Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
I'm new to the forum (and my eldest has only recently been diagnosed) but felt like this would be a good place to turn for some support.
I'm really shaken after seeing what my 14 year old transgender son has been looking at online. To say I feel out of my depth would be an understatement. My initial reaction was utter revulsion, but I know that any form of confrontation needs to be avoided and 'forbidding' him to look at certain sites will have a very negative impact on our somewhat fragile relationship.
I won't go into too much detail - I have never had to post anything online before that includes a trigger warning, but thought it might be wise to include one here. Just in case.
He's completely obsessed by anime and manga. I've been concerned about the 'dark' themes of the anime series he watches for a while now, lots of psychopaths and death themes etc, but he seems completely oblivious to it all. Often he'll want to show me clips or montages from his current series and sometimes I have to refuse and explain that I find the whole premise of the story deeply upsetting. Most recently he's been reading a manga comic online about an abusive and violent male relationship, so I've spoken to him about it to ask him if he knows that's not what a healthy, loving relationship looks like etc. However, I didn't realise how bad it was until this afternoon. I feel physically sick to look at it.
Ultimately, I spend every day walking on egg shells with this kid. Self-harm is still an ongoing worry so I'm really stuck on how to navigate this as a parent when the usual 'teenager' approaches are a no-go. There has to be a hard line though, doesn't there? - I mean, it would be irresponsible of me not to prevent him accessing stuff like this, but I know that as soon as I take away access to it, things are going to blow up in a big way. I guess I'm scared of his reaction and the meltdown that will result.
Our situation is probably fairly 'niche', but I'd love to hear from anyone who's had to take a firm line and say NO to something and how they went about it. Obviously our children are all different, but I feel totally overwhelmed and have no clue how to best approach it.
Thanks for reading x
I think that anime is sufficiently divorced from real life that it is unlikely to affect someone adversely. At the same age, my hero in fiction was a semi-human albino sorcerer, filled with self-loathing, who was dependent on a black sword inhabited by the spirit of a demon, which robbed the souls of those it killed and fed their vitality to its master. I'm not violent or antisocial.
Any reason you don't appear to have parent filters on your internet?
A lot of young people who are dealing with dark and traumatic feelings will be drawn to material that addresses dark and traumatic themes. That's arguably a natural and necessary part of processing these emotions and issues. It's like goths. People used to say goth culture was morbid and promoted depression and self harm but all the studies suggest that engaging with the goth community actually helped people, reduced sducidal ideation, improved depression. I dare say engaging with the anime fan community might help your son. It's only natural he'd be drawn to work with dark themes if he's dealing with those sorts of feelings and issues. And if it wasn't anime it would just be something else, heavy metal, video nasty's etc.
I wouldn't worry too much about anime with dark themes but more about how those themes are addressed and about what kind of support structures you son has outside of the family to talk about those sorts of issues.
alot of plain anime are getting a bit too degenerate now though, every single anime now is all just a overpowered male and every other character is a big chested female with a skirt that doesnt cover anything and they always all end up worshipping the main char. and the main char seemingly always overly interested in his own sister... or his sister into him... it gets to the point every anime is the same and its losing its badassness by going a bit too like a self inserted fantasy of a loser loltbh the sjw progressives should like it for how 99% of the characters are all female, but i guess its the fact they are all objectified that sours the taste for them.for me its just that all anime becomes the same copy paste thing, and the fact every char is a female fan service type character makes the animes cheapened, it loses ballance... sure have 1 or 2 fan service characters but not 99% of them all like most animes have now. the anime loses the badass feel when every char is a female thats only use is to perv on lol bleach had a nice ballance and still had that fan service, but were long past bleach to the point they got rid of the badass characters and kept only the perv fan service material. it will probably correct itself when viewership drops as its no longer as badass anymore.it needs more badass kenpachi zarakis and less generic panty shot girl you cant even name.
Plain Anime and Manga are not the problem. It's when someone gets into the more specialised forms of Hentai that the real problems start.
I have always found these types of cartoon to be the product of deeply sad pubescent males and older sexually deviant males who are sexualising young girls. I can only imagine they are enjoyed by people with similar qualities. I do not allow them to be viewed in my house, on any platform. You are perfectly in your right to do the same. It's sometimes necessary to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our sacred living spaces from harmful, insidious content.
ehh animes cool and different and has that different culture vibe to it.but yeah, because its different culture it has different norms which are not acceptable or out right weird to us. infact anime is a whole wall of weird that you have to get over, but if you do then you become more culturally accepting, as for the shonen combative animes they are pretty much the same as playstation game stories and cutscenes anyway so the same concerns would be applied to games which are totally normal in western society.
I have to say this is all too common among many, many young people both on and off the spectrum. I don’t think you’ll be able to stop them if they still have access to their phone, computers etc. He may well get bored and move on, but for many I’m sorry to say, it is a firm favourite. I don’t have a solution for you, but I just wanted you to know just how common it is.
Was he abused whenever he was younger?