Advise needed - HFA (aspergers) Teens and Paraphilia

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I was wondering if any one could offer me some advice. I believe my 16 yr old son is developing a paraphilia. I have caught him surfing on the internet for extremely innapropriate sexual material, and on confronting him about it, he completely shut down and would not speak to me for a few days. Is paraphilic curiousity common in teens with Aspergers, and if so, do they "grow out of it" or should I be contacting his paediatrician about it to get specialist help? He has not had any behavioral therapy since he was 12, as his doctor said it wasnt necessary any more.
I know he has had 'normal' sexual curiousity for a few years now, but I'm not sure how long this other interest has been going on for as he is really good at clearing his browsing history. I have tried to discuss the dangers of what he was searching for on a few occasions, but he won't talk with me about it. I should also point out his father is not involved in his life, and there is not a male role figure in his life that I feel comfortable disclosing this problem with.

If anyone can offer any advice, or point me in the direction of doctors or some liturature about this, I'd be extremely greatful. I'm in Australia.

Thanks

Feebs

Yeah, sure, if it's harmless. But if it's illegal material? No.

Are you paying for internet access for your son? If so, you are literally supposting his use of pornography. Internet access is a privledge, provided he is not financially independant.

No good can come of use of paraphillic pornography by any 16 year old. Have you any doubt of this? He has not even bothered to make a case in favor of it.

No, the trajectory of pornography use is in the direction of soft to hard to harder.

You're the parent, you're the provider, it's your call.

Just to clarify - nowhere did I say he was accessing pornographic images - what I found was disscussion/topic pages.
I would not find it unusual or wrong nessicarily for any boy of that age however, to try to gain access to viewing some kind of material with sexual content (be it internet or magazines)
I believe that looking at sexual images is a common and normal part of sexual curiousity for boys (and girls) with or without ASD, as they go through puberty and even beyond.

And yes, I pay for the internet - he requires the internet and email for homework from school.

I do not support use of paraphilic pornography however, but I do support positive and open sexual education for my son and will talk with him and give him guidence on all topics that if feel able to. He is not able to talk with me about this (maybe he is embarrassed or ashamed - I'm not sure as he won't talk about it) which is why I came to this website to ask other parents who may have had some experience or knowledge on this subject to give me some advice. I'm not seeking commentary or opinions on my parenting skills.

So, what I'd like to know is -

a) Is paraphilic curiousity common in teens who have Aspergers?

b) Is it common for these unusual sexual interests to go away as they reach full sexual maturity and become involved in sexual relationships?

c) should I seek medical support for my son for this?

Thanks again

AS has no association with unusual sexual interests. The only difference sexually you are likely to find amongst those with AS and those without it is, there seems to be a higher number of those who identify as asexual amongst those with AS....they generally have low to non-existent libidos and don't get particularly sexually worked up over anyone or anything.

This could be a "special interest" of his. Especially if he is just reading about it. That is to say, the issue may not sexually arouse him, but he might have just become very curious about the whole thing....a morbid fascination of sorts.

If it is of an illegal nature, however, then I agree with others that he should be prohibited from that.

Because you didn't really share the exact nature of his interest, I couldn't say much more than that.

And of course he's not going to talk to you about it. Do you know any 16 year old boy who talks about sexual things with his mother? Probably not.

My sons are still young so we haven't entered this territory yet. Not knowing you or your son at all I would still like to offer this observation:
Many parents of teens with AS post here with a myriad of difficulties they are struggling with. It appears from this that the teenage years and then the transition into adulthood are often more difficult for AS kids than they are for most other kids. You stated you have a concern about a particular behavior your son is exhibiting, that he hasn't seen a therapist since he was 12, that he has no other role models to talk to besides you and you finish with a question about whether or not you should seek professional help for him. Based on this, again not knowing you other than this brief post, I would say that seeking help for him now is probably a good idea, if he is interested in doing so. Not so much specifically because of the questionable internet activity but because of the very difficult nature of being an AS teenager. So many people come here and post about their AS teenagers and young adult children shutting down and/or getting into a lot of trouble. Perhaps intervening now would prevent this happening to your son. If he is willing, see if you can find a good counselor or psych. If you have the ability to, shop around, the most important thing is to find someone he is comfortable with and who is a good fit for him.

Dan Savage addressed a question like yours in his "Savage Love" column just the summer. (It's the one signed "Worried Mom".) http://www.avclub.com/articles/june-15-2011,57526/

The term paraphilia is quite wide ranging and goes from " a little bit kinky" at one end of the scale to "do that and you'll get locked up" at the other, so it is difficult to suggest what your course of action should be.

I would agree that it's difficult to offer an opinion without knowing what you're talking about. However the illegal/not illegal boundary is a pretty clear one: I'd ask for professional help. I suppose if I were in your position, other issues that might concern me would be if there was violence involved, if there was exploitation of your child or the other person (sometimes there are people who are into that stuff and are OK, in which case, as long as they are safe - but if it involved a child, I'd want to be sure there wasn't something else going on.)

A second issue: privacy. I recently explained to my son (hint of irony as I type this) that the Internet is like getting a tattoo - no matter what you write or how private you think it is, whatever you put out there is permanent and it's possible that it may be a problem for you in the future. I would make darn sure that whatever your child is posting, wherever it is, he's doing so safely. Your school probably has good guidelines about safe internet use.

I think in most other cases, the Dan Savage article linked above is a good guideline.

Porn is one thing but discussing it on the internet where your naive, innocent autistic son is wide open to predation is potentially more problematic.


Kids of all persuasions start to develop and explore their sexuality at this age, some explore lots and then go vanilla, some explore and become kniky fetish practitioners for life and a few become monsters committing horrible deviant crimes.


It is basically impossible to offer you any advice if you refuse to be more specific are we talking about something legal and fairly harmless that you find personally revolting or are we talking about the thought of thing gets you castrated by your fellow inmates?

If we are talking about - rape - kids - animals or dead things it is time to talk to a mental health chap, pretty much everything else is legal these days. I would be more worried about the potential for your son being manipulated by internet perverts than about your son becoming a deviant monster.

Just re-reading my post and realized it wasn't clear - so ditto to the last poster.

Thanks everyone

No its none of the above, just something I personally found disgusting/disturbing.

None the less, I will try to talk to him about it again, and suggest we find someone that he'd feel comfortable talking to. There is a guidance counselor who is a psychologist at his school that may be able to help or at least.

That a 16 year old kid has, at least once found something on the internet of a sexual nature that his parents finds shocking is absolutely 100% normal behaviour for a 16 year old.

I have no idea how autistic your son is but I would be FAR more concerned at the potential for him to be groomed by an online predator in a chatroom if you say he was discussing this fetish with someone online.

Was this just a thread on a forum that he happens to visit that got a bit out of hand in a juvenile fashion (16 year olds do that) or was this a website dedicated to the fetish in question? It's a big difference between the two.

Was he just browsing an existing thread or enthusiastically posting his detailed sexual desires as a fully signed up member of the site?

Try talking to the guidance school chap about it giving him more specific details than you have here before you confront your son about it, a mother confronting her teenage son about sex online is a great to destroy trust in any relationship, regardless of the kid being on the spectrum or not.

If it is any comfort, try and console yourself with the fact that it is his first girlfriend's job to slap him for being a pervert and not yours, it will be much better coming from her.

PS, Kids are not usually that good with computers even if they are clearing their browsing history or using a browser with private browsing built in you can still check what sites have been accessed from the command line. Kids almost never realise that the DNS cache isn't cleared by browsers.

ipconfig /displaydns

will display a list of all the DNS addresses in the cache

ipconfig /displaydns > dnscache.txt

will dump the whole cache into a text file for you to forensically pour over, you can open it by typing

notepad dnscache.txt

immediately after you run the ipconfig /displaydns > dnscache.txt command.


PPS Spying on kids masturbating on the internet is seriously bad form, if they twig that you are doing it (like when you confront them for it) it will seriously harm the trust in your relationship.

PPPS Sorry kids, just to even the odds, if you run ipconfig /flushdns after you have finished perving on the internet, your parents won't find anything with the above technique.

Is there a chance that, even though you personally find it disgusting/disturbing, you can accept that other, consenting people do it? If you still feel strongly that he should talk to someone, then you should pursue that of course, but I feel it is worth asking yourself "Is it best to bite the bullet on this one?". Since it isn't rape/kids/animals/dead things it may just possibly be in the category "best if Mum doesn't know"?

I would like to reiterate what I said above, regardless of the distrubance factor to Mom of the websites he is visiting, he would probably be well served to have another trusted adult to talk to, IF he is willing to do that. I would not advocate forcing him to go to therapy unless he seems seriously depressed or is getting into the illegal territory on the internet (which you already stated he is not). If the posts on this forum are any indication, the teen years are WAY difficult for AS kids. Laying some additional groundwork now may help him a lot when it gets to the point where he needs to transition into independence. Sure the issue of the porn could be the instigating factor that gets him to the counselor's door but there is (if you find a good counselor that he trusts) much more than that he can get help with/talk about.