How to deal with 16 DD who reads fanfiction porn

[Anonymous]

I have discovered for the third time that my DD (who is 16) is reading fan-fiction porn. There are sites like Archieve of our Own where people post the fan fiction that they write, and some of it is just ordinary bad (bad writing), but the rest of it is porn - and not romantic porn, but hard core disturbing porn (stories or gang rape, male on male rape/sex, kids watching, etc). When we discovered it before, we have told her that her curiousity is normal, totally age appropriate but that we don't feel like this is the kind of material she should be reading. We asked her to stop, she agreed, and we casually monitored her internet use - meaning I didn't check what she was doing every day, but would occassionally look. After the second time we discovered it, we put a tracking software on, and that helped, but it isn't 100% teenproof and this is the third time we have discovered her accessing it again. I think she feels guilty about it. She has some issues of picking at her skin...and I think it is related to the guilt, tension she feels about reading this stuff. I think it is time for us to block her access to the site....but it is hard to completely block a site ...and then of course she can probably find this stuff somewhere else....and I don't want her to turn to videos. We have a fairly open relationship, but this is hard. We have really tried to avoid shaming her, but the content is so disturbing to me, that is is hard avoid some shame. Any advice? Please -helpful and thoughtful posts only.

[Anonymous]

Let it go.

She is not 10yo. She will find this content somewhere. And you are right that the curiosity is normal.

I'm not saying that you aren't right to be concerned. I'm saying that there is no action you can take that will make it better.

Don't bring it up again regarding the website. But absolutely do take every opportunity you find to talk to her about safe, empowering, consenting relationships. And provide her with as many examples/models as possible.

[Anonymous]

Oh dear, this is hard. You are absolutely on the right track with making it not about shame! I agree that just trying to block the internet access isn’t going to work because she will probably just get around it if she really wants to (even if you don’t let her use the computer at all) and that will just compound her own shame.

I would suggest you talk to a therapist who does some work with adolescents but also has a specialty or at least experiences in sex therapy. I have a friend who is a sex therapist and she has done courses in those kind of disturbing hard core fetishes. It’s disturbing but it’s also not helpful to just wish them away, you know? And ultimately this might just be simple curiosity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh dear, this is hard. You are absolutely on the right track with making it not about shame! I agree that just trying to block the internet access isn’t going to work because she will probably just get around it if she really wants to (even if you don’t let her use the computer at all) and that will just compound her own shame.

I would suggest you talk to a therapist who does some work with adolescents but also has a specialty or at least experiences in sex therapy. I have a friend who is a sex therapist and she has done courses in those kind of disturbing hard core fetishes. It’s disturbing but it’s also not helpful to just wish them away, you know? And ultimately this might just be simple curiosity.

(What I am saying here is not that you have your child speak to the therapist, but that you speak to the therapist, FYI).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have discovered for the third time that my DD (who is 16) is reading fan-fiction porn. There are sites like Archieve of our Own where people post the fan fiction that they write, and some of it is just ordinary bad (bad writing), but the rest of it is porn - and not romantic porn, but hard core disturbing porn (stories or gang rape, male on male rape/sex, kids watching, etc). When we discovered it before, we have told her that her curiousity is normal, totally age appropriate but that we don't feel like this is the kind of material she should be reading. We asked her to stop, she agreed, and we casually monitored her internet use - meaning I didn't check what she was doing every day, but would occassionally look. After the second time we discovered it, we put a tracking software on, and that helped, but it isn't 100% teenproof and this is the third time we have discovered her accessing it again. I think she feels guilty about it. She has some issues of picking at her skin...and I think it is related to the guilt, tension she feels about reading this stuff. I think it is time for us to block her access to the site....but it is hard to completely block a site ...and then of course she can probably find this stuff somewhere else....and I don't want her to turn to videos. We have a fairly open relationship, but this is hard. We have really tried to avoid shaming her, but the content is so disturbing to me, that is is hard avoid some shame. Any advice? Please -helpful and thoughtful posts only.

Omg MYOB you pervert! The kid is 16

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have discovered for the third time that my DD (who is 16) is reading fan-fiction porn. There are sites like Archieve of our Own where people post the fan fiction that they write, and some of it is just ordinary bad (bad writing), but the rest of it is porn - and not romantic porn, but hard core disturbing porn (stories or gang rape, male on male rape/sex, kids watching, etc). When we discovered it before, we have told her that her curiousity is normal, totally age appropriate but that we don't feel like this is the kind of material she should be reading. We asked her to stop, she agreed, and we casually monitored her internet use - meaning I didn't check what she was doing every day, but would occassionally look. After the second time we discovered it, we put a tracking software on, and that helped, but it isn't 100% teenproof and this is the third time we have discovered her accessing it again. I think she feels guilty about it. She has some issues of picking at her skin...and I think it is related to the guilt, tension she feels about reading this stuff. I think it is time for us to block her access to the site....but it is hard to completely block a site ...and then of course she can probably find this stuff somewhere else....and I don't want her to turn to videos. We have a fairly open relationship, but this is hard. We have really tried to avoid shaming her, but the content is so disturbing to me, that is is hard avoid some shame. Any advice? Please -helpful and thoughtful posts only.

Omg MYOB you pervert! The kid is 16

I’m not the OP but did you see the kind of material the child was looking at? OP should be okay saying that she doesn’t want her minor child living in her house to be looking at erotic stories of kids watching somebody rape somebody else. This isnt your typical erotic fan fiction.

[Anonymous]

Why can’t she read it? I seriously don’t understand the problem (and I don’t even like smut). I don’t think you should censor her reading. If you are concerned, perhaps you could read it too and talk to her about it (but more listening than talking), although that ship has probably sailed.

[Anonymous]

Honestly? I would ignore it. I went through a phase as a teen where I read some super weird sexually explicit stuff, more problematic than a bunch of fanfic, in published romance and horror novels. I didn't do anything sexual as a teen and am a profoundly vanilla adult. Some kids prefer to do all their sexual experimentation in the realm of fiction which has the bonus of being a 0% risk of STIs.

[Anonymous]

Ask her to write smut and publish it. She might as well make some money off of it. I see no other way to incorporate it positively in her college application.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have discovered for the third time that my DD (who is 16) is reading fan-fiction porn. There are sites like Archieve of our Own where people post the fan fiction that they write, and some of it is just ordinary bad (bad writing), but the rest of it is porn - and not romantic porn, but hard core disturbing porn (stories or gang rape, male on male rape/sex, kids watching, etc). When we discovered it before, we have told her that her curiousity is normal, totally age appropriate but that we don't feel like this is the kind of material she should be reading. We asked her to stop, she agreed, and we casually monitored her internet use - meaning I didn't check what she was doing every day, but would occassionally look. After the second time we discovered it, we put a tracking software on, and that helped, but it isn't 100% teenproof and this is the third time we have discovered her accessing it again. I think she feels guilty about it. She has some issues of picking at her skin...and I think it is related to the guilt, tension she feels about reading this stuff. I think it is time for us to block her access to the site....but it is hard to completely block a site ...and then of course she can probably find this stuff somewhere else....and I don't want her to turn to videos. We have a fairly open relationship, but this is hard. We have really tried to avoid shaming her, but the content is so disturbing to me, that is is hard avoid some shame. Any advice? Please -helpful and thoughtful posts only.

Omg MYOB you pervert! The kid is 16

I’m not the OP but did you see the kind of material the child was looking at? OP should be okay saying that she doesn’t want her minor child living in her house to be looking at erotic stories of kids watching somebody rape somebody else. This isnt your typical erotic fan fiction.

I noticed she lumped in "male on male sex" as one of the objectionable things, so....I'm skeptical of all of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t she read it? I seriously don’t understand the problem (and I don’t even like smut). I don’t think you should censor her reading. If you are concerned, perhaps you could read it too and talk to her about it (but more listening than talking), although that ship has probably sailed.

that will kill the interest right there. Maybe have her come into the conversation with a book report already written?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly? I would ignore it. I went through a phase as a teen where I read some super weird sexually explicit stuff, more problematic than a bunch of fanfic, in published romance and horror novels. I didn't do anything sexual as a teen and am a profoundly vanilla adult. Some kids prefer to do all their sexual experimentation in the realm of fiction which has the bonus of being a 0% risk of STIs.

I read a lot of erotica as a teen, mostly romance novels.

but the stuff OP is describing is disturbing. I did read one book where it had stuff like this, and in hindsight, a story that was basically child molestation. At the time, I didn't realize what that was.

Erotica is fine, but the stuff OP describes is not fine. I still feel creeped out and cringe when I think about the stuff I read. It was so disturbing it has stayed with me, 30+ yrs later.

Porn can be addicting, even for girls. If she cannot get a handle on this, then I would start to question whether she is addicted to it.

Maybe redirect her to erotica books that deal with adult sexuality, no kids and no rape. Gad.. that's just disturbing.

[Anonymous]

OP here - well, I see that quickly devolved into rude, unfeeling responses. Thank you to those of you who actually took the time to offer some thoughtful helpful advice. To the others, I don't know what you get out of shitting on other people, but I hope it's worth it.
I'm out. This will be the last time I post here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - well, I see that quickly devolved into rude, unfeeling responses. Thank you to those of you who actually took the time to offer some thoughtful helpful advice. To the others, I don't know what you get out of shitting on other people, but I hope it's worth it.
I'm out. This will be the last time I post here.

Seriously, leave DCUM and talk to a therapist. How is your kid doing in school? She likes to read so you must channel her focus towards more cerebral kind of reading and less porn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly? I would ignore it. I went through a phase as a teen where I read some super weird sexually explicit stuff, more problematic than a bunch of fanfic, in published romance and horror novels. I didn't do anything sexual as a teen and am a profoundly vanilla adult. Some kids prefer to do all their sexual experimentation in the realm of fiction which has the bonus of being a 0% risk of STIs.

I read a lot of erotica as a teen, mostly romance novels.

but the stuff OP is describing is disturbing. I did read one book where it had stuff like this, and in hindsight, a story that was basically child molestation. At the time, I didn't realize what that was.

Erotica is fine, but the stuff OP describes is not fine. I still feel creeped out and cringe when I think about the stuff I read. It was so disturbing it has stayed with me, 30+ yrs later.

Porn can be addicting, even for girls. If she cannot get a handle on this, then I would start to question whether she is addicted to it.

Maybe redirect her to erotica books that deal with adult sexuality, no kids and no rape. Gad.. that's just disturbing.

On one hand, I see your point -- I'm retroactively really disturbed by a horror series I read as a teen that prominently featured kids getting raped. (Yes, this was published and marketed to young adults IIRC.) Adult romance/erotica FREQUENTLY features rape, although admittedly usually between adults, so I think this fanfic is bad and perverse narrative is a bit questionable. The fact that OP considers sex between two males apparently as objectionable as the rest does make me wonder if the daughter is actually getting into anything I would consider all that bad.

That being said, you make a good point that if the DD is struggling with reading things she would regret later, OP should help her find other reading material. I like the ides of OP supplying less disturbing options -- there's some very good (and ethical!) romance and erotica out there! And that might help with DD's shame/guilt if her parent provides her with other options.