Help! My 11 yr old son collects photo of obese men.

Please advise me because I am at a loss on what to do. I KNOW I need to act but where to start?

Recently my divorce was finalized after several year long custody battle which involved my ex having monitored visitation. My ex-husband is confined to a wheelchair but is financially well off. He has a serious problem with prescription drugs which was our main problem. I was a full-time caretaker. During the divorce, his family rally around him (as they should), but the result was a very long and difficult divorce and without their interference probably would have ended a lot sooner.

My son suffered a lot and my ex in retaliation to the divorce refused to see our son for several months. When my ex would call he would tell my son how he was suffering and couldn't sleep, etc. This made my son more stressed and confused.

Now my ex has overnight visitations and kept our son a month during the summer. Afterwards, my son started sleeping with the light light and the TV on. He's asked me several times to sleep in the bed with me. Before he left for summer break, I caught him on the internet watching videos of bare chested obese men shaking their bellies for several minutes. I check the computer history and apparently there are entire websites dedicated to this. It would be funny if it wasn't so scary.

I talked to him about it and explained that wasn't appropriate but even I wasn't sure if it was curiosity or erotic to him. My ex is very obese and I'm wondering it that has something to do with it.

Two days ago, I found more pictures that he download on his PSP. I didn't delete them because I planned to show them to his father. He doesn't really have any new games on his PSP so I hoped they were old pictures.

Yesterday, he started playing the PSP and then tried to take it in the bathroom. I don't allow hime to play any handheld games in the bathroom because it takes forever for him to come out but now I wonder if he had other intentions.

I'm scared to tell my ex because he is very bitter and is looking for an excuse to regain custody but at the same time I'm scared that I may really have a problem and need to get help.

What should I do?

im not sure if its an unhealthy obsession or not, maybe hes comparing them to his father but he needs to talk about it with someone, if not you someone he can trust
its good you monitor whats he is doing on the internet, has he got a councillor or someone at school he could talk to

I agree ...it sounds like something more could be going on..
Your son if you can should maybe imho talk to someone

I agree he needs to talk to someone and the internet needs to be monitored. My dd is 12, and I just had some internet problems with her talking to THE WRONG PEOPLE... I now have internet monitoring software installed and she no longer has access to certain sites....

TJ

Maybe I am on the wrong tack here... but what is his eating like? If he isn't eating much, maybe he is using the pics of obese men as 'reverse thinspiration'? Shows himself horrible pics so he feels like he won't turn out like them?

He is a little self conscious about his body. I guess what freaked me out was that most of the men were nude or shirtless. One was a cartoon of two clothed obese men walking together and one had an erection.

As far monitoring his internet use goes, I put the computers in a open area so there's no privacy for surfing online. His game consoles access the internet too and I haven't found software for that.

He is slightly overweight about 20-25 lbs overweight and about 5'7" which a bit tall for an 11 year old. You might be right. I'm going to keep a close eye and just give him a break for now.

Thanks guys!

At the moment I would not mention this to your ex (as he seems unable to handle things as an adult) - but what I would do is to seek some counseling sessions for your son... as it seems that your son is confused & hurting and he is using these images as some form of numbness while trying to cope with the changes in his life/family... a professional should be able to help get to the bottom of all this before it gets really messed in side of him.