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Porn: honest opinions

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Re: Porn: honest opinions

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  • TinaThoTinaTho member
    I agree with PP, there is a huge difference between infrequent porn watching and interacting with others in a sexual way. There are boundaries that should not be crossed and communication with others is definitely over the line. So far over that he must know that he was doing something wrong prior to being confronted about it.

    So sorry you are going through this. Hopefully some honest conversations and counseling (either together or alone) will get you through. 
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  • NB817NB817 member
    Oh girl no. You're not wrong or overreacting at all. 
    I have to ask this though...how old is your boyfriend? 
    His responses to you just seem like those of an immature person which is why I ask. 
    Also, is he not interested in any type of sexual intimacy with you at all?? I mean if you offered him a BJ would be turn it down??? 

    ME: 35 DH: 39

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  • dshannahdshannah member
    kami09 said:
    dshannah said:
    kami09 said:
    dshannah said:

    It's not cheating, but it's something he should tell you about (if only for budgeting purposes!).
    Wait. For real?! If DH told me we needed to budget for THAT, I'd tell him to go fall on a knife.
    Well, it's worse to be secretive about porn and money than just about porn, right? The money always affects both partners, after all...

    @Merciel Mostly joking, but I've heard of some really high-end cam folk! And I've been told that the ones who interact more charge more. Also, based on the TV discussion in the Random thread, people seem to budget for Netflix.  DH and I do: we've got a line item in our budget for $7.99/month.  Most cam girls and porn services charge at least that, right?

    I'm sorry, but no...just no. She came here upset about that fact that her boyfriend is interacting sexually with other girls online & you're going to say it's the money that affects both partners? I'd beg to differ. Your whole flippant attitude is really rubbing me the wrong way..."Most cam girls and porn services charge at least that, right?" This girl is upset and this is a very real and hurtful situation for her...what don't you get about that?
    Because I have already said that, in my opinion, the problem is not the porn, but the effects on their relationship of their failure to communicate. Her SO isn't addicted to porn or asking her to perform for him; pornography is not affecting their sex life because she has put the kibosh on their sex life because she feels gross.

    Blaming pornography or cam girls (not cheating because is only a fantasy--like a video game almost) is a cop out, and a way to avoid the real issues of his defensiveness and her current attitude towards her body and intimacy with him.

    But there is one way in which porn and cam girls do, inherently, affect a relationship, even when partners are open and honest about it, and that is financially. Because that shit costs money, so unless they keep their finances totally separate or his cam girl habit is funded out of his own personal discretionary fund, this is another aspect of his porn habit that he is failing her through.

    Because it is the failure to communicate, not the pornography use, that is the problem.

    Adding finances to the discussion about how his defensiveness and secrecy are problematic is not a joke! In fact, it makes it a ton worse, and is an aspect of the problem that even the most porn-tolerant partner would care about.

    You may think my tone is flippant, but I am dead serious about the budgeting thing, and I find it disheartening that so many people vilify porn and sex work when, once again, the real issue is the failure to communicate.

    And I was on mobile and didn't feel like looking up average cam girl fees, and @Merciel seemed to know something about how much they make, hence my ending with that question. Not flippancy. I shouldn't have said "mostly joking" in response to her post--I was just doing that thing where you pretend to agree and then reiterate your diverging view. Bad habit I picked up from being in a "polite" society for a few years a while back...

    tl;dr version:
    - communication is the issue here, not porn, and I've offered my suggestions for OP on that front in previous posts.

    - the fact that porn costs money is an additional axis of the issue that OP needs to communicate with her SO about.

    - sorry I gave the impression of flippancy--I thought the point about finances would stand on its own, regardless of how I said it.




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  • Knottie44691675Knottie44691675 member
    Lurking from June but I just had to comment because I'm actually genuinely surprised how many people are nonchalant about their significant other watching porn! I would feel betrayed by my husband if he was getting off and fantasizing about other women. We're open with each other and I know it was something he watched when he was a teenager and before we met. I'm completely guilty about turning him down for sex because it doesn't feel good right now but we're very much in love and attracted to each other and keep the intimacy everyday in other ways so I don't see why porn would be needed. Everyone has different situations and opinions but I just personally don't think it's healthy for a relationship, if a man wants to jack off I don't see why he can't go look or think about his beautiful wife that I would assume he would be attracted to if he married her. 
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  • VS2016VS2016 member
    @missnc77 I know this is a serious topic but your gif made me laugh! And now I want to watch Ghost and have a good cry. lol 
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  • dshannahdshannah member
    edited April 2016
    @missnc77: 

    While I absolutely agree with @lalala2004 that there are serious issues in the porn industry, stripping industry, and sex work industry vis a vis consent and human trafficking, I do not disapprove of pornography (or stripping or sex work) and think that stigmatizing all of the above actually exacerbates the human rights and consent issues involved in all of them. The more opprobrium we heap on the producers and consumers of sex-products, the more people will be able to be exploited by their producers and the more consumers will go to unethical lengths to get their desires fulfilled.

    So (as I have said many times before on this topic when it has come up) the key issue *is* communication, because shaming people for their fantasy lives is at the root of both the inability to discuss porn usage and the ability of the industries to abuse their "performers." There's a justice question here, so yeah, I'm going to speak my mind.   

    I'm not trolling, and I'm not posting just to mess with anyone: I am posting because it's an issue I care deeply about, that I've thought a lot about, and that I think most of the other posters are mistaken and misinformed about. While I respect that some people just don't like it, I'd ask them to think about the consequences of taking that opinion and making universal proclamations about how bad it is.

    Furthermore, there are important and deleterious relationship assumptions that go along with this shaming of porn:
    1. Fantasy will equate to real desires in a relationship.
    2. Thinking about other sexual partners is avoidable, is wrong, and is akin to cheating.

    Neither of those things are true, and both of them will sabotage a perfectly lovely and loving partnership.  We cannot control who we have sexual feelings about, though we can control how we act on them. If someone is attracted to someone other than their spouse, that does not mean that they will cheat or that they should feel bad about being momentarily turned on by someone who wasn't their partner. And surveys about fantasy and porn usage actually show that most people do not actually want to live out their sexual fantasies--they just like having the mental image and the implied power dynamics of whatever fantasy intrigues them. 

    But I do appreciate your looking into the OP's original post from January: I had forgotten about that original thread, and the fact that none of this is new means that this dude is just bad news.  I don't think he's necessarily doing anything wrong sexually (depends on what his actions are with the cam girls and what his emotional relationships are with these other girls), but he's treating OP like shit and *that* needs to stop ASAP.


    @js8812: You wouldn't be upset if your SO went out to lunch with a friend every week and didn't tell you?  That's a substantial part of his life, and you wouldn't care? What he and his friend discuss, how the interaction makes him feel--all of that comes home to you and helps craft the person that he is. If it's something he consistently leaves out when you ask how his day has been?  And if it eats into your budget at the rate of $25/week? I'd be much more upset about that than if my husband and I, sitting over the budget, decided to include a line item for skinemax, strippers, or cam girls (for him) and something vice-ey for me (in-app purchases ftw!).  Now, granted, atm it's a moot point for DH and me because we can't even afford cable, but my point is that the issue in both cases, for me, would be a lack of transparency and the lack of honesty and the lack of a full understanding of what my partner cares about and what his foibles are. That's what would bother me.  I'd be far more bothered by a weekly lunch date that he didn't care or didn't think to tell me about.
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  • dshannahdshannah member
    And, @lalala2004, to address the addiction/sexual development point you made (which is super-important, hence the extra post!), the warping of the adolescent mind by porn is a real issue.  However, it is exacerbated exponentially by the fact that porn is often the *only* way that kids learn about sex.  Many of those studies correlate (because causation is so tricky) to abstinence-only education, for example.

    And for older men, the sense of the activity being off limits and shameful adds to its addictive properties. According to a study in the early 2000's, pastors and priests have higher rates of porn viewing activity than the general populace.  One of the reasons the researchers offered was the sense of taboo--the fact that it was especially forbidden to them made them more inclined to watch it.

    So not only would the "legalize, regulate, and tax" view of sex work (including porn and stripping--neither are regulated enough, even if they are nominally legal) solve many of the human rights issues involved in porn, stripping, and sex work, it would also lessen precisely the factors that make porn likely to negatively affect sexual activity and sexual expectations.
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  • lalala2004lalala2004 member
    @dshannah I've never advocated making the whole industry illegal and do feel regulation could help, but I don't think that negates the fact that without consumers of these products, there would be no demand. I think people should be aware of the problems in the industry and think twice about the potential implications of what your money is going to before participating.
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  • dshannahdshannah member
    edited April 2016
    I appreciate the hardship that folks have suffered from partners who became obsessed with pornography, but I do think that approaching the question in an analytical way, thinking of the bigger picture, is a viable way of processing it all (one viable way of many, perhaps) both as a way to overcome the pain of discovering your SO is a porn user and also to get past the porn issue within your relationship.

    Honestly, I find, for myself, that there's no better way to resolve most issues, honestly, than attempting to put on a wider lens. At least that's my own experience, and I thought I was being compassionate in offering that possible solution.   

    And this isn't just a thought experiment for me either--when I was in college I was in an open relationship: I loved the guy, but he was not comfortable with monogamy. We talked about it, and came to the agreement that we were one another's real relationship, the emotional support, the primary sex partners, the full confidantes.  We had to be completely honest with one another and practice safe sex at all times, and prioritize one another when the other person needed it. We wound up dating for three years, with both of us going on dates with other people and sleeping with other people, and it was actually a great experience: I met and learned from all sorts of new people while having the stability of a constant partner. Maybe a little more drama than the average relationship, but because we communicated with one another and prioritized one another, our relationship was strong--stronger than most of our friends' relationships. We broke up because we discovered we had different life goals and were suffering through long-term long-distance as we pursued those goals, but the experience taught me that if you can have a beautiful, affirming relationship with a partner who is actively sleeping with other people, you can have a beautiful, affirming relationship with a partner who engages in less physical extracurriculars like porn or strip clubs or cam girls. The important thing is how you value one another and show one another to be valued.

    So my original advice to the OP was in this vein: communication and respect are key, and going into the conversation assuming that watching porn or visiting cam girl sites is a character flaw or a sexual problem will not let you have that conversation with an open mind. And that conversation, @laurenmdrn16, should include emotion and non-rational (or non-placeable/impossible to articulate) responses--I am so sorry that your friend made you feel as if those were invalid, and if I've replicated any of that by implicitly privileging the logical! But how else are you to express those feelings to your partner without a real conversation?

    The intention behind communication is not to have one party bully the other, but to have both views aired and acknowledged. And logic doesn't have to win! As an example (sorry--it's been a long day and it's the only thing that comes to mind rn): I get really upset when DH kills bugs or mice in the house, and even though I know that picking them up and putting them outside will not actually get rid of them, I have asked him not to kill bugs and to use humane mousetraps. He said yes, because it was important to me. Not because it was logical.

    Now, if I'd done my due diligence as @missnc77 had done and looked at that January convo (or remembered that that was her), I'd have known that her SO has a habit of gaslighting her, which is something you really can't overcome. And my advice, knowing that, is for @lpinion13 to head for the hills. Someone who gaslights is already incapable of real communication. And that's definitely cold, I'm sorry. But I can't see things improving :(
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  • silverspring81@hotmail.comsilverspring81@hotmail.com member
    Ok, so many moons ago I found out my husband was watching porn. Not ok, period, end of statement. One vagina, mine or get the fuck out. Period. I put a program on all of our electronic devices to track key words that would let me know if he was looking at it, and for all of you ladies who don't seem to mind, that is your thing, but I sent him to therapy, and this is a major issue that he had such an ambivalent attitude toward, it was a deal breaker if he hadn't stopped, regardless of his little bitch attitude that it wasn't a big deal. 
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  • silverspring81@hotmail.comsilverspring81@hotmail.com member
    FYI, when I did find out the site my husband used I sent that shit to the Attorney General of CA and a whole host of other law enforcement agencies. And I told him. I do not f around on this topic at all. 
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  • and_peggyand_peggy member
    @LovingLife! I was also thinking that I was the only one who is not in the norm. I don't know if I'm just oblivious or what but I was actually shocked to see that there were so many pro-porn. (Side note - not being judgmental towards those who share different views). I was just genuinely surprised there weren't more people against it.
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  • ruggles0909ruggles0909 member
    edited April 2016
    So I'm legitimately curious. As someone who has a fluid sexuality am I cheating on my husband when I look at porn in those times where the penis just doesn't do it for me? Am I destined to ruin my marriage as many of you seem to think porn does to all relationships? Because I don't think so. As many have said communication is important. My husband and I talk about our porn and often that leads us to being intimate. Just really want to know. 

    Eta: I recognize this doesn't directly relate to OP. She has the right to her feelings as all of you do. I am not dismissing that. Just pointing out this may not be as black and white as some believe. 
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  • vinerievinerie member
    edited April 2016
    ruggles0909 said:
    So I'm legitimately curious. As someone who has a fluid sexuality am I cheating on my husband when I look at porn in those times where the penis just doesn't do it for me? Am I destined to ruin my marriage as many of you seem to think porn does to all relationships? Because I don't think so. As many have said communication is important. My husband and I talk about our porn and often that leads us to being intimate. Just really want to know. 

    Eta: I recognize this doesn't directly relate to OP. She has the right to her feelings as all of you do. I am not dismissing that. Just pointing out this may not be as black and white as some believe. 
    My short and qualified answer would be "no" your marriage is not doomed !--- but as long as you're open about it.  I do not think regular porn is always a problem. (In some instances it is really healthy; in other instances, it can devolve into something unhealthy, just like anything). I think not talking about it with your partner would always be a problem, though, just like not talking about a lot of things is a problem in relationships. In general, I think open communication is the magic key to healthy relationships. 

    ETA: Every relationship is different and I think the thing is both people being okay with whatever it is that is going on. 
    Me: 38; DH: 41
    DS: Born 5-17-16 

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  • and_peggyand_peggy member
    @ruggles0909
    In response to your question, I believe the action of cheating must be defined by the couple. There's no textbook answer for that. My opinions aside, some may believe that cheating occurs when their S/O begins to lust. Some may think cheating only occurs when their is a sexual relationship. And obviously, opinions of everything in between. I'm sure I have a lot of unpopular opinions because I don't agree with a lot of what our culture/society believes just in general. But again, not here to hijack a serious matter and derail this topic. I am black and white on a lot of issues - personally I think that if you're ambiguous on issues, that is where the miscommunication and conflict will arise from. During my teenage years, and for 7 or 8 years past, I saw my parents' marriage crumble from pornography and cheating. One parent is not even aware that I know all that went on, while I was a confidante for the other. It's a huge burden to carry. It's only through the grace of God (and lots of counseling/communication) that they are still happily married. It affected most of the relationships in my life. For that, and many other reasons, I am black and white on this issue, and i'm perfectly fine with having an unpopular opinion. Basically all i'm saying is that I believe porn is typically can seriously damage relationships.
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  • itsbrookejonesitsbrookejones member
    I think many women who are pregnant reach a point where they don't feel attractive. I know I have. It's a difficult thing. I am sure she would love to be the one pleasing her husband, and heck, I'm sure she would love to enjoy sex again too! But if he is getting his rocks off looking at other women, it will backfire, because not only is he building walls within their relationship... She will feel MORE insecure because of it. It's like a vicious cycle. Counseling is what I recommend for them as a couple. If he doesn't want to go, I think she should go alone! I know I've benefited from it. 
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  • AdorkablePixieAdorkablePixie member
    ruggles0909 said:
    So I'm legitimately curious. As someone who has a fluid sexuality am I cheating on my husband when I look at porn in those times where the penis just doesn't do it for me? Am I destined to ruin my marriage as many of you seem to think porn does to all relationships? Because I don't think so. As many have said communication is important. My husband and I talk about our porn and often that leads us to being intimate. Just really want to know. 

    Eta: I recognize this doesn't directly relate to OP. She has the right to her feelings as all of you do. I am not dismissing that. Just pointing out this may not be as black and white as some believe. 

    I don't believe that porn can damage a relationship, unless the couple lets it do so. I think that maybe what OP is talking about, where her BF is actually interacting with someone, could ruin it. If that makes sense? I certainly wouldn't let my DH watching porn ruin my relationship. One of my closest friends, though, hates porn and if/when she finds out her husband watches it, she gets really upset and it causes huge problems in their relationship. So, again, I think it really just depends on the couple.

    Me: 31

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    Married: June 12,2011

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  • Dasha420Dasha420 member
    This is a no go and I would inspect my relationship from the beginning to now. There's more than just this moment that is off. 
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