Going to have to accept his porn use

[KittyCakes]

My husband has watched porn since he was a teenager and it emerged that his use of it was more of an addiction about 4 years ago. We've been together 5 and a half years and I knew nothing of it at first. We have two young children, one of them with SEN. Leaving him is not an option, I don't want to, because I would never cope as a single mum and he is a good dad.

However despite therapy for porn addiction a couple of years back, he just can't drop it. He repeatedly lies about it to me, saying that he's doing better, then it transpires that he's not. This has happened so many times. I'm now at the point where I'm just going to assume that he's always going to watch it and he has zero control over being able to stop. He's shown that. It's actually the lying about it which saddens me the most. This afternoon I angrily told him to watch porn whenever he wants because that way I can't be hurt by lies as I will just have to accept that's what he's doing. He says he want to change but I don't think he can or will. For what it's worth, I hate the porn industry. To me, it's totally deprave.

Has anyone else just had to accept that porn will always have a hold over their other half?

Agree. Power, and destruction of perceived ‘innocence’ I would add too. Similar to paedophilia.

This is quite a childish naive view, something I would expect to hear from my uneducated grandmother :) a bit like "men need to go to the office and women need to be housewives to feel satisfaction as they're biologically wired that way".

I think because most porn is produced by men (though starring women) and heavily geared towards male viewers/male satisfaction, men tend to watch porn more than woman. But I've been in two relationships – especially where I had a much higher sex drive – where I watched mainstream porn but my boyfriend didn't. They would've had no way and literally no reason to hide it from me

Sorry one of which I had a much higher sex drive, the other one about equal but he just didn't like porn. I'm sure like most other humans on earth, both had definitely watched porn before, but they didn't enjoy it as a regular thing

It’s something of a feminist truism, that rape is mostly/all about power, not sex.

I don’t find that a satisfactory description.

Testosterone in men increases both aggression and the sex drive, and I’m coming around to the idea that there are biological reasons for this. If you look to the animal kingdom, males become more aggressive and more sexually charged during tupping seasons, because they need to ‘fight for’ a mate. Apparently in humans, male boxers can get erections when they are about to have a fight. Also, men who take anabolic steroids are more likely to become stranger rapists - opportunists who just do it because they can.

Many years ago, a friend of mine who had been taking steroids and getting into weightlifting, said to me that he felt so high in the nightclub we’d been in, he felt so amazing, so powerful, he felt like he could have murdered everyone in there, torn them limb from limb, with his bear hands. 🫤 I could not relate at all. So yes, high testosterone makes men feel both powerful and sexually charged.

I think, with men, there is a sexual component to almost every thing they do, so if they are mentally ill, it’s likely that they’ll be doing weird sexual things, much more so than women. I think the urge to dominate others is a sexual urge in men. It’s almost hardwired that dominance = entitlement to sex. And that makes women think WTF?

So with sex crimes from voyeurism, flashing, groping through to rape, I think the sexual urge is central, but that is bound up with feeling powerful and in control. The fact that women feel so powerless when men assault them is obviously the thing that sticks with us and is important to us as the victims, but I think this is not in minds of the the men who perpetrate. They just want to get excited and get off.

Having said that, there are exceptions to the rule such as @memoire , where women have unusually high sex drives for our sex and men can have unusually low drives.

And to get back to the topic, and in agreement with memoire, I had a boyfriend years ago who had a ludicrously high sex drive, but he felt that porn was sort of obvious. He said, looking at it, he’d think ‘is that supposed to turn me on?’. Whereas if he saw a woman wearing jeans which outlined her crotch, he’d feel almost winded by the sight.

@KittyCakes i'm going to change the topic away from porn but to a post you made.
regarding not being able to cope without him.
sadly in life accidents happen, at any point in time you could become a widow and faced with the challenge of raising the children on your own.
with this in mind not the porn, you really need to work on what you need to work on in order to be self sufficient going forward in life.

Why does he watch porn?

Does he watch the paid for stuff and you object because he is spending a lot of money on it?

Is he watching it because he has a high sex drive and would be an absolute sex pest otherwise?!?!😂Or does he think it's because you don't want sex enough so he needs to watch porn instead?

I would focus on WHY he wants to view it.

I occasionally watch porn, but certainly nothing violent, nor do I find it addictive. My only reason for watching it is due to a lack of sex life!

Prolonged use is known to make people "immune" to what they are viewing, leading them to then want to watch more and more hardcore stuff, which is where the addiction comes in.

@ClumsyCat yes but I don't have an unusually high sex drive, just a normal one!

I don't think the porn use difference is down to men having higher sex drives. It's just that porn is produced by men and appeals to them. There's lots of male enjoyment in it and very little female enjoyment (incidentally, the boyfriend who found porn arousing but didn't like the demeaning nasty aspects of it was an incredible lover! And not necessarily gentle in bed too in fact!)

If women had started the porn industry, I think women might be all over it, a bit like Mills & Boon (but way more accessible and addictive). If you have a look at those porn websites specifically for women, there are incredibly hot yet gentle men, usually in nice settings like nature... lol

It is fascinating how the only time we’re allowed to say ’all men’ is about porn / objectifying women.

Really says it all, doesn’t it?

Empowerment? You haven’t just drank the Kool Aid, you’re the one serving it to everyone else.

Blimey.

How wildly ignorant you are.

If women had started the porn industry, I think women might be all over it, a bit like Mills & Boon (but way more accessible and addictive). If you have a look at those porn websites specifically for women, there are incredibly hot yet gentle men, usually in nice settings like nature... lol

This is quite a childish naive view, something I would expect to hear from my uneducated grandmother. Basically it assumes women only like vanilla sex which is a bit like saying "men need to go to the office and women need to be housewives to feel satisfaction as they're biologically wired that way".

There have been many attempts to launch female porn mags. And they all died on their arse.

Many women into porn are into the harder stuff. And (an uncomfortable truth for many) many of women doing hard stuff are not unwilling. In particular the sub/dom stuff often has a video at the end of the women describing her enjoyment of the process.

@TheHoover your grandmother should look up some market research then! 😂 market research reflects that most men watch porn, but it's childish to then assume that there's no room for individual variation at all, and that that extends to every single man on this planet. Market research also reflects that Internet research for "porn for women" are very common (eg grew by 359% in recent years), and websites (magazines? is this actually your grandmother's generation lol) geared towards women have been doing very well. Finally, it also shows that only a small segment of women watch mainstream porn. Oddly enough there are consultancy (my job hazard - not porn though lol) studies on this, but A Billion Wicked Thoughts is also an interesting read on the men/women porn divide

Apologies @KittyCakes its obvious this thread was going to go this was.

Way

Because I want more for women than the pop psychology of ‘empowerment’? Yeah okay.

Grim. He knows you don't like it (aside from all the very valid moral arguments) and carries on. So completely disrespectful towards you. Also, men that use porn are allowing themselves to be turned on by vunerable women. Its awful on so many levels.

If he’s truly addicted and accepts the addiction is harming his marriage and he actually values you then he needs to seek help. Counselling and also a parental block on his phone would help.

A teacher at DS school said this to them. It's fucking insulting. Assuming you are a woman @ClumsyCat, you need to have a serious think about your misandry and why you think so poorly of all men.

Eh? “All men don’t do it?” Wth is ‘misandrist’ about that? 🫤

Tbh someone using the word ‘misandrist/misandry’ indicates the kind of dubious modern belief system they subscribe to.

Make a list if your problems and rank them in priority order. If the ever makes the top or you have the resilience then try resolving it.

Otherwise turn a blind eye for your own sanity. If you are CHOOSING to live with it, then LIVE with it. Tell him you dont want to talk about it, dont interrogate him or his devices or behaviour and just leave him be. It's like forgiving cheating- you have to move on if you accept it, you cant live in a state of high vigilance, it's not healthy.

If you cant live with it then you need to take decisive action and move things forward within your power. You have the right to leave. You dont have the right to make him do anything. You cant just let it fester. Make a decision.