How abnormal is it for a mother to buy her son a fleshlight for his 18th birthday?
The context makes it worse, but I’m just trying to gauge how fucked up normal people would find this, because being raised by this kind of person messed with my calibration.
I... Uh... Might have been raised in a culture that is quite different from yours, but I'd say very abnormal.
It's not out of the realm of possibility that it's normal for your family, but for most families that wouldn't be normal.
If you're family is open about being sex positive, if talking with your parents about masturbating wasn't weird as a teenager, then I don't think it's that weird of a college send off gift.
It's entirely possible for a mother & son to have a loving, honest, and very Open relationship. They can discuss anything and be supportive.
Giving that kind of gift could fit right in with the dynamic. Or, a family could enjoy giving "gag gifts" and it could be one of those.
It does not have to be a weird or bizarre gift.
Yeah, context is very important. It goes from fucking weird, to funny depending.
I fall into the latter category. At one point while I was growing up my dad gave my recently-divorced aunt a glow-in-the-dark vibrator for Christmas, and everyone thought it was hilarious. My sister and I had to pretend we didn't understand what it was. Grandma I think maybe actually didn't know what it was.
I definitely also have known people who would be mortified to even hear that story, much less have it happen to them. It really does just depend on the dynamic.
Yeppers
True, fair, and open minded. But if that were the case, though, then the question wouldn't need to be asked.
Very. When I want to get off, I don’t want my Mum involved.
Exceptionally. Exceptionally fucked up.
This is rather high on the cringe list.
On a scale of 1 to 10?
A solid 13.
I'm going against the majority.
It can be made into a weird situation, but the act itself is pragmatic and likely comes from a caring place.
Every parent with a son knows that theyre buffing the helmet any chance they get as teenagers. They're gonna make messes, ruin washcloths, use all the hand lotion, etc. Any parent who thinks their son ain't beating their meat like it owes them money is delusional. Long before your kids get to masturbation age, the parent(s) should have talked about it. If you wait until they get to the age of shame, that is going to be an uncomfortable and unproductive conversation. If you have had an ongoing and open dialog about sex, masturbation, their bodies and other topics, talking about some of the details later will not be a taboo topic. Thusly if the parent offers a masturbatory device to the child, it won't be weird unless someone wants to make it that way. If the conversations have not taken place and you still want to get your kid a sex toy, you could just order something online and leave it for them without saying anything. You could also get them a gift card to the sex store so they can get something for themself. While I presume most teenage boys dont want to share their private acts of self - gratification with their parent, there is no reason why there cannot be practical honesty about them. Get your kid a sex toy, leave it in his room, and unless he wants to talk about it, assume that he will get many hours of satisfaction from it.
Giving their son a sex toy, whatever, not common, but it can help have a normal conversation about sex and realistic expectations.
For his birthday, kind of weird. I don't think it should so formal a thing. Just so it and have the conversation about safe sex and how porn isn't like real sex.
For his 18th, uhhhh little late to the party.
Okay but also giving a kid a sex toy before their 18th birthday is how you end up on a list and have to tell your neighbors about it.
I fully agree, this is a pragmatic gift if you kept your discourse about sexual topics open with your child from the beginning. I would've gone for a gift card so they can choose themselves in privacy, but it's fine either way.
For prudish families who learnt of this gift this would be gossip material for the next year tho. So many puritans in the US, the neighbors might be the biggest issue, so i would've kept it on the down low.
its extremely wierd, and getting close to oedipus/fruedian territory. maybe as a gag gift, if the son is doing something like porn, but even that is sitll wierd.
I'm gonna go with somewhere around super duper.
Pretty weird.
That’s old enough they can buy their own.
Is it like a really passive aggressive sign mom doesn’t like their gf?
Ignoring context, it would be unusual, but not inherently worrying. There's plenty of mothers that help guide their daughters to an age appropriate sex toy, and some that will do the same for their sons. Rarer, there are fathers that will do so, but men have to worry more about external opinions about such. A mothers buys a dildo for their kid, the default assumption is that it's weird, but not bad. A father does it, and the default assumption is that he's over the line.
That being said parents should be the default source is advice about such things, because a bunch of young idiots (as opposed to old idiots) trying to advise each other about things they don't have much experience with is a recipe for hospital visits.
In terms of general purpose guidance, and funding/ordering sex toys, there's nothing wrong with a parent helping their kids in that way, assuming care is taken. There's even an argument to be made that verbal instructions on safe use are even to be encouraged, and helpful hints aren't exactly out of line (for real, a lot of young people masturbate in unhealthy ways that just a few sentences could prevent much trouble down the line).
In context, with the info you provided in comments, the mother in question is not being a good parent in this case, so it fits the word abnormal in the sense that it is unhealthy.
It's tough for me to imagine having a talk about sex toys with any of my differently-sexed kids in the future.
However, on the topic of safe use I have seen too many videos of surgeons removing a football-sized orc dildo from someone's ass. I think I would find the courage to at least mention the importance of a sufficiently-flared base, especially if I'm on the hook for their medical expenses. Also, the junk caught in the metal cock rings. I'm sure there are more examples.
too many videos
One. One is the number.
It's a little weird for sure. But the whole "do not shove things into you that aren't fingers or designed for it" conversation is a lot less disturbing than the potential disturbance of that hospital visit. For that matter, it applies to the "don't shove yourself or rub yourself against anything not designed for it or on/in a consenting and legal human" as well.
I've known a few people that suffered injury from humping stuff that wasn't wise.
"Abnormal" is pretty clear - this isn't something I'd expect to see from one mom in a thousand - maybe ten thousand.
But so what? I doubt it's an unhealthy act or situation, so fuck those other 9,999 moms! Actually, don't - you have a fleshlight.
Only if it's a present the size of a car in the garage and you invite everyone over to witness him unwrap it.
I didn't know what a fleshlight was and assumed OP misspelt Flashlight, assuming OP expected something bigger for their 18th birthday. Needless to say, the comments were quite confusing.
I’d be super curious to hear the context if you’re willing/able to share, but it all depends on the relationship between the mother and son. It strikes me as a bit weird and abnormal, and certainly embarrassing, but if you normally talk about sex in an open and healthy way with her, then this might not be as weird as it seems. Parents know their kids play with themselves, and it’s usually healthier to be open about it than to stigmatize it, but actively buying this kind of thing for her son is a bit much in my opinion…
He’s slightly intellectually disabled (if she had permitted him to have an education, he’d probably be normal) and she was obsessed with him. His sexuality was something that was very “open” to the family, like we all knew about his Megan Fox poster with a hole in it (which she bought for him) and the used tissues in his room were… excessive. Never cleaned up, could smell it in my room.
At one point he chased me and my younger sister around the house waving his penis at us.
I experienced something complicated from her, which toes the line around sexual abuse but isn’t as direct as “she diddled me.”
I’m of course the black sheep and have zero contact with anyone other than my sister now for having pointed out how weird/abusive the family dynamics were…
Dude, no. That is all super problematic.
Dude you buried the lede here.
I’m pretty sex positive and there are a lot of great suggestions from other users on how to make this a normal thing in normal dynamics…
But this makes it really weird
He has been sexually abused by her, perhaps covertly. There is enough in what you described that if I was a mandated reporter, I'd be making a call. From what I know of CSA, he has multiple flags and signs of being sexually abused (nearly every sentence you wrote, actually). Kids don't run around with their genitals put like that, chasing people, unless they were abused. Literally every developmentally delayed perskn I've known to do that ended up being sexually abused. Did he bed wet or soil his bedding at night as well, well into older age, eg middle school age, when he shouldn't have been doing that?
Highly recommend, when you feel okay to do so, to look up emotional incest first, and parentification/adultification. That will explain how your mother has been grooming your brother to be her stand-in husband. The reason she didn't want him to go to school is because a husband her age wouldn't go to school (they are also full of mandated reporters - did she also avoid taking him to doctors and dentists?).
It sounds like your mom also had an emotionally incestuous relationship with you as well, so reading that material can be extremely "triggering" for you. My sincere condolences, it is very traumatizing. Reading about it can bring up old memories as your brain tries to organize old memories with this new information. Often people get tired, agitated, or even regress in age. Give yourself plenty of time to mentally adjust and read and lots of breaks outside walking around, ideally in nature, w eyeballs moving around and looking up at trees or clouds. OR you can try to play a game like Tetris afterwards (Tetris is specifically studied as being helpful for PTSD/trauma).
I will also rec the book The Borderline Mother, I'm not sure this applies to her at all, but my guess is that it does
And if it does, also recommend the book Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist. Likely you already do much of this which is why you're the "black sheep" (aka you dont give her supply).
That does help explain the strangeness of the whole thing, thanks for sharing. Sounds like things were pretty tough for you, so I’m sorry for that.
It sounds like he is a bit oversexualized (not sure if that’s the right term), but it doesn’t seem like it’s anything too out of the ordinary for someone figuring themselves out. Many of us probably pushed things a bit too far when we were little, I certainly didn’t understand how uncomfortable it made people for me to run around the house naked when I was young. But we all test boundaries like that when we’re growing up, and usually the adults around us help us find the right boundaries, not stretch them.
So yeah, with that new context, giving a fleshlight to her 18 year old son is very odd, and does raise some red flags. Sounds like you made the right call cutting things off.
In that situation id say a fleshlight without a serious theraputic intervention on how to express sexuality in a healthy way is nothing but enabling very dangerous behaviors.
Don't he'll end up asking you to clean it
It depends on the actual intention but it potentially falls under what is referred to as covert incest, especially if there's a pattern. It's not something people talk about a lot but it's more common than you'd think and it can definitely have a lasting impact.
How about a card filled with 150 bucks. Then a joke on it....go by a fleshlight or take a girl out on a date. Happy Birthday!
Buying one straight up is just plain odd and should not happen.
They’re $150?? E: holy shit you weren’t kidding
they offer good experience though
It isn't an inherently problematic act in itself but it is very weird and I'd be shocked if it has ever happened without being connected to some very creepy shit.
I wouldn't want to think of my mother when I look at my fleshlight
It's quite acceptable... In Alabama.
If context makes it worse then were already not in a good place my guy
Quite abnormal. Not bad, though.
(lol) every parent should talk about proper illumination!
Keeping a flashlight handy and charged could save your life.
(It could, but also, that auto incorrect made me giggle.)
It's abnormal but only because sleeves are taboo due to religion and socirtal bullshit.
Super fucking weird
If your brother was 17, and your mother did this, and a mandatory reporter found out they would be calling CPS - level of abnormal.
Lol don't
I thought it was weird when my parents bought me a Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar when I was around that age. So... yah... that's not normal.
First time I went into a sex shop was as a kid with my parents. They wanted to buy my brother a gag gift because he stayed home alone for the first time while we went on vacation. They settled on penis pasta (warning, increase in size when cooked) while I tried to appear to not be looking at anything.
Yeah, buying your kid sex stuff is generally seen as weird. But ultimately only you can say how your family does things.
It's certainly abnormal.
But abnormal doesn't mean bad. At all.
I actually think it's a thoughtful honest appropriate gift. That kind of thing should be more common.
If as a joke, the humor is fucked. If legit, it’s double fucked.
"Wanking wasn't enough? You've no hands?!" was my first thought, bringing back some Reddit core memories, lol.
Ofc it's weird AF. Promoting hedonism and oversexualization is weird and immoral in general, but your own mom doing that to you sounds traumatic too... Sorry, OP. This is the kind of stuff you either take to the grave or share only when you find an extremely understanding lady. :/
And purely out of curiosity, where are you from?
Everyone knows masturbation is hedonistic and immoral!
And purely out of curiosity, what religion does your username imply?
Their head would explode if they saw my drawer of 1-2k USD of bad dragon dildos, vibrators, clit suckers, masturbators, plugs, beads, and more…
I didn't say masturbation, in the traditional sense, was something so outrageous and immoral ("wanking wasn't enough?!", as I said, but you need to fight windmills to make any sort of valid point here, ofc). I understand the urges of the flesh because I too am a person (a healthily horny man at that!), but fleshlights are definitely too much. It's advanced gooning. Your mom promoting it and buying you sex toys is weird AF and concerning (what's next, she's gonna pay for your OF subscriptions? Pay for your first hooker threesome? 🤔), and the fact I even have to spell it out is, well, I'd like to say surprising and disappointing but it isn't, not really. I know who I'm talking to here, after all.
And Muslim non-sectarian!
Depends. Did she get a custom one made? Very VERY weird. Did she get one from her favorite porn actress? Quite weird. Did she just get any old one? Still a bit weird, but eh. Weirder things have happened to me.
Even having a funny and weird relationship with my mother, this would be suuuuper cringe. And inappropriate.
Pretty fucking weird.
Just make sure you don’t break both of your arms at the same time. Or do…? Idk what you’re into.
Abnormal meaning "not normal?" Very abnormal. As others have mentioned there are some edge cases where this isn't terrible, but in general it's a pretty bad look.
My mom once left her Amazon account logged in and open on her computer. My sibling and I searched for a bunch of sex toys to mess with the ad suggestions. That was funny, but I'd never buy my mother a dildo and it would be really weird if she bought me a Fleshlight.
I cant say if it's because of the sex stigma in the usa or because it's just weird
Context could make it better I guess - like maybe the sons a sex/porn addict or something along those lines.
But you said this particular context makes it worse (and the only worse context I can think of right now is she had it molded to herself) so I would have to say it's pretty abnormal.
my mom bought me playboys back in the day somewhere around my 14th/15th birthday and I was pretty weirded out by that relatively 'benign' act.
I see your username and know this is a fucking trap!
It's unusual, depends does he like it and why do you want to buy him that?
It depends - are their arms broken?
a semi obscure Reddit reference appears
It's an older meme, but it checks out.