What Do Parents Need to Know About Teens and Fan Fiction?

The Ask Lisa Podcast does not constitute medical advice and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have concerns about your child’s well-being, consult a physician or mental health professional.

The following transcript has been automatically generated by an AI system and should be used for informational purposes only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the information provided.

Reena Ninan:
I’d found out that my 13-year-old son has been reading porn fiction. The novels are pretty graphic for an eighth grader.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
They’re learning about sex online. You want to be out in front of this.

Reena Ninan:
How can we have these open conversations with our kids? Have I totally missed that window?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Kids have passed around a Playboy for generations. We shouldn’t assume we can win that fight.

Reena Ninan:
Is this developmentally appropriate?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay, so here’s the bottom line.

Reena Ninan:
You just got to tell people, Lisa, how the heck did we come up with today’s episode?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Because we got the greatest letter and it is something that has been on my mind over time. And then every once in a while, something I’ve been thinking about, then the perfect letter lands in our inbox. And frankly, I was so excited. I was so excited.

Reena Ninan:
It just makes me laugh that you had been tailing this already and then we get a letter in our inbox.
I want to get right to it because this is something I did not expect we’d be taking on.
Hi, Dr. Lisa. I just listened to your episode. “My Kid Looked at Porn. What Should I Do?” And I found it very helpful. I hope you can answer this question. I found out that my 13-year-old son has been reading porn fiction on fictionpress.com and fanfiction.net. The novels are pretty graphic for an eighth grader. How can I approach my son? Should I? My husband says he’s okay with it, but I do not feel comfortable. I am concerned. Thank you for your help.
First off, what the heck is this, Lisa?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. I’m really glad you’re asking because I think for a lot of families, this is something that kids know about, but the parents themselves don’t know about, and it’s actually important to orient yourself to it. Okay, so here’s the bottom line. There are these online platforms. The two that were mentioned in the letter are good examples, where people take characters who exist in the fictional world and make new stories about them. So it’ll be like new stories about all the Harry Potter characters or new stories about all of the characters from Sherlock Holmes or whatever. They submit these stories to these platforms. The stories are of varying lengths and they actually put codes on the stories, ratings, roughly something like G, PG, 17, R, and even content. So it could be like violent or romantic is how, at least on fanfiction.net, the sexual stories are coded. And people can contribute and people can read.
It’s a community where there’s a lot of feedback and people can spend a lot of time there.

Reena Ninan:
So this is like naughty fiction?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
A lot of it is naughty fiction and a lot of it’s not. I mean, it’s not all sexual, but what this kid is looking at and what lots of kids are looking at is kind of sexual. And Reena, I just thought you would like just to kind of orient us to how spicy some of this can be. I printed off one quick description of one story that will help people quickly understand what we’re talking about here.
“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Desire.” So this is a play on “Goblet of Fire.” And the description from the author is, “The exploration of the world of Harry Potter through the eyes of bi Harry Potter, who is sex obsessed and entirely insane. Sex, sadism, masochism, and other strange themes abound. This is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Desire.” Okay, so that’s what we’re looking at here.

Reena Ninan:
Wow. Even you’re blushing right now, Lisa. What is going on? I mean, are you okay with this?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Am I okay with it? That’s a really good question. Of course, the reason I love my job is the phenomenology of what teenagers can come up with next never ceases to be the most interesting thing in the world. There’s parts I’m okay with and there’s parts I’m not. And I actually think, and I think this actually about a lot of the pornographic stuff that kids have access to. I think adults should be looking at it. I think adults should actually take some time and engage it because it really helps to orient you to what you’re actually dealing with. So I think that about things like pornhub.com, which is, oh my God, Reena, it’s intense. And if it’s not something you look at on your own time, you’re going to want to look at it so you understand what kids are looking at.
I think the same is true with these fan fiction sites.

Reena Ninan:
I want to step back for a second. There have been Playboys and when you’re 13 and the hormones are going, is this developmentally appropriate that they’re sort of looking for these sexual stories at 13?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, I think exactly. The examples you give, like kids have passed around a Playboy for generations. My age group, it was Forever by Judy Bloom was like the spicy book.

Reena Ninan:
I remember that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And they were sort of interested in reading that, right? I think it’s so important for us to always bear in mind. There’s very little new under the sun in terms of what teenagers are organized around. The world around them changes. But if your kid is like, “Hey, hey, hey, I just found fan fiction and there’s some really smutty stuff.” There’s nothing wrong with your kid. This is adolescence. This is typical. How we should parent through it? Those are interesting questions, but right, this is kids. This is adolescence.

Reena Ninan:
So when you talk about how you should parent, teenage years also have parents sometimes on different ends of how we should approach it. I’m curious what you think the husband’s take on this. Is he right?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, I love that that was included in the letter because I think it really does get at something. Whereas the mom who wrote is like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, this stuff is graphic.” And by her report, the dad is like, “I’m fine with it. ” And I don’t know really what’s going on with that dad, but it’s easy for me to imagine that the dad is like, compared to what’s out there, compared to watching video, which is an interesting thing, the video versus the written of very graphic sex. If my 13-year-old son wants to read about romantic activity between Harry and, and this is often interesting, like Percy, they’ll cross characters from different things. So the Percy Jackson characters will have romantic interlude with Harry Potter.

Reena Ninan:
There’s nothing more innocent than Percy Jackson, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, Reena, a visit to fanfiction.net will give you a different take on it. But my hunch is that that’s where the dad’s at. He’s like, “Oh my God, are you kidding? This is like the least of what’s out there.”
In the universe of ways that kids can push boundaries, I will take reading fan fiction over drugs, outrageous behavior, super dangerous stuff any day. And there is a need in adolescence to push some boundaries. So this is a tough one because I’m not all in, I’m not all out, but I think we need to kind of put it in context about other things teenagers do.

Reena Ninan:
I’m just curious what Harry Potter is doing with his wand. This is a whole new world. I have no idea. No idea what you are talking about here. I mean, is there anything though that gives you pause for that? I mean, they’re still 13, right? Yeah. That porn episode is one that so many parents have written to us that they keep going back to, but is there anything that you think, even in this realm of this isn’t the worst of the things teens could be doing, especially I think thirteen is still young and you’re still kind of might not know everything about sexuality at that point, right?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, that’s exactly right. If you go read some of what’s there, it’s weird and it’s not really how sex works and it doesn’t really make sense. And I think what we have to grapple with as the adults around teenagers these days is that they’re learning about sex online. And some kids are learning by looking at incredibly graphic pornography visually, and some kids may be thinking they’re learning about it by reading about what Snape and Professor McGonigal are up to.
Okay. So here’s this parent. She’s got this thing. I think one reasonable action that’s somewhere between trying to shut it down, which is actually very hard to do and saying nothing, is that she could go to her son and say, “Look, I just realized that you’re looking at stuff. I thought this was all much tamer than it is. I realize that there’s stuff there that’s actually pretty spicy. Just to be clear, I read through some of the stories. This is not what human sexuality typically looks like. Some of this stuff isn’t even physically possible. We’re here to have conversations with you about healthy, positive, physical intimacy. But just to be clear, the stuff you’re reading, it’s like cartoon, weird, violent in some places stuff. It’s not what sex is really about or for or like.”
I think that the kid will probably try to fake a stroke to get out of that conversation, but I think those are words that are worth saying as a way to try to put some boundary around it.

Reena Ninan:
This sort of reminds me of this episode, I think it was episode 106 where it’s, should I give my teen the sex talk? Am I too late, essentially, is what that episode talks about. But you’re saying you should have this conversation, but do kids really want to hear our viewpoint on sex? Do they just shut down and does it register?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think it does. I know it does. We actually have research showing that when we articulate our values and tell kids what we think, that they do take it in and it does shape their thinking and their behavior. They don’t, and this is a topic that comes up often. I think it’s really important. They don’t give us the satisfaction of being like, “Well, I’m really glad you told me that. ” They will be like, “Ugh, throw myself from the car.” But I think it’s still really important to do. I will say though, Reena, and this is not a small thing, you know how different it is to read something versus watch something, right? Like reading a story versus watching a story.

Reena Ninan:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I remember as a kid, I don’t like horror movies at all. And I remember when I was a young adolescent seeing something and I still have this icky visual from that.
Whereas, I think if we read stuff, you can stop, you can picture it in your own way, but you can’t unsee stuff. So again, if we just put this on a continuum of like totally tame, G-rated, nobody has to even think about it to like super way out of bounds, not okay stuff. I am going to make an argument that like the fact that this is written is a factor in terms of making it tamer than the other stuff that kids are definitely looking at. I mean, it’s not like they’re not looking at stuff that is, for a lot of adults, pretty hair curling.

Reena Ninan:
There’s just so many outlets where you can get sexual content now in a way back in our days it was you watched a rated X or rated R movie or one of your parents got the Playboy magazine or you snuck it or whatever it is. But now it comes so readily. How can we have these open conversations with our kids? What really works? Because I feel like you get out of this window where they’re 15, 16, 17 years old and have I totally missed that window?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Thinking about it in that kind of timeframe is right, that you want to be out in front of this. You don’t want your kids to be wandering around in these worlds without your voice in their head. 13, who knows how long he’s been looking at it, but this is a great time to have this conversation. I would say to families, as soon as your kid has access to digital technology that is not incredibly limited and minimal, you need to say, there’s a big wide internet and there’s a lot of sexual stuff out there. And of course Reena, it’s all getting weirder by the minute with AI and –

Reena Ninan:
Totally.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
making AI stuff, right? And so it’s a two part conversation. One is it actually becomes a conversation about why we’re going to continue to keep really tight controls on this, use filters at home, ask you not to go searching for this.
It’s a conversation about we’re going to try to keep this from finding its way to you by accident or on purpose because it’s pretty disturbing and strange stuff. And then I think side by side with that, there’s the conversation about, “Hey, let’s talk about what healthy intimacy is really about. “It’s mutual, it’s tender, it’s kind, it’s wanted by both parties.” That’s what healthy intimacy is really about. And I think there’s value in saying both of those parts of the conversation. And I think there’s value in saying them by, depending where your kid is with digital technology, maybe even as young as 10. And what I like about the language of like healthy physical intimacy is you don’t even have to be talking about intercourse. It’s a way to sort of introduce the idea of when people are intimate with each other.

Reena Ninan:
So sex is awkward and you’re saying we don’t have to necessarily spell it out and say it’s sex, just use the umbrella of intimacy. I mean, you’re the only person who’s ever spoken to me about what healthy intimacy looks like. I don’t think most people have ever had this conversation in their life.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Right. I mean, I think we don’t. I think our kids need to hear it. I also think Reena, there may be in the universe of these fan fiction worlds, which are enormous, given the rating system, there may actually be some tamer sweeter stuff, right? There may be, for lack of a better word, maybe sort of some soft erotica that we’re like, “You know what? If you’re going to learn about sex, this is not the worst way to learn about … This is lovely and nice in a way.” There may be that version of it. The other thing, and this isn’t in the letter, but I think this is also a big deal. You remember those Harlequin romances? Remember those books at the grocery store on those?

Reena Ninan:
Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I don’t know where the Harlequin world stands, but kids are also looking at physical books that have kind of erotic stuff in them. And I would say it’s probably more of the teen to early young adult, but I was sort of doing some look into this and there’s a series, the Black Onyx series, which even the name kind of tells you it’s a little bit, maybe a low brow and they call it romanticy. And it’s like these romance books that have these fantasy universes with them. And if you are into romanticy, which there’s a big universe, I think it’s a lot of young women who are into romanticy. Well, interestingly, TikTok will tell you what to read next. So it’s all out there. And I think that there are a wide range of what kids can engage with and what young people can engage with.
I think we can take steps to try to keep the most, I will just call it offensive stuff away from them. I think there is value, especially the visual. It cannot be unseen. But I think as for the rest, it’s about saying, “Here’s what we believe as a family, and here’s what we think intimacy’s really about.”
Kids are going to read what they’re going to read sometimes. We snuck forever and kids can sneak stuff now and we shouldn’t fight that all the time. We shouldn’t assume we can win that fight, I guess is the way I would say it.

Reena Ninan:
So if you discover whether it’s smutty fan fiction or something erotic online that you see your kids are looking at, what’s the appropriate way to respond so you don’t shame somebody and you can kind of keep the line of communication open?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I like you bringing up shame. I think that that is the real danger here, a very real danger is that we go about this and we’re like, “What is wrong with you? Why would you be looking at this stuff?” No, I mean, because they’re kids. So I think to say, “So I went to go search for a new recipe and what came up on the computer was the last thing you were looking at and I had no idea that Hermione was into that kind of stuff or whatever.” And just say, “I want to talk with you about this and then you share your version of whatever I’m recommending.” You say what you need to say. And if it’s something that feels way out of bounds, you say, “Look, we’re going to put limits around this because it’s actually not healthy. I don’t feel good about you seeing this. I don’t think this is good for you to see.” I mean, you can try to put limits on it.
I think you do need to walk into these conversations that sexual development is part of healthy development. And I think that’s hard for a lot of parents. We just don’t want to think of the kids as sexual creatures.

Reena Ninan:
Totally.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
If you can drape yourself in that, the idea that sexual development is part of healthy development, and then you have two jobs. One is to try to help filter the sexual content that’s coming kids’ way that we don’t feel good about. Maybe you filter it with literally trying to shut it down, and maybe you filter by saying, “Listen, you’re going to see stuff online that is just so not in line with what we believe as a family to be the decent, kind, loving treatment of humans. It’s just not how we roll.”
That’s a filter too. And then you’re going to offer the alternative, which is, listen, physical intimacy is a wonderful thing. It’s a great part of life. We hope over time that you find the relationships that you can really have a great experience of that. Here are our values as a family around that. And then you say what you say, right? And some of that may be informed by your religion. Some of that may be informed by what’s appropriate at different ages or levels of relationship. You say your peace and your kids will hear you even if they kind of really, really, really, really want the conversation to end as fast as absolutely possible.

Reena Ninan:
Yeah. And I love that you’ve always taught us these conversations don’t have to be long. They can be short and you can still make the point. Is there anything else, Lisa, that I don’t know that you want to tell us?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, I think, here’s the other thing. So you know I write, a lot of writing is part of my life. The writing is not good, Reena. The writing itself is pretty bad. Content aside.

Reena Ninan:
So Lisa’s okay with the storytelling, but the writing is actually what does her in. The writing.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
The kidding? This is a construction of it.
I have two thoughts on this. So one is, I believe as someone who writes that there’s a lot of garbage in, garbage out. If you read crappy writing, you’re going to do crappy writing. I believe that. I also believe that if you read really high quality writing, it approves the quality of your writing. And I’m sure that there’s got to be research on this that backs me up. So there is this issue of like, okay, the writing’s kind of poor. And so that may be something that a parent can decide is also an issue or not. I don’t know that I would make it an issue, but I just want to flag it. But then the other thing is we’re complaining all the time about how the fact that kids aren’t reading and whatever else, this is reading.
Also, it’s a community and I don’t know how otherwise integrated it is or supportive. I don’t think there’s a lot of sort of side conversation going on, but there may be. Setting aside the spicy sexual stuff that is weird and especially, I’m going to flag that may also be violent and concerning, we have to sort of accept that there are worse things than kids to be spending a lot of time reading and maybe writing and contributing to a community of creative activity. There may be a way that we can support their interest in fan fiction that is not grossly inappropriate, but that it does have some benefits even while perhaps saying, “But if you really want to read good writing, I can connect you with some better books or some better versions of that.” I can’t help but be me about this. And there was a part of me that was like, “Oh my God, this writing is crap.” So there was also that.

Reena Ninan:
Lisa, as we wrap up, what is it that you have for us for Parenting to Go and how do we sort of put this into context?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
The word you said, shame, I want to go back to that. Steer clear of it at all costs. In my work as a psychologist, 30 years in, there’s two feelings that I just find to be the most harmful for people. Helplessness. When people are helpless, they do not do well and they often act quite badly and shame. Shame is like this sticky black tar in clinical work in our lives. If it is present, if it’s introduced, it does so much damage. There’s no upside to it around things like this. I’m so glad you raised it because whatever else parents do in these moments and these are difficult moments and we want to think them through carefully, if you just steer clear of shame, you’re going to be on the right track.

Reena Ninan:
That’s great advice, Lisa. So you were the first one to sort of flag that to me why that’s so important to be cognizant of it.
Well, thank you for topics and parenting that I never thought I would ever talk about, let alone be dissecting. So next week, we’re going to talk a little bit about why is one parent’s teen so snarky. Snark is something that a lot of teenagers bring on. We want to dissect that and learn a little bit more. I’ll see you next week.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’ll see you next week.