Porn

[Bubbles01]

Am I being unreasonable for getting upset that my husband keeps looking at porn?

Well even if that's true, everybody has flaws, I know i do, but to me watching porn is not one of those 'bad things' you speak of.

And to some women, men who watch porn are perfectly acceptable, just because it is not your personal definiton of the word. But in every way that matters, the men I refer to are decent.

And for the record, some women like rough sex...I like my DH to call me names like that during sex, and I have never been forced into it, I like it and I initiated it. It was my DH who hesitated and asked 'Are you sure?' Sex is just that...sex. He would never call me a slut or any horrible name normally, and he wouldn't during sex if I hadn't said it turned me on!

MrsM, what you like in the bedroom really is beside the point

consenting, uncoerced, not desperate for money for a fix...one presumes this is you, yes ?

now think why some women end up in the porn industry

for me, those some women degrade the whole business

what happens in your house is really irrelevant

"My DH is actually laughing at this comment............"

My DH says your DH eats rubbish out of your neighbours' bins.

Of course he'll deny it but that only proves it's true

AnyFucker both sides of this whole argument is full of generalisations. I personally don't believe men who watch porn are bad men, or seedy or sexist. I believe that most men do watch and enjoy porn. I know that sometimes women in porn will be there for the wrong reasons. That's it.

Because not all porn is like that! for gods sake, you make it sound as though they are actually watching people being abused! Men are not watching anybody being raped or children being abused! It is not black and white like that, if there was a message at the beginning of the film saying 'the women in this film have all been abused/raped/forced into this' then fair enough, it would be wrong to watch it! But it doesn't say that, and you don't know that every woman or even half of them have!
And I speak as somebody who was abused as a child, so go ahead, try and psycho analyse that and tell me that it is strange how I like porn!

MrsMontague wow on the overshare!

I think it's interesting that you have shared this info - it just shows that intelligent and articulate people can be a bit 'naughty' in the bedroom.

Probably will be the only one congratulating you - but well done! Still agreeing with everything you say.

skidoodle
"My DH is actually laughing at this comment............"

My DH says your DH eats rubbish out of your neighbours' bins.

Of course he'll deny it but that only proves it's true - I must be thick as I don't know what you're trying to say.

In rush so apols for rambling but

I just don't think it's possible to separate the watching bit from the knowing-what's-going-on-in-the-porn-industry bit.

You would have to be from Mars - or not care at all - not to have come across the idea that some women are being physically forced or forced in ways that go beyond being 'troubled'- for example by need to repay drug debts to pimp, off-camera emotional abuse, general sense of being in way out of your depth in organized crime. The pimp=the dealer= the photographer etc

And once you've absorbed that concept, it's also impossible not to realise that of course these girls don't have 'abused' written in marker pen on their bodies as a handy way of differentiating who is, and who isn't.

Which means that you know you don't know which model has been abused. If you continue to wank over them, it means - fundamentally - that you acknowledge you don't care which is abused, and which not.

I would suggest that this is, for many - and without even being aware of it - a subtext to the process of arousal, but I know many won't agree.

Sophable - I just can't agree with you. In comparison to the extent to which the porn industry is changing in the opposite direction, ie towards in increasingly brutally-expressed misgogyny, the impact of 'feminist porn' is utterly minimal.

And in any case, it's typical of the the principle of licensed dissent, in which a power structure allows the contained expression of opposition in order to prevent the overthrow of the whole system.

How does the likes of www.forthegirls.com fit into all this? Are there any dhs out there objecting to their dws consumption of porn?

I'd say the last sentence of my previous post precisely described what you see there, absinthe.

oh, x-post-but-shorter w dittany, before.

Ah, yes, I see. Off-topic but have you ever visited this shop:
www.sh-womenstore.com
Men are not allowed inside unless accompanied by a female

MsMontagu:
Men are not watching anybody being raped or children being abused! It is not black and white like that, if there was a message at the beginning of the film saying 'the women in this film have all been abused/raped/forced into this' then fair enough, it would be wrong to watch it!

But those of us who have been scorned for saying we know our partners don't watch porn, have got partners who do know that message, even though it isn't at the beginning of the film Mrs Montague. I've already said that DH watched porn as a a teenager. But he is not (and men are not in general) led primarily by his sexual organs. He is an intelligent, caring men who has responded to new information (waaay before meeting me, btw). His brain rules his balls, not the other way round; why else would he arrive home at 9.15 from a stag do?

I'm also not saying that if he did watch porn he wouldn't get aroused. I know he would, the same way he could get aroused by watching someone hot in a bikini. That doesn't offend me. But he chooses not to watch it because he thinks porn is morally abhorrant in the way it treats women.

arived home at 9:15 from a stag do???

I'd sack him from my mates.

Sometimes the most vocal amongst you are just such a bunch of hessian-wearing, granola-eating zealots.

Anyone who tries to present a view that isn't forged in the crucible of domestic abuse is dismissed.

I do NOT endorse violence towards women, but describing all porn as misogynistic is puerile and naive. (as is descibing all porn as wholesome, which I am not doing!)

This issue is a perennial one on MN and not sure if the OP has found it helpful but if she is still looking in - YANBU.

There are only two important facts that are relevant here.

1. Most men will become aroused when looking at a woman's body in real life or in pornographic images.

1. All men have a choice about whether they seek out and view pornographic images.

If the OP is upset by her DH looking at pornographic images and she has asked him not to then he should stop.

What I think she should do is sit down and explain her feelings to him in detail including the feelings about her body. Try not to make it accusatory or confrontational. It is entirely possible he does not feel happy either.

I can absolutely swear that half the people on these threads who are 100% confident of the fact than their dh does not look at porn are COMPLETELY WRONG AND DELUDED. I would say the same thing to almost anyone who cared to ask in RL

hi ABD, where have you been ? (in general I mean, not why has it taken you so long to join this thread )

Absinthe that's an easy statement to make as there's absolutely no way anything anyone says will disprove it, is there? So, I say, DP never looks at/buys porn, talks negatively about it and is the one who stands outside the lapdancing club on stag nights.. but you will just say I am wrong and deluded.. end of discussion.
Fair enough for women who are happy for their partner to use porn, but why on earth should any woman who is unhappy about it have to put up with it? Next I'll hear we have to put up with men having affairs, cause it's in their nature

Hello AF - I have been very busy in RL since Xmas. I have still been dropping in to read but have not been posting much. Will be gradually resuming normal service over the next month or so.

God it pisses me off when people say 'you are deluded' re husbands not using porn.

Actually god only knows if dp does, but I really expect he doesn't. Not because Ii stand on a soapbox in the sitting room and shriek PORN IS EVIL, but because I genuinely think he does not go out looking for it. And I do actually know him funnily enough.

pesky RL, eh !

And yay for ABD.

Wow this thread is swelling fast. I can't keep up.

Dittany I'm finding Natasha Walter's book really good. I'm so glad she has written it and would urge everyone to read it. It expresses major concerns and unease I have felt with the way women are being portrayed, are portraying themselves and how the definition of an attractive woman seems to be narrowing.

A couple of years ago as I sat at my desk two colleagues who were sitting at computers either side of mine struck up a conversation about a news story. It was about a woman teacher who shagged a pupil and got into trouble. Anyway these two were shouting across, as if I was invisible, 'Gary said she was MILF. She SO isn't MILF. Look here's a picture' 'Oh no way. She's minging.'

I had a sense of feeling insulted and found this loud conversation almost threatening - and it struck me particularly because the colleagues involved were both women in their late twenties. I felt the same sense of unease I would have done if they'd been beery, gross lads talking about women in that way.

It really stuck in my mind and I found it very unsettling. Natasha Walters is writing about exactly the major shift in attitudes which has created this sort of culture and porn and its availability play a really massive role.

I saw the book being trounced a bit on Newsnight but I wasn't convinced the people critisising it had really read it. They just slagged off Natasha as a middle class spoon patronising working class culture. Personally I thought the class allegations were irrelevant.

By the way I hear you sophable. I would love to get my hands on some feminist porn as you describe but I don't think it's very widely known about somehow and so this thread is about the stuff which is so ubiquitous and dehumanising and degrading for women.