QWhat the hell do I say to my straight 14-year-old son about porn? Should I say anything? My sister tells me that all the research shows my son has been looking at porn for three years already. Am I too late? —Distressed Anxious Dad
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But the alarming statistic Lauer cited—which was used to justify all sorts of proposed crackdowns on online porn—turned out to be total bullshit. Way, way back in 2005, Seth Lubove, a writer for Forbes, traced the stat back to its source. The Today show got it from the Boston Globe; the Boston Globe got it from Family Safe Media, a “small firm in Provo, Utah, [which] is in the business of scaring parents into buying software to protect their kids from Internet smut.” Family Safe Media got it from Internet Filter Review, a website that markets content-blocking software. Internet Filter Review got it from The Drug of the New Millennium, a self-published book about the dangers of porn addiction. Lubove tracked down the self-published author, and guess what? He couldn’t recall where he got that stat. Somewhere along the line, Third Way, “a Washington think tank that helps Democrats grab on to red-state issues,” was seriously pimping the bogus stat to credulous conservative Dems.
So you’re not too late, DAD.
Tell Mr. Long Term the truth: the sex has to get better. Now, maybe Mr. Long Term is the problem (he could be lousy at sex) or maybe it’s the combo of you and Mr. Long Term that’s the problem (maybe you two just don’t click sexually), and the relationship is doomed no matter what you do. But there’s a chance your problem is a relatively common hang-up, MAS. It’s possible that you, or Mr. Long Term, or you and Mr. Long Term feel inhibited during sex because you’re in love, and people who are in love are supposed to have sex one way (you’re supposed to make safe, boring, predictable love). But people who aren’t in love—people like you and Mr. New Guy—are free to have sex another way (they’re allowed to have wild, passionate, and unpredictable fucks).
QGay Republicans, Dan. Why? How? —Confused