Hello, Im a 43 year old mother of 3 teenagers, and I recently found many pornographic magazines in my 15 year old sons room. But what's worse is that it consisted of crude homosexual behavior. When asked where he got this material... he told me that our closely trusted male family friend of many years gave it to him. What should I do?

It is against the law for adults to give pornographic images to minors. I believe its called contributing to their delinquency or something to that effect.

Have you confronted this "trusted friend" and asked him what the heck he was thinking giving pornography to a 15 year old?

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Originally Posted by GlindaofOz

It is against the law for adults to give pornographic images to minors. I believe its called contributing to their delinquency or something to that effect.

Have you confronted this "trusted friend" and asked him what the heck he was thinking giving pornography to a 15 year old?

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Well of course right away... but he denied the entire thing. And like I said he is a very close friend, and has had conflict with my son before, so I don't know if my son who tends to have a rebellious side would make up such a story.

Call the police and report this "friend" would be my first phone call.
My second would be to others who may have children around this perrson.
And of course they would go from trusted friend, to black listed pervert very fast.

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Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

Call the police and report this "friend" would be my first phone call.
My second would be to others who may have children around this perrson.
And of course they would go from trusted friend, to black listed pervert very fast.

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I wouldn't necessarily be so quick to do that. Like she said, her son has a rebelious side... if the guy is really a trusted family friend, the son might just have tried to put the blame on him because he didn't want to tell her where he really got it. I wouldn't want to get the friend in trouble because I was misinformed...

Though if he did do it, I don't know if I would necessarily report him to the police. I would first make him clear on where you stand with this, and let him know what you think. If anything else happens, he already knows it isn't okay with you, and then you report him.

I agree with the above post ^
by the way most teens have a rebelious side. What is this "freind" like, have you ever been in his house? How often does he actually come into contact with your son?

I agree. Don't be so quick to place the blame on this trusted family friend. Kids have a knack for blaming someone innocent when they want to protect the real culprit. It's altogether possible that one of his buddies is the one who actually gave him the pornographic material. He doesn't want to blame this friend, probably because of feared repercussions from you, so he blames this other person who he knows you trust.

Don't place blame on the friend right away. Of coarse take the material away and if you find it again, then you may need to investigate further. Your son is just curios and would never tell you if he got the pornography himself. So I suggest that you just observe and go from there.