Q: My preteen daughter stumbled upon my porn, my wife and I found various screens open on our computer that was all kinds of queer gang bang stuff, we haven’t told her that we know she found it, and she recently started asking me questions about how men and women have sex. I’m mortified and I don’t want her to be confused by what she saw.

A: Don’t worry, your child’s life will not be ruined because they found your orgy porn, but it will be impacted if you display feelings of shame or guilt regarding the material. Sex can look very unusual and we do make all kinds of grunts and groans, and the things depicted in porn are often meant to be entertaining and arousing, not necessarily sexually common, body-safe to an untrained professional, or that might even look consensual. For example, putting a penis in someone’s “ass-to-mouth” is pretty common in hardcore porn, but these performers usually spend a few hours prepping for hygiene and safety before they begin shooting. Porn can be inspiring or interesting, but it is not necessarily meant to reflect what you need to do in your personal life.

Firstly, tell your child that men and women have sex in the ways that they decide feels good to them, for some people that might mean with their penises, mouths, hands, feet, stomach rolls, armpits : there is no “proper” way to have sex. Secondly, as a kid who was (kind of) caught digging through their parents’ porn, I Do suggest buying her a kid-friendly book such as Sex Is a Funny Word and ask her if she knows what pornography is.  Tell your child that porn is something that humans have made for thousands of years, and that one study suggests up to 85% of women in America report having watched it at some point in their lives.

I believe that most preteens are capable of understanding when you explain that can porn is meant to be entertainment, not sex education. You wouldn’t drive your car in the ways that you saw in Fast and the Furious, and most people don’t have sex with their partners in the methods they’ve seen on Pornhub. And don’t be concerned if you discover or suspect that your child is interested in having sex now that they’ve seen visually stimulating material – we humans are hard-wired to have interest in this stuff, libido is the reason we are on this planet at all.

Originally published on ConfluenceDaily.com