husband and porn

[mummyworries]

he keeps looking at porn on the internet, behind my back of course! am i too sensitive when it comes to this as he said that all men do!!!! i hate it makes me feel like shit

SOmetimes arguing with the pro-censorship lobby is just like arguing with the religious about their imaginary friends - 'Waa, I know it's true even though there is no evidence whatsoever to demonstrate this'.

Well, I have 2 brothers and got sick of hearing my mum trot out the excuse of 'they're just men - let them do what they want' every time they did something like visit a strip club.

It was also an excuse trotted out by my abusive ex to excuse his own shite behaviour. Of course, nothing that he did wrong ever meant anything because he was a man.

If the tables were turned, and it was women treating men like this, their egos would take a battering and they would not like it at all. Yet we all shrug our shoulders when it comes to men and let them get away with crap behaviour.

I constantly challenged my ex and said, 'how would you like it if....' Of course, his answer always was - after much thought and defensiveness - that he wouldn't. So why the hell was I supposed to put up with it just because he's a man?

I don't buy the argument that men get to be basically less considerate and thoughtful when it comes to things like flirting (which I've seen on another thread tonight) and porn because they are men and can't help it. The more we challenge this shite behaviour, the more hopefully all men will see that it's not to be tolerated and they can't keep using the excuse of 'all men do it (and they get away with it) and I'm a man too therefore it doesn't matter.'

it works both ways, sgb

I'm confused SGB. On another thread, you're advising (quite rightly IMO) for the OP to leave her DP because he is a liar for flirting with an ex school friend online.

The man referred to in this thread is a liar and is doing something that the OP says makes her feel like shit.

Yet, because it involves porn, which I can see from other threads, you are in favour of, you are implying that it's not a big deal.

Aren't we talking about the same thing? Hugely inconsiderate behaviour from a lying man who is doing something that is making the OP feel like crap?

jess, because in this instance, the disrespect is of a "sexuuuuaaal" nature, it is fair game and OP is unreasonable to not want to overlook it

total freedom to enjoy sexual expression in any way you like (regardless of how it hurts the whinging monogamybots) is top trumps for sgb...didn't you realise ?

And that's what I really object to with these discussions, AF: that men get to feel entitled to behave however they like when it comes to porn or strip clubs because some men and some women give them that get out of jail card of just being a man and not being able to help themselves.

My ex had self esteem issues and his fragile ego would have taken a huge battering had I actively chosen to flirt with other men/get off to other men/pay other men to strip for me. Yet I was expected to put up with that because I am a woman.

The bloke referred to on the other thread is a lying headcase, though. He is lying about money, about what he had to eat, about where he's been - that relationship is fucked whether or not he flirts with an old schoolfriend.
And (after 20 years of listening to the same old misinformed mundane bullshit) it strikes me that when a woman is distressed by her H using porn, it's very likely that he is already an arsehole and does other arsehole things. If a nice, loving, respectful, supportive man who pulls his weight round the house also likes to look at porn now and again, his partner won't mind (unless she's a whinyarse)

Argh (again).

Look, having a penis does not make a person devoid of imagination. Any chap who needs/fancies a wank can do it using the power of his own fantastic mind for company.

Using porn, whether you're male or female, and no matter what the nature of your porn, is "mental infidelity" in the strictest sense - because you're using a third-party agent for sexual gratification.

I sat quite comfortably on the fence wrt porn until the early Noughties (appropriately nicknamed, heh), when everyday porn became noticeably harder and cybersex became instantly available. Now I feel its devaluing & 'consumerising' of sexuality has unacceptable potentials to damage real people and their relationships.

For those old enough to know what I'm talking about, Lord Wolfenden told me himself that he believed pornography presented the greatest threat to love & happiness.

In situations like mummyworries, whose thread this is it's a real slap in the face. Pregnancy, childbirth, miscarriage & newborns have been used as excuses to cheat by men since time began. It's acceptable ONLY IF you start from the premise that a wife's primary duty is to sexually service her husband. As soon as the man accepts that he & his wife form a family-making team, the responsibilities shift.

She's tired/depressed/frazzled/angry? How come? Anything to do with the torments of childbearing, unequal division of labour, torn loyalties or conflicting demands? Then it's a family problem, isn't it.

The answers lie in teamwork. A partner who hides away to satisfy his own requirements, while his wife is too knackered to even feel hers, is no partner.

Oh there have been plenty of accredited studies about the pernicious effects of porn SGB. I suspect you're not particularly up-to-date. The people who make money from porn have attempted to discredit them, but haven't succeeded, in recent times. Conversely, there have been no recent accredited studies about the positive effects of porn, on individuals, society or relationships. I am always sceptical about how balanced a view can be about this issue, from people who make money from the industry.

Secondly, whilst I agree that all children need to see their parents resolve conflict healthily, I profoundly disagree with your assertion that on an issue as important as this, it would be a positive thing if parents were conveying different messages. Don't under-estimate how powerful it is for a male role model to say to a teenage boy that porn is often unethically produced, objectifies women especially and gives boys false and dangerous expectations of intimacy and sexuality.

WRT to your customary swipe at monogamy, actually you are arguing along the same lines of the anti-porn respondents on this thread; that women don't have to put up with behaviour that offends them, just because that behaviour is associated with being male. However, there are plenty of men in monogamous relationships who dislike the porn industry and not coincidentally, have an egalitarian relationship with their partner and pull their weight in every aspect of the relationship.

Whereas IME, the men who are habitual users of porn are selfish in many other ways; domestically, sexually and in their parenting.

Why would a partner not mind her man looking at porn if he pulls his weight around the house? Is it some sort of reward for him being considerate with childcare and the housework?

So it's not ok if it's part of other abusive behaviours but ok if he empties the dishwasher and is generally nice most of the time?

My head is spinning!

Can we please stop saying "looking at porn"?
Using porn. Wanking at porn. Getting off on porn.

Looking is what you do in shop windows. In public.

The point is that the man is already being a selfish arse in a case like the OP describes. She wouldn't be feeling so tired and unsupported and resentful if he was actually doing his share of domestic work and childcare.
But oh no, that doesn't matter, she's supposed to suck that up as long as he doesn't look at porn...

I didn't suggest that, SGB. Nor did WWIFN.

WWIFN: Ok, cite one. Because everyone else who is trying to cite studies is citing the same old discredited bullshit from 30 years ago: Zillman, Malamuth, Donnerstein etc.

And Lord Wolfenden - pah. He might have done a certain amount for gay rights, but that doesn't mean he was an expert on sexual behaviour, or that his opinion of porn was anything more than an opinion.

He was an expert on sexual behaviour in his time - boundary-breaking then and prescient, I'd now say. But I'm not getting into that & am sorry I mentioned it.

Porn ruined my marriage, as has been well documented here. Well, H ruined my marriage, but porn was the vessel.

He assured me for years that he didn't like porn, that he didn't look at it, that he wasn't interested. Then I started finding it. & it got more & more extreme. He swore on DS's life that he hadn't been using yet more porn (including, by now, a publicly-available picture of a woman we both know) & I gave him the one in several billion benefit of the doubt, because why would you volunteer to swear on your son's life over something so provable? He was lying. I left him after I found interactive rape games. How much further would this porn use have gone? The escalation between me finding a hidden 'Nuts' magazine & these games took less than a year.

During this time, he told me that I needed to lose weight (I don't, & even if I did, ), that he couldn't fancy me because I was always in my pyjamas (untrue & DS was a few weeks old) & that I should make more of an effort to look nice for him, what about him? & so on. For months on end. He didn't want to have sex with me. I would repeatedly initiate & I would be rejected. Whilst pregnant, whilst breastfeeding & afterwards. Mine is not a story of 'I stopped putting out & he couldn't help himself' (which is unreasonable bullshit anyway), but one of a complete lack of logic. He preferred to spend his time with pornstars than with his wife. Even when I was sitting on the same sofa as him, wanting to have sex. I truly believe that his attitudes towards me were created by his deepening dependency on porn & the normalisation of what it depicted.

I realise that this is a personal anecdote which does not cover all of the issues being raised here, but they're being adequately argued as it is. As I've learnt more about the porn industry, I do object to the politics of it (although I do see that there is, theoretically, no problem with people making home videos who get off on sharing them with people - it's just knowing how genuine those videos are & how much exploitation, if any, is behind the scenes), but I didn't before. My personal objection came before the political one, & I would hope that even a porn-defender would understand why.

Porn within a relationship is not something to shrug off. If both parties are comfortable & transparent in their usage, that's their choice & good for them (on a personal, not political level), but when secrecy comes into it, or the preference of porn over sex with your partner... I don't know how anybody can say that that's normal, or acceptable.

when secrecy comes into it, or the preference of porn over sex with your partner... I don't know how anybody can say that that's normal, or acceptable

I think you summed it up there, RTD. I'm sorry that happened in your life.

I know a lot about porn addiction, etc. But my personal view is that some men are so much in love with their own penis, no-one can hope to compete. Unfortunately they think they are in love with us, and we fall for it, when really they're only in love with what we do for their penis.

Their penis will find it can fall more passionately in love, more often and with fewer obligations, with the ladies on the internet.

The weirdest thing about my H is that he didn't wank over the porn. He never wanks. It was all about mental stimulation, which he took out on me, during really short, crap, selfish sex, every 10 days. Like clockwork. But that's a whole other issue

Can I just say..."DISCREET",aaaaaarrrrrrgh

StuffingGoldBrass Fri 24-Dec-10 00:36:20

And (after 20 years of listening to the same old misinformed mundane bullshit) it strikes me that when a woman is distressed by her H using porn, it's very likely that he is already an arsehole and does other arsehole things. If a nice, loving, respectful, supportive man who pulls his weight round the house also likes to look at porn now and again, his partner won't mind (unless she's a whinyarse)

SGB my DH is a nice Loving respectful supportive and pulls his weight around the house. According to your statment above i shouldnt mind him looking at porn. Well i did mind, when i first found out about what had been going on re him looking at porn, fake facebook account and msn account i checked the cookies on the computer and he had been looking at porn without my knowledge for yrs, it had clearly esculated from looking to interacting. I believe that even the looking now and again can esculate into alot more because that is the nature of porn.MY DH knew what he was doing was wrong because he was stopping albiet slowly but when i confronted him he did say 'i thought you knew i looked all men look at porn'. Infact i may be naive but i realy didnt beleive this and didnt infact think that he did look because he hid it from me. So am i a whineyarse then?

As it happenes we are much closer now both emotionaly and sexualy, i still have some insecurities and he is aware of this and respects my feelings but he DOES NOT look at pron anymore because he knows how it makes me feel and because he loves me he is prepared to put our relationship before porn which is the way ot should be surely.

That happened to me too. Nothing for years (he didn't have his own pc) then he started looking at videos of young girls on YouTube (on my pc, to add insult to injury!). Then he finally bought his own laptop and within a matter of months was spending hours looking through different porn sites. He knew how I felt about it yet continued to do it now. And why shouldn't he, because all men do, didn't I know blah blah blah.

We didn't have kids and the physical side was probably the best thing about our relationship (sadly). So I couldn't understand it. It put me off sex with him, and his selfish attitude to it, despite knowing how it made me feel, was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
I'm sure the novelty has worn off now for him.

This is another personal anecdote, I know, but I couldn't articulate how I felt to him at the time. I just knew that it made my already severely flagging self esteem wilt even more. How can you compete with hot, young, pert, subservient women who are there for one reason-to please men sexually?

The more I read about porn afterwards, the more uncomfortable I felt with the whole concept. As Respect says above, it then became political for me and I am not interested in men now that are happy to consume such an exploitative industry. I know that SGB disagrees but this is my view and I only wish I'd known then what I know now. If I had, I wouldn't have tried so hard to rationalise away my own very valid feelings about his porn use.

Or perhaps I am just a whinyarse! He did, after all, cook dinner most nights....

Just to repeat something I said earlier, I know that he would have hated it had I done the equivalent. Yet I was, and according to some, supposed to suck it up, if you'll excuse the phrase, simply because he is a man and it allegedly doesn't mean anything. The injustice in that argument really rankles with me. Have we advanced so little that a poor excuse for bad behaviour can get trotted out whenever it's convenient and both men and women will shrug and say,'that's ok then'.

I think all the partners of porn users should unite and go and max out his credit card on shoes one day after Christmas. When he complains, say it's just biology. You can't help it. You just lose all self control when it comes to shoes, and then smile sweetly and say 'all women do this'. I'm sure he'll ruffle your hair and say, I understand darling. You have needs!

Proving that porn has a damaging effect on male behaviour is always going to be tricky - there are so many factors involved in real-life behaviour. There is definitely a correlation with sex offenders and hard core porn usage - but of course a correlation doesn't prove a cause. I personally think increased porn use correlates with less skill as a lover (can't prove it, just anecdotal, I'm afraid) probably because the men have been de-sensitized to the needs of women and think we all just want a good pounding.

I think it's important to understand the danger of internet porn - the always available and never-ending supply of fresh flesh. When I grew up (long ago) a full frontal of a woman was hardcore - now she's the secretary being gang-banged in every orifice over the desk by her colleagues(and pretending that it's really enjoyable, even though there is no foreplay, she just wants cock all the time). Anybody arguing that this doesn't represent a change of views on women or movement of boundaries is incredibly naive. In fact there is an argument that this is a response to the increased status of women in society - a pornographic 'putting them back in their place'.

However, I have extremely mixed views on this - as I find some porn arousing, and enjoy looking at it (not the usual overly made up rough looking gals with horrible shoes, licking their lips at the camera) but the (probably amateur) stuff where it is clear that the woman is really enjoying it and it's about her pleasure. This is about visual stimulation, I think, some of us are more visual than others. Unfortunately there is not very much of this stuff around - sadly because there probably isn't a market for it.

I think the problem of porn is very much like alcohol. Lots of us like a drink, but if you've been in a relationship with an alcoholic then you'll see it very differently. I don't think it's anything to be complacent about, but not sure what the answer is.

SGB I have a hard copy of a Ministry of Justice study, conducted in September 2007, entitled:
"The evidence of harm to adults relating to exposure to extreme pornographic material: a rapid evidence assessment (REA)"

Sorry, no time today, to see if this is on the web, but imagine it would be?

Another study worth reading is the Home Office commissioned "Review into sexualisation of young people" published in February of this year.

In terms of reading, "Social problems and the quality of life (11th ed.)" Lauer, R.H., & Lauer, J.C. (2008) is a good read and one that might appeal to you, since the authors are libertarians and it can be quite difficult to find academic research on this subject, that doesn't have a religious/right-wing slant. Pamela Paul's book "Pornified" is also an interesting read.

I am also excited about some new thinking and partnership working that is taking place between secondary schools and policing and social care agencies, about the links between assailants' porn use and an increase in sexual attacks on girls by male students. There has been anecdotal evidence for years that there is a link between the increased violence in such attacks and prior exposure to violent porn, but new projects are being set up to investigate the link, using the assailants' testimonies about their porn use, prior to the attack.

Part of my work also involves liaison with senior police officers involved in the investigation of serious gang-related violence. It is pretty well-documented now that many of the worst gangs have a young female whose membership is entirely reliant on her being shared by gang members for sex. If she is seen talking to a rival gang member, retribution from her masters is brutal and swift. Many of these young girls are care-home absconders and the most vulnerable in society. To a person, these police officers have found evidence of extreme porn in personal and house searches; memory sticks and laptops being the main evidential source. Those police officers are in no doubt about the link between porn and the gang members' treatment of females.

However, for all the academic studies and the acknowledged scientific and academic challenge of proving cause and effect, our lived experiences and those of others, represent our most powerful discourses.

This forum is a pretty good barometer of what is happening in the UK especially and it would be absurd to deny that we see thread after thread about the corrosive effect of porn on relationships. People's lived experience is a powerful testimony and many posters have been brave enough to discuss them on this thread alone.

Calling people "whiny arses" or "bucketheads" for expressing a perfectly valid dissent to having porn in their lives is offensive and seems bullying in nature. You are entitled to your views, but so are others and they should be free to do so without fear of being called names.

Oh and BOF so pleased you picked up on "discreet" because it was both confusing and irritating!