Why do you think you need to prevent your son from watching porn, especially to the point that you need to completely remove his access to the Internet?
Also, as to your previous point that it will lead to "harder" stuff, a recent study says no. Yes, there will be more opportunity and exploration of the topic, but that's something that will happen eventually to all individuals. It isn't studied very well, but at least this initial one says we don't naturally become more tolerant and require "harder" pornography over time. https://www.lehmiller.com/blog/2018/2/5/can-you-build-up-a-t...
Teenagers are also famously self-absorbed, and this age is also marked with a shift from reliance on parents for guidance to outside sources like peers.
This was all the case before the internet, before video, before printed media. Porn isn't the cause.
There may be a correlation but you really have no idea what the cause is. You shouldn't assume it's this one thing. It may prevent you from being able to offer more meaningful help.
The hormonal changes that tend to cause kids to become interested in porn can cause those other elements as well. It's not unusual for even a teenager with no interest in porn to be quick to anger, feel persecuted, be arrogant, etc.
"Won't participate in things that he doesn't personally see any value or benefit in" probably describes 98% of high school students.
http://yournewswire.com/this-is-how-pornography-addiction-is...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2642712/Does-...
https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/porn-debate/
Pornography is a harmful drug and can have many of the same psychological and physiological effects as other addictive substances.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201601/ev...
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130111326.h...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-sunny-side-of...
Pornography is a useful tool to manage testosterone and other hormones in the adolescent and reduces sexual crimes across the board.
There are whole comminutes of people who are trying to recover from porn addiction because of the way it had negatively affected their lives. See /r/nofap and yourbrainonporn.com.
If you've never been negatively affected by it, good for you. I can see why you be skeptical that it could do harm to anyone. Most people rely on their own anecdotal experience to form their opinions. But keep an open mind, not everyone responds the same way to these things.
I don't blame parents for trying to look out for their children. They just need to make sure they're doing it in a sane, reasonable way.
I'd also be willing to bet that this family has no compunctions about letting the son watch extreme violent TV shows and movies. People being tortured, maimed, and killed is usually OK. Show a nipple, and people lose their shit.
EDIT: In the end, this article is flagged for what amounts to Christian Moralization vs Non-Christian Moralization. I need only read "traditional morality", "psalms chaper#:verse# one of", or citing netnanny as an authoritative source to understand what the real problem is here.
This is what would be classified as a straight up religious conflict, and "teenagers, online porn, sexuality" are one of the major battlegrounds in this culture war.
It's ugly indeed.
We also avoid movies like Saw not only for our older children but even ourselves. Why fill out bellies with filthy water when there's plenty of fresh water all around us, free for the taking? Only people who convince themselves that there's no fresh water, or that it's not good enough for their belly, will look for filthy polluted water and convince themselves it's their only hope.
There are a lot of assumptions rolled up in that sentence.
Rather than try and unpack them all here myself, I'd encourage you to talk to actual sex workers. Not people who engage the services of sex workers, but the people actually doing the sex work themselves. Ask them about the work they do, why they do it, what their customers are looking for, and what role they think they're playing in their customers' lives.
I think you'd be surprised by some of what you hear.
Yeah, to clarify, when I say "talk to actual sex workers", I'm not referring to reading comments posted on Hacker News.
But that's what I'm taking about. There's no (supernatural, physical, legal) law that states for everything fun and good, I have to suffer equal amounts. That's just moralization in the puritanical strain, which I reject.
And I would also like to call out the sentence: " Nothing is wrong with sex within a healthy relationship."
Nothing is wrong with consensual sex, period. I needen't be in a marriage or relationship with them. I don't care if it's vanilla, scat, bdsm, cuckolding, or whatever. We have more than enough science and technology that people can have sex with little fear. It's only when governments want to inflict their "morals" on people do people really start to hurt. They do this by keeping drugs, devices, and techniques away. Thankfully, The Satanic Temple has been challenging these "moral precepts" as the religious laws enshrined into to state laws. (Seriously, who'd have thought that TST would fight for peoples' rights?!)
And I also have no issue with prostitutes. I've never procured the services of any, but I see no shame in doing so either. It's no more a temporary feel-good similar to that of a roller coaster or a concert. It's just "bad" because of the puritanical beliefs that all sex is bad, outside a marriage (later turned to relationship).
And regarding SAW, the show was meh. It's a slasher for slasher's sake.
Is that entirely true? If I say "nothing is wrong with eating Big Macs, period" that's right in one sense. But you and I can see with our own eyes what an unrestrained diet of Big Macs might do, and it's bad, if not legally wrong.
You might say the problem with unrestrained eating is the desire or relationship with food, not the object (the Big Mac), but in that case traditional morality is also saying something about the focus of 'healthy' desire, not the sex act.
Even if you strip away the "wrong," the way people incorporate sex into their relationships and ethics will make lives better or worse.
the puritanical value is 'sex should be enjoyed in marriage, monogamously'
pornography is harmful to our brains, many studies have shown this.
plenty of studies also show that people who have fewer sexual partners are ultimately happier in their sex life.
and it doesnt take much thought to see that STDs would spread much more slowly if people were monogamous.
lots of good things come from that value. on the inverse, the 'have sex as much as you want' mentality leads to unplanned pregnancies/killing unborn babies, devaluation of the gift of sex, and spread of disease. but hey, you get to have 'lots of fun' so is it worth it?
sex and money are the greatest idols in our society, and the worship of either does not yield good things.