Hi, I’m Melissa!

I’m the founder of Sex Positive Families, a licensed social worker, sexuality educator, and a parent of three amazing young people. I’ve partnered with AMAZE to produce The #AskableParent Guide to Porn to help you take the awkwardness out of talking with your kids about online porn.

As we all adjust to more time at-home, I’m sure that you know young people have a lot of questions. That curiosity is a good thing! It’s how they make sense of themselves and the world around them. We want them to stay curious, but we also want young people to understand that online porn is made for adult entertainment, not education, and that watching it at a young age can negatively affect their understanding of what real-life experiences might be like.

In this guide, I approach the topic of online porn with the goal of mentoring versus monitoring. This way, we keep the talks an open-door conversation, not an interrogation. This makes a young person more likely to come to you when they have questions or need support. The guide also covers WHEN to have these conversations, including five signs you can look out for to signal that it’s time to talk about porn.

I know, through both my professional experience and personal life, just how important it is to maintain open conversations with kids, especially when it comes to talking about online porn and sexually explicit media. That’s why I’m so glad to contribute to AMAZE’s free #AskableParent resources, so that parents have help as we all adjust to more time at home and at-home learning.

I hope you find the resources helpful!

Melissa Pintor Carnagey
LBSW, Sexuality Educator & Founder of Sex-Positive Families