Advice needed

I would not ask him, but let him come to you if he ever does. You will just horrify him more than you already have. After our son's 16th birthday Mike gave him 5 porn discs which caused such havoc in our home as it totally embarrassed him to think his dad or me knew he had seen porn. Finally he talked a little to me expressing the horrors of us thinking he might be thinking of sex. Keep in mind I was the mother figure in the home and easier for him to talk to. Your son may or may not come around to talk but pushing the issue may just alienate him. In this case you know him best, and may consider a counselor as a safe 3rd party for him to talk to. June

 

I really would recommend against asking your son if he's gay. As someone who's still mostly in the closet that's a question that I absolutely dread. Coming out needs to be ad decision that the individual makes for themselves. If you ask him you could force him out of the closet before he is ready and that would be a really frightening and uncomfortable position for him to be in. Maybe you could try casually bringing up LGBT topics around him and hope he responds. Let him know that you love him unconditionally and that there's anything he needs to talk about he can come to you. He might be scared to talk to you because he thinks you will judge him or treat him differently, so do your best to alleviate those fears.

 

Thanks for your posting GeekDad. I don't know if you have looked at any of the other threads and conversations in this part of the forum, but it may be helpful to just spend a bit of time reviewing past conversations as some of them may be relevant to your own situation.

If you haven't already done so, it might be worth checking out PFLAG's website:
PFLAG National

Personally, I would not directly ask your son about his sexuality as it may cause him acute discomfort and could lead to a negative response. The fact that you discovered porn on the smartphones may already be a source of discomfort to him, so a direct question now about his sexuality may leave him feeling 'boxed in'. I know you mean well and it's great that you are supportive, but he needs to have this conversation with you on his own terms and in his own time. Following the discovery of porn he may be struggling to discern the difference between disapproval of porn and disapproval of homosexual orientation, but I would suggest you allow him the time and space to work it out for himself. In time, he surely will.

Stay positive and supportive and keep coming back to this thread as other members may respond with a useful perspective.

 

Because he knows you have seen what type porn he has looked at. That has to be horrifying him dreading being asked further of why he looked at the content (gay) he has. That is why I used that word. I recall wrecking my uncle's car which seemed like my life would end any moment! as a kid don't you recall events seeming like the world was going to end because you did ....? You seeing gay sex on a phone he downloaded has to feel that way to him! June

 

This guy handled things pretty well I think. What happened after a single dad asked strangers for advice on helping his son come out as gay · PinkNews

I'd just recommend you tread carefully. It's an emotionally charged subject for him, I'm sure.

When I was 15, I was watching an unreasonable amount of porn, most of it gay porn, but I would have never admitted to being gay if anyone had asked me. Even if I knew my parents had seen what I was watching I would have denied being anything but straight, because at that point in my life I wasn't even out to myself.

I don't think I can add much to what the Reddit crowd said. Best luck to the both of you.

 

Hey GeekDad. Welcome to EC.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have anything to add to what others have written. I am usually in 100% total agreement with what everyone has stated here, for all the reasons they have given.

However, I do want to press you for more information on two points. You mention that he has been acting out. In what ways has he been acting out? I am also curious as to how you think his Aspergers will impact the situation of him coming to terms with his sexuality and ultimately coming out to you?

These are two unique factors in your situation that I think need to be addressed, before I am able to jump on board with everyone else.

 

Thanks for the elaboration. I think some of it may have to do with his aspergers, but I also think a lot of it also has to do with him being a teenager. I have a nephew around his age, and let me tell you that you could have almost described him to a "T." I actually think this is pretty normal, but is likely made worse by his aspergers.

I primarily wanted to make sure that he didn't seem depressed, like he was distancing himself from the family, disconnecting from friends, engaged in forms of self-destructive behavior or self-harm, etc. All of these things would have been warning signs that action would have needed to be taken immediately.

As thankfully none of this seems to be the case, I am in agreement with everyone else. I would encourage you to stick around, read the other threads here, and ask additional questions. Everyone here at EC is very welcoming.

Yes, this is very good advice. This is generally what I recommend. I also recommend looking for little "teachable moments" -- these are little moments that you run into everyday that can lead to productive conversations with your son. One of the big difficulties in having highly emotionally charged conversations is that, as adults, we have to make a big deal out of it.

I mean, think back to when you were a kid. You have a parent calling you into a room, or entering your room. You know right from the onset that a serious conversation is about to take place from the expression on their face. Then you hear the dreaded words, "We need to talk." Right from the beginning, you are sort of put on the defensive.

A better way to do it is to wait for a moment where you can have just a normal conversation. For example, you are both in the car together and a particular song plays on the radio, you can ask him what he thinks about something in particular in the song. You can watch a favorite TV Show or Book with him, and discuss a character from there. Basically, your goal is to be sneaky and clever. It is setting him up to start talking, throwing him off his guard, and then steering the conversation toward what you want to discuss or the information you want to relay to him. It achieves the same thing as the "we need to talk" issue above, but avoids the inherent defensiveness to that approach.

...and of course, it goes without saying that you should, at every reasonable opportunity, show your support for LGBT people and our equal rights. This also gives you the opportunity to express your dismay over parents and other people who mistreat or turn their backs on their children who are gay, basically saying (without putting him on the spot), that if he (or his brothers or sisters) were gay that you would love them just the same. This way you are letting him know that it is safe to come out when he wants to, and that it won't change anything. It hopefully takes the pressure off of him somewhat...and from there, it's just a matter of him working through things on his own.

I think that is the hard part from the parent perspective. As a gay person, we were all raised to view ourselves as straight. From the moment grandma came over and pinched our chubby little cheeks as babies and remarked, "He'll be fighting the girls off with a stick." We have been presumed heterosexuals. I think it is often hard for heterosexuals to understand that being heterosexual is an identity, and it is assumed to be the default sexual orientation. Anyone who is not heterosexual is deviating from that "default." What this means is that as a gay person, you are not only coming to terms that you are not straight and all the implications that involves, but you are also losing your heterosexual identity. Everything about your place in the world, who you are, and how you fit into it is being challenged and questioned. The dreams that were pushed upon us by society, and by our parents... they were the dreams of heterosexuals.

It is important to remember that your son, who is almost fifteen, was actually born in a time when in at least some states it was illegal to even be a gay man. The Minnesota ban on sodomy, for example, only ended in 2001 when the state Supreme Court struck it down. It would still be two more years before the United States Supreme Court would strike down Sodomy Laws nation wide in the 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas. All of which has paved the way for us to fight for marriage equality.

It is easy to look at how popular opinion has shifted with marriage equality, and come to the belief that things have changed drastically. It is true that things have changed to a degree, and that we are not facing as difficult a time as we were in the past--at least in some areas of the country (others are still largely the same)--all of this has happened within your sons lifetime. He has grown up in the shadow of a country that would have just recently thrown him in jail as a young gay man engaging in consensual sex with another young gay man. And while he may not have an actual awareness of this fact legally or historically speaking, the cultural echos of that time are still very much present and in place. He is no doubt very familiar at this point in his life of the prejudiced against gay people in society, and he has likely internalized some of that.

It's that internalized bigotry and the growing acceptance of himself as a young gay man that he has to work through. And the sad part is that, as adults (and certainly you as his father), we would love to swoop in and make it all better for him. However, the sad truth is that this is just a struggle he has to do on his own. All we can do is stand back and give our unconditional love and support, and keep him aware that when he is ready there are good people in the world waiting to embrace him for who he truly is.

 

From my personal experience, I liked girl on girl pornography but I'm bisexual... He may find it I don't know better but he may also be bisexual or he could be straight and confused... It doesn't mean he's really gay but there's a possibility he's well any sexuality. Pansexual, bisexual, gay or even straight. In the near future try to talk to him... But if he gets upset about it maybe let him be and check up with that every once in a while

 

There are tons of good insight in the posts above. My eye caught this part, though. Is this a recurring event? Say, something that could indicate he's subconscioulsy or not avoiding taking the school bus with the other kids because it's a stressful experience for him? How does he get along with other kids at school generally? If he's having issues with "fitting in" already, it's could be even more difficult as he discovers he's different in yet another way.