This gay man will never forget his father’s reaction when he discovered pornography in his son’s school bag
My dad suspected and expected bad behavior from people and life. You could say he was cynical. And, he was the same with his children. My dad didn’t trust me to come home from school right away, so he followed me in his car. He was always snooping around to find out what I was doing that he didn’t know.
In 8th grade, when I was 13 or 14, one of my classmates gathered guys around his locker to look at the magazines he had in his hand.
So, I took a few from his lending library and put them in my book bag. I had the magazines on loan for a few days.
And one day, during my trial period with the magazines, my dad confronted me with them.
He said he had gone through my book bag to see if I had homework.
Looking back, maybe he conducted regular book bag searches. But that was the first time he found contraband at his checkpoint and interrogated me.
My dad stood in my room and asked, ‘Where did you get these?’
I told him a friend at schoo
l gave them to me. My dad wanted a name, but I wouldn’t give him one.
So, he called the police because it was illegal for me to have pornography at my age. I never expected my dad to call the police on me for porn.
I didn’t know he had a clear moral opinion about porn. And instead of the church and the Bible, my dad used the cops and a baton.
When the police arrived, we sat in the formal front room of the house, a room we never went into or used.
‘The policeman asked if an adult gave me the porn’
The policeman asked me the same question my dad did. This was my first encounter with the police and here it was over porn.
But, I wasn’t one to look and tell. The policeman asked if an adult gave me the porn. And, I assured him no adult gave me the porn, it was another kid in school. The officer went on about how porn is illegal for me and I could get in trouble.
When we stood and the policeman left, my dad continued his lecture and life lessons with me. He told me how porn was degrading and if he caught me with porn again, he would press charges against me. I’m not even sure if that’s legally possible, but that’s what he said he would do.
Well, I’m happy to say my dad never caught me with porn again. My family soon got AOL, and I found a new use for floppy disks.
But years later, I asked my dad why he called the police.
My dad was a dramatic man, but that was such a ridiculous and over the top thing to do.
My dad wasn’t the type to seek opinions or expert advice about what to do in this case. He didn’t think hard about how to respond when you don’t approve of your child’s expression of sexuality.
If it were me today, I’d have a talk with my child about porn way before I had to unlock my phone to lock them in jail.
So, I would expect a talk of some sort after catching your child with porn, that sounds reasonable.
But why call the police?
My dad said he wanted to scare me to never look at porn again. He felt he had to do something severe to get his message across to me. So, he planned for a police officer to come to our home for a stern talk.
I’m not sure it scared me, but it stayed with me. And, so does his other question that day.
He asked me, “What if these pictures were of your mother or sister?”
Well, I didn’t have a sister, but I had a mom. I felt bad about that thought. And, it was an awkward question, too.
They were heterosexual porn mags. At the time, I just couldn’t tell him I was looking at the men in the photos.
But, years later, when I was an adult, I did. I told him what really catches my eye.
I’m glad then he couldn’t call the police on me just for being me. That’s an injustice that happens in too many countries.
For some, porn may deserve scorn. But, it should never be over how someone is maybe born.
