My wee baby brother has finally become a teenager and today he called me up to ask me some technology questions. I have a spare laptop around the house and it's barely used and I asked my lil bro if he wanted it a while back. Rather than jumping at the thought of having his own computer, he is taking the decision more seriously than I ever imagined. And why?

He hasn't quite decided if he can risk having his own portable porn device. He's afraid he will be consumed by the dark side as so many before him that he hears about every Sunday.

So today he wanted to know if we could somehow disable the internet on the laptop entirely. I asked him how that would affect his schoolwork and he said it would probably hold him back some, but he's got to have his priorities straight. So then I said, why don't you just do your homework in the kitchen where mom can babysit your internet access?

He said he's going to be learning a lot more about computers and he needs to make sure there's no possibility that he could hack my parents' wireless network or use a LAN cord to get access when he is unsupervised. I told him about Net Nanny and sent him that direction.

This is not coming from my parents-- these aren't their rules. These are self-imposed rules that are a product of his sincere belief in the church and the paranoid values and fears that produces. It's not because my parents don't trust him. It's because he feels like he can't trust himself.

I love that kid and although part of me is laughing my ass off, I am honestly afraid and sad for him. The Mormon mindfuck has done its job. He wouldn't even be thinking about porn if they weren't reminding him about it every week. He's a good kid, but now he thinks he's on the verge of destroying his worthiness if he doesn't guard against Satan at ever possible point-of-entry.

That is so sad. Wow. Poor kid.

That's really so sad. I'm sorry :( That mind set pisses me off as well. The church LOVES it because they know if they can keep these kids ignorant of the real world, they have a better chance of keeping them in the cult. Hopefully in the future he'll get it. For some of us it just takes longer than others. At least he has you to help him when he's a bit older and ready to listen. Good luck!

Another generation of sexually messed up people.

Remond him that he will need the internet to keep the computer up to date with anti-virus definitions and operating system updates.

In addition, unless he buys a complete dictionary and encyclopedia and loads it onto the hard drive, the computer is just a spell-checking typewriter as far as school work is concerned.

I told him he'd need internet for schoolwork, and to update and use many programs, install drivers, maintain the OS, etc.

He hadn't thought about it that way. I asked him why he didn't feel like he could trust himself. He said he just wanted to make sure he never had "a problem".

His only problem is the church. He is such a good kid-- and so innocent and sheltered. I think if he actually saw porn, he'd probably die of shock and embarrassment. He's the kind of kid who turns a movie off if there's more than 5 curse words. The only PG-13 movie he has ever seen is LOTR.

My exmo sis and I talked about it over dinner. We both had the same thought-- the church is making itself "necessary" in his life by creating unhealthy fears and self-doubt that is so strong--it causes him terrible anxiety and motivates him to absolute conformity.

I wonder if he might be questioning his sexuality, perhaps bringing this on...

+1 to what SoCal said. Without internet access, a laptop for schoolwork is pretty pointless. Might as well just use a notebook and a pen.

You disabling it wont help. If he's going to be learning a lot about computers, then he'll figure out a way to get the internet access he needs, even if you disabled it or took the network card out of it or something. I became a computer genius at his age by finding out ways to hide my porn explorations from my parents. :)
And while he's learning about computers, he'll learn how much he can do with them with a working network adapter, in which case he'll regret having it disabled.

In any case, you should give it to him fully stocked with all the porn he could ever need!

Look how great the church is for the guys!

I'm sure most women are happy their guys are sexually repressed. They are the ones really calling the shots behind the scenes.

You don't have to be driving to decide where the car is going!

He sounds just like my Ex.
Only his wife has any of the passwords to the computer.
Only his wife has an email account.
Only his wife has facebook.
Only his wife has the code for the DVR.
He has bought into the Mormon notion that all men are weak and will succumb to internet porn.
That, and the fact that he IS a sex addict.( a whole other story)
ohhh.... the sexual repression of the Mormon church.

The irony is that there are no amount of passwords or security techiques that will actually keep a guy from looking at porn if he wants to. It is extraordinarily accessible in the modern age. Unless you monitor his every move, chaperone him outside the home, and keep him locked up at home, you'll never be able to stop someone who really wants to look.

The only true restraint is self control and self mastery. The church will never achieve that with their gung-ho no porn period stance. True self mastery requires an understanding of ones own body and it's functions including the cyclical desires for sex. The sin-guilt-shame-lust-sin pattern endorsed by the church is unhealthy and ineffective. Too bad they are too arrogant to accept they are wrong on this one. It's sad to see so many lives wrecked over this goddamned issue.

I look back at myself and now just think "OMFG what a bunch of BS that is". In so many ways Mormonism represses me and turns them into wusses instead of real men. My life/marriage was much better once I learned to be clear on what I need and my expectations in a relationship. And we sure learned this the hard way. What a bunch of crock that whole f***ing cult was.

alex71ut Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I look back at myself and now just think "OMFG
> what a bunch of BS that is". In so many ways
> Mormonism represses me and turns them into wusses
> instead of real men. My life/marriage was much
> better once I learned to be clear on what I need
> and my expectations in a relationship. And we sure
> learned this the hard way. What a bunch of crock
> that whole f***ing cult was.

Exactly

I am still in the process of changing/fixing those things about myself.

Man, I'd seriously worry about a teen who wouldn't be curious about porn!

I hit the roof when I found out my son had been surfing porn subscription sites. But my anger was because he'd "borrowed" his father's credit card to subscribe to the damned things. I ripped him a new one for that!

But the other porn surfing I found on the computer? I scolded him for leaving his trash for me to see. Mom really doesn't WANT to know that he's hot for lesbian masturbation. (Although I controlled myself enough to not correct his misspelling of "masterbation.")


~VOW

Do what the department of defense does, fill the ethernet jack with cement and remove the wireless card. In fact, while you're at it, you may as well fill the usb ports with cement so he can't use a usb wireless adapter. Give him what he wants and maybe when he realizes how useless the computer is, he'll open his eyes.

Is he trying to look all righteous to set a good example for you, and if so, whose idea was it?

And I would remind him that IF he is strong enough to go outside in the summer despite scantily clad swimmers at the pool, he must be okay around a computer.

And was but not least, maybe if he is too afraid to turn on a computer, maybe he should just go to the library, because you aren't going to find porn unless you look for it.

I bet that this will cause him to reveal who is telling him this crap, at which point it might be a good idea to introduce him to the Salem witch trials and how religious hysteria caused them.

that they would be innocently surfing the web and that porn would just magically "pop up" on their computers and they wouldn't be able to shut it off.

I had to reassure my mother that I used the internet all the time and that has NEVER happened to me. You have to click on something or type something in to access it.

I wondered how she ever got the idea that would happen to her. Maybe she had been talking to someone who unknowingly shared a computer with a closeted porn surfer. Or maybe it had come up in the church discussion. I can just see someone trying to cover their tracks by accusing the computer of randomly throwing out porn pop ups.

So naive people get convinced that the internet itself will be throwing porn at them and they won't be able to resist. I think the LDS church is just mistrustful of the internet. I think they are just as worried, if not MORE worried about people coming across damaging info about the LDS church.

It's so f-ing WEIRD!