that they will never do and never want to do in reality. What can be erotic in fantasy may not be erotic at all in reality.

From a psychological point of view one is looking for patterns and themes of behaviour. Over time what does the person find erotic and how exclusive is it. For instance if he finds S&M erotic over time and it is exclusive (ie he does not find other forms of sexual expression erotic) then he could be diagnosed as having a sexual deviation. Whilst this may be an interesting diagnostic exercise for psychologists to do it doesn’t actually mean anything.



S&M is not illegal in the country where I live so what’s the problem? The only problem he may have is finding a partner who is willing to engage in those sexual practises with him. If it is illegal like exhibitionism then there is also the legal issues the person has to deal with.

However what we are talking about here is a small group of men. The vast majority of teenage boys will look at a whole variety of different pornographic images and go onto to have a normal sexual relationship in a loving relationship with a partner.

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