My son’s first exposure to pornography, as far as I can tell, happened a week before Christmas. He’s 7 years old, pushing 8. I’ve been stewing about it ever since, for several reasons—not the least of which is that it was my own fault.
I’d gotten up on a Saturday morning with the kids and had let My Fair Lady sleep in, because I’m a good husband and also because I’d lost at rock, paper, scissors. (Rare defeat.) The Boy asked if he could log on to Northpole.com to determine whether he’d been naughty or nice. So, like a responsible parent, I took him to the home office that we use exclusively for business and fired up the computer that we use solely and even more exclusively for business, and I pointed our browser to the aforementioned site. Everything looked kiddo friendly. Giddyap.
Back to the living room I went with my cup of coffee and our 1-year-old girl, to continue our exploration of every button and knob on the home entertainment system. (All produce the sound “No!”) Periodically, I’d hustle down the hall and check in on The Boy.
Thus did the morning more or less uneventfully progress, until The Boy appeared at my elbow with tears in his eyes. His face showed a combination of confusion and sadness that I didn’t recognize at the time. Now I know that’s what little boys look like immediately after losing their innocence.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” I said.
“Robbie and Hunter told me on the playground yesterday that if I wanted to be cool, I had to go to Nakedgirls.com. And I did,” he said. “I thought I should tell you.”
My heart sank. “Come here,” I said and pulled The Boy onto the couch with me so that I could hold him and rest my cheek on his head. How does his hair stay so soft, even when it hasn’t been washed for three days? He was crying pretty good now.
“Do you have any questions about what you saw?” I asked. Me, I had lots of questions. Question No. 1: what, specifically, had he seen? Question No. 2: given some of the worst-case answers I could imagine to question No. 1, how quickly could I wake up The Boy’s mother? Luckily, he said he didn’t have questions. “Well, I’m glad you told me,” I said. “You did the right thing. But, really, does a website called Nakedgirls.com sound like someplace you should visit?” He admitted it didn’t. I told him we’d discuss it with Mom when she woke up. No Internet until further notice. And, of course, we’d have to talk to the parents of the playground porn tipsters. (Great name for my new band.)
Huh. So The Boy had seen smut. I turned on the TV, and we watched some cartoons, but I really couldn’t get into Xiaolin Showdown. I was too preoccupied about what was going through The Boy’s theretofore unsullied 7-year-old head.
I remember the first time I encountered smut, probably when I was close to his age. I lived in Old East Dallas. I don’t know what I was up to—maybe walking home from the Boys Club—but I was with some older kids, and one of them had a magazine. The pages were weathered and wrinkled, like it had sat in the rain and then dried. One of the boys turned to a picture of a couple who looked like they were playing naked leap frog. I still remember that image. We were standing on the corner of Fitzhugh Avenue and Worth Street when I saw it. The picture bewildered me, but the older boys obviously thought it was cool. So I said, “Awesome.”
Now The Boy on the couch next to me faced the same confusion. And just like the little me standing on that street corner, he’ll never be the same. Dammit. And damn those kids on the playground. And damn me the most for being careless enough to allow it to happen.
But back to question No. 1: what, specifically, had he seen? I’ll never know. Because when I slinked away to the office to check, I panicked and wound up deleting the browser’s history cache. I typed in the address and was ultimately brought to a page filled with links alphabetized by predilection (or perversion). Which one(s) had he followed? I can only guess. And hope it wasn’t “sexy smokers.”
