So Your Child Is Looking At Horny Facts Online — Now What?

I was eight-years-old when I laid eyes on my first horny fact. Barely a boy but far from a man. My best friend and I were rummaging through old boxes and canisters in our grandfather’s trinket closet like the mischievous whippersnappers we were. Eventually, we came across a mysterious piece of papyrus reed with an array of faded hieroglyphics carved on it. We were no Hardy Boys, but after many minutes of decoding, we managed to deduce that it translated to something involving the ancient Egyptians’ usage of dried crocodile dung as a contraceptive. It was all a blur from there, but I distinctly remember becoming instantaneously and insurmountably horny despite being a pre-pubescent boy without a speck of a scat fetish. So what gives?

At the time I didn’t realize, but this was my very first exposure to a true horny fact. And from that moment on, I did anything I possibly could to chase that high. I scoured the drawers and attics of friends and family members for health books or magazine clippings; I searched under mattresses and ransacked trash bags for medical brochures or parenthood pamphlets — anything I could to get my paws on some new horny facts. This was in 2001 at a time when if you wanted to find horny facts, you really had to work for it.

Not anymore.

In a digital age dominated by social media, smart phones, tablets, and other gizmos, horny facts are readily available and easily accessible to modern kiddos with just the click of a button or a few twitches of the thumb. And yes, it's terrifying. 

With over 4 million followers, the anonymous sex tycoon who runs the Horny Facts™ account has amassed a Twitter audience of roughly 2 Darren Rovells, 4 Courtney Coxes, 8 Ellie Schnitts, 25 Andy Dicks, or 55 Glenny Ballses. That’s a whole lot of (eye) balls being exposed to an active stream of horny facts on a daily basis. Which is especially dangerous to the vulnerable children who view the Horny Facts account without legal permission. 

“It’s like picking a scab,” says Dennis Lang, a Worcester-based sexuality educator who runs the Chirp Chirp Buzz Buzz after-school program. Lang is one of the few professionals to whom parents can reliably turn to when they learn their child stumbled upon a horny fact online.

Oh no, you might be thinking. Not my kid. He’s not interested. She would never.

“Don’t kid yourself,” says Lang. Nearly half of online users ages 8–17 have seen horny facts (two-thirds of whom have done so on accident), according to one study by Fitchburg State University. 

There is no set script, and no predictable moment for the conversation. It can happen at as early an age as 6 or 7, when a child may not yet understand the basic mechanics and fundamentals of horny facts. It is typically set off by a child’s accidental wanderings online or the deliberate searches of a curious teenager on a smartphone, laptop, tablet or one of the other devices that have made it nearly impossible to grow up without encountering sexually explicit material.

As Dorothy Hockenberry, the executive director of Children Understanding New Technology, a national sex-education organization based at MIT, said: “Your child is going to use the internet to look at horny facts at some point. It’s inevitable.”

Parents, then, are faced with a new digital-era quandary: is it better to try to shield children from horny facts, or to accept that they are so ubiquitous that they have become a fact of life, requiring its own conversation?

Let's take a deeper look at when it might be a good time to start the conversation...

Signs your child might be looking at horny facts:

Is your kid taking their device to the bathroom?

Horny facts aren't necessarily the only reason a child would take their device to the bathroom; however, the bathroom does offer privacy and a locked door. Those factors make it an easy place to view horny facts without raising suspicion. Bobby Baughman (a recovered horny facts addict, and activist) says that he used to take 45-minute showers as a front. Instead of washing up, he would just run the water to disguise the fact that he was aggressively consuming horny facts on his laptop.

Is your child quick to change what they’re doing online when you enter the room?

This is a likely sign that whatever they were looking at before you barged in was indecent and vile. Investigate further. Ask your child pointed questions like: “What do you do when you’re online?” or “Do you talk to people online that you haven’t met in real life?” or “What type of facts have you been looking at lately, and how did they make you feel?” Keep your tone neutral, and communicate with honesty and openness. 

Is your child shifting their behavior suddenly?

If your kiddo has been exposed to horny facts, they will likely begin to lash out in a variety of ways. They may start to have physical outbursts, like punching drywall or throwing cinderblocks. They also may begin to use more flagrant language — often in reference to the opposite gender.

Are they withdrawing?

Another sign that your child is consuming horny facts is that they will begin to lose interest in activities and non-horny facts they once enjoyed. Horny facts are scientifically proven to take over the brain and make the user dependent on it for stimulus — making everything else—including other less arousing types of facts and trivia —seem dull and uninteresting in comparison.