AIBU to read porn on a kindle at work during lunch

[FifiVoldemortsChavvyCousin]

Not 50 shades, better quality. Not touching or anything. No one can see what it is as I sit eating my lunch. If anyone asks, I say ‘war and peace’. Should I save it for home?

Many have rules about viewing Porn at work. You could get dismissed.
Erotica type novels are just that. Books. It's not "viewing porn."
It's just reading a book full of words!

"I'd think you're not very bright"
Fuck off 🙄

Look at you, so cool and grown up! School cloakroom?
Wondering what you're eating over your kindle and why you have recommended the book ...

We have rules in our workplace about not viewing/saying anything that could cause offence, obviously what causes offence to an individual is subjective and not always clear. I think you should ask your line manager or HR for clarity if it ok to read porn in the office.

And do let us know how that goes.

Hint: If you don't feel comfortable asking, you already know the answer

Read what you like. As long as you're not using work equipment or Internet to do so, it's sod all to do with them.

How could anything that anyone is quietly reading on their kindle/phone cause offence to anyone else? Unless there is a particularly officious, meddling twat in the office who demands to know what others are reading, or picks up their devices to have a look so that s/he can complain...

And any HR catsbumfaces who did try to police reading choices would have an interesting court case on their hands if they sacked anyone. Because you would have to have a blanket ban on reading fiction at all to make it a reasonable rule.

Actually, why stop at banning fiction? Want to read some Richard Dawkins (quietly, on an e-reader, without giving any indication to anyone else what you are reading)? Your superstitious colleague could kick off that your reading choice is disrespectful to their imaginary friend.
Reading this? Somebody might complain that you are being racist against white colleagues, or that you are a 'liberal' who is making a threatening workplace environment for anyone with conservative values.

Surely what anyone chooses to read in their downtime is no one else's business at all, unless the reader is making it really, really obvious that s/he is reading something 'special' and therefore annoying colleagues...

But some people are always going to make a ridiculous fuss about anything in the way of sex-themed entertainment, I suppose.

For all the people saying "erotic books are not porn"

Fifty Shades' main marketing point was that it turned women on. (Not me, think it is rubbish)

Many women are as much, if not more, turned on by words, as by pictures. Many men find visuals more of a turn-on.

Ergo, it IS the equivalent of a man bringing a soft porn mag into work.

YUK

Also, cannot see what on earth anyone would read this kind of stuff for, if it was NOT to get turned on. Literary merit? Zero.

My PA brought FSOG into work. I asked her to take it home.

It's no good comparing this to a man reading erotic material at work as if it's a direct equivalent. I think most of us would feel uncomfortable around a guy who has a hard on at work, because turned on men tend to act like dicks, think they have a right to sexually harass women, and worse case scenario, they assault women. They're usually physically bigger and stronger than women and hold positions of power over us at work. The two situations are not comparable because they are not the same.

The problem with someone reading a porn mag is that there are pictures and it's easy to see what the person is reading (and to be upset by it, if such things upset you). Anyone reading a book on an e-reader could be reading absolutely anything and it is nobody else's business.

There is nothing wrong with having sexual fantasies and liking sexy fiction. At any given moment anyone near you could be deeply immersed in an explicit sexual fantasy of their own imaginings. Actually, anyone near you might be imagining something sexy involving you, and as long as they don't bother you about it, it's none of your business. You cannot control other people's thoughts and shouldn't want to try.

Words are different from photos.

They are not the same.

Definition of pornography -

'printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate sexual excitement.
synonyms: erotica, pornographic material, pornographic literature/films/videos, hard-core pornography, soft-core pornography, dirty books'

This rebranding of pornography to erotica because it's the written word is something that I find really frustrating. It's just porn.

It's a sad reflection of the 'pornification' of the culture that people can't even get through a working day without it. Surely there are other books to be reading?

Meh, I put the latest MS Parker or Hannah Ford on Kindle voice view screen reader, get my earphones in and have it read to me at work!

I wouldn’t be happy if a male colleague did this so YABU

A few of the assistants at work were reading steamy bits of FSOG to each other in the staff room when it first came out. It was so weird, really odd to see people at work getting each other hot under the collar of a lunch time. I ate at my desk.

Ok then, watching people fuck is exactly the same as reading about people fucking.

I find it frustrating that people don't accept the difference between a book with made-up characters in stories - and real-life people.

I find it both depressing and worrying that some people are so appalled by the idea of someone else reading a book, quietly and discreetly, just because WAAAAH SEX! I mean, I know there are a lot of stupid, unimaginative people who don't see the point of reading books at all unless you have to but FFS. People who like fiction generally know very well that sex scenes have featured in novels for a long, long time. Jilly Cooper, Judith Krantz, Shirley Conran etc fuelled two or three generation of teenage girls (and upwards) sexy fantasies, and most romance imprints contain some fairly explicit sex scenes. Now just imagine any employer trying to ban staff from reading Jilly Cooper in the workplace because eek yuk argh, they might get a little thrill from it - and see how fucking ridiculous you are being.

The novels of Jilly Cooper, Judith Krantz and Shirley Conran contain sex scenes within a wider story. They are not written solely with the intention of stimulating sexual excitement. The average story posted to Literotica can not make a similar claim. It seems fucking ridiculous to me so see the two as anyway comparable.

Ergo, it IS the equivalent of a man bringing a soft porn mag into work.

No, it isn't.

Cruella, the genre of erotic fiction is fucking huge. There are many, many authors writing stories that are sexually explicit but also politically engaged, or with intriguing plots and concepts or fascinating characters. And, yes, some of it is a turn on to read. But that isn't a bad thing.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion but the split opinions on the thread basically proves you should not be reading porn at work. If anyone, male or female, does something that would cause offence it has no place in the workplace.

Cruella, the genre of erotic fiction is fucking huge. There are many, many authors writing stories that are sexually explicit but also politically engaged, or with intriguing plots and concepts or fascinating characters.

I would be very surprised if it constitutes anything but a tiny fraction of what passes for written porn. Would you be prepared to recommend something? Give me a chance to see this politically engaged, plot driven literature for myself?

How long a reading list would you like? Also, could you give me an approximate idea of your preferences eg: historical, contemporary, heterosexual, more romantic, LGBTQ, sci fi, paranormal, does/does not include BDSM...

(Yes, I am an expert. I read erotica, write it and edit it and have been doing so for decades. And I get exasperated when people dismiss it as badly written filth. Just like other authors (of eg sci fi or romance) get tired of being sneered at by people who don't know anything about their genre but dismiss it out of hand.)

Actually, here is a good (and relatively SFW) article on the topic.

Contemporary, heterosexual, no to paranormal and no to BDSM. No need to spend time on a long list on my account. I'm just after an example. Thanks.

To be fair, it was the OP who asked was it OK to read PORN at work? It's quite obvious that she's really on about erotic fiction, but she was the one who called it porn, so, actually I think it is worth asking if it would be considered OK if a man was to do the same?!