Literally millions and millions of young people watch porn and don’t do anything other than fantasize with it.

The appropriate way to address porn with young people is to put it into its appropriate context. Tell them what it is (fantasy), what it isn’t (reflective of what real sexuality is all about), how to use it (fantasy fodder, idea generation), and how not to use it (sex education). Someone who gets their ideas of how sex should be from porn will, as Dr. Rayne suggests, have trouble transitioning to “real sex.” If you don’t address the issue with them (young people), “discourage” it (as Crystal suggests), gloss over it or ignore it altogether, that is exactly what can happen.

Also, I think porn and masturbation is a good healthy outlet for teens who aren’t ready to take on the emotional and physical responsibility of partnersex, who can’t find partners, or who don’t wish to engage in partnersex at the time. It’s surely better than STD or pregnancy (or scares of said effects) or greater emotional turmoil.

And what’s this about “Why overstimulate what is usually an unharnessed male teen imagination?” 1.) how do you know it’s overstimulation? What do you define as overstimulation anyway?

2.) What’s WRONG with having an “unharness male teen imagination”? As we get older, many people have problems with fantasizing because they’ve been self-censoring for so long. An unharnessed, active imagination is healthy, whether sexual or not. Using one’s brain and coming up with new things is a healthy thing, no matter the age. Daydreaming is an extremely healthy and stress relieving activity. Sexual daydreaming even more so.

The sad thing is that 60 years later you look at the teen message board and all that misinformation and lack of information about mastubation is still there. We seem to have not to have progressed at all in the field of sex eduation…and that is a pretty sad thing in my most humble and most ancient opinion!

I’d have to disagree with that.

I’ll agree with your imagination is your best friend.

But I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with erotic media. I think that telling your son that the women in mainstream porn have been altered and airbrushed to look like a supposed idea of perfection and that the women who were in the shots didn’t look like that before they had the shot is a good idea. I think that encouraging your son to examine the sexism and commodification of desire in mainstream porn is a good idea. I think encouraging usage of non-mainstream porn if he uses porn at all is a great idea. (FINDING it can be tricky, especially if you don’t live in a metropolitan area.) I don’t know if you’re familiar with “Found” but it’s a mag/book where people send in items they’ve found in various places. There’s an erotic version called Dirty Found that is a wonderful display of peoples desires… polaroids of people’s bodies, smutty letters, etc. (http://dirtyfound.typepad.com/) It’s pansexual and not only allows you to see the desires of other people, it’s also quite hot.

There’s also the entire genres of “gonzo” and “amateur” porn, which, whereas it still has plenty of Hollywood-porn overtones, is a bit better in that it’s average people having sex with average people.