Is men looking at Porn normal and does it mean...

[40notTrendy]

I'm not enough?
Have read through some threads on here about Porn but could do with some opinions. DH looks at porn on t'internet maybe once or twice a week but it could be a lot more as he works from home. It doesn't have any obvious impact on our relationship or sex life but it makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm not particularly confident, well, not at all confident really talking to him about sex but what we do together is good although I guess it could be more often!
I find junk emails from very dodgy websites from time to time and I worry that he's registered on some porn site or other. He's very computer savvy and I only know what he looks at coz he made a slip up once.
Do I need to have a conversation with him, where I would squirm and find it hard to say anything or can I just assume it's something he does and doesn't mean anything negative for our marriage?
name change as I think he knows my nickname (not paranoid at all then..)

[40notTrendy]

I think I am struggling to understand how and indeed if, men separate watching sex from real life sex. Is sex, either doing it or watching it, all part of the same set of feelings? I know DH would like more sex (don't they all!) so I think I feel uncomfortable wondering if he's thinking, well, if I'm not doing it in real life, I'll go and watch strangers do it. If I fancy a bit of a shag, I'll initiate it... Ha ha, now I get to it... So why doesn't he?!

[garlicnutter]

Confidence, I appreciate your reply and do get your analogy with the slap-up dinner! What I was talking about, though, wasn't about the quantity & quality of sex - it's about the dehumanisation of sex and of the people you do it with (in real life and virtual.) I don't pretend to know how much of a chicken-and-egg problem this is; I suspect porn can't cause sexual dehumanisation/objectification, but can channel an existing tendency and allow it to grow.

What thisis said about sensory disconnect provided another piece of that puzzle for me.

At the end of the day, I wouldn't have felt uncomfortable about XH's porn use if I also felt he was fully engaged with me sexually, would I? It would just have been an aspect of him, irrelevant to our relationship. As things were, I felt increasingly objectified and that he was investing more and more of himself outside our relationship. Towards the end, I caught myself saying "I may as well be a blow-up doll in designer clothes."

Due to the current realities of the sex trades, I would not be tolerant of porn use, strip clubs, etc as I was back then. That's a political matter, though. The selfishness of (some) porn users is a serious relationship problem regardless of ethical issues.

[worldgonecrazy]

I think many problems stem from women's insecurity about their body. Quite often on the porn threads a woman will mention that her partner watching porn makes her feel insecure about her looks or her body. We forget that there is a huge market out there for "reader's wives" and "real porn", and also, for the larger ladies, a huge market for big women. Correspondingly, the market for skinny porn is very specialised indeed. Despite what the media and magazines would have us believe, most men are attracted to normal women, not magazine fantasies.

My husband uses porn and it has never bothered me, I will occasionally look at it with him, but the pictures that he uses to get his rocks off are private ones that we have taken.

[thisishowifeel]

WGC. If you knew me, or saw me you would have to conclude that I am in no way insecure about my body!!!!!!

I think the point that Garlic and I are making goes much, much deeper.

There is a MASSIVE problem that has been brought to my attention over the last couple of years, that is, that an horrific amount of men, through socialisation, dysfunction whatever, are disconnected from their own senses, they view the world as what they think it ought to be, not what their own senses are telling them that it actually is. In the end, it seems to me, that they are left with basic urges to eat and shag. Because everything else has become disconnected.

I know that this disconnection from their inate higher functions, causes immense problems, including domestic violence.

The objectification of women through porn is a part of this isn't it?

Funny Garlic...I used to ask h1 wether he wouldn't just prefer a blow up doll. I simply didn't exist as a whole human being.

This is possibly the instinct the the OP has...."she's" not "there" any more, and knows it, in her tummy. And it's bloody horrible.

[solidgoldbrass]

The fact that some people are more disconnected from their finer feelings has a lot more to do with the culture engendered by the likes of Rupert Murdoch, who with his Government and big business mates, set out to engineer a climate of fuckwitted, emotion-led, unthinking gullibility, than it does with porn-as-a-whole. If you are constantly being chivvied on all sides to adore, worship and root for a particular individual or a class of individuals one minute, then hate and fear them the next; given hysterically overstated but contradictory information about your health, safety and future prospects every day, encouraged to fear and distrust whole groups and classes of people because they are Not Like You... well, then you might not always exercise your higher self all that well.

Oh and it's not a matter of men's sexual appetites and preferences being inherently different from women's, in the least - some men are very interested in sex, others less so and the same goes for women, but women are forever being told that they are less interested in sex than men and more interested in 'love and romance', so not only is there still less well-made porn for women, but women are discouraged from looking at it and certainly from admitting that they do.

[garlicnutter]

I agree. It's a more complicated question than we can cover in a thread or two - but absolutely true that the sex industries have undergone a radical change for the worse. The changes have been driven by commercial interests, not just meeting demands but creating them.

thisis - If you knew me, or saw me you would have to conclude that I am in no way insecure about my body - I've seen the pictures. It's true
At the time I was with porny X1, I was constantly being asked to model. Insecure as I was, I knew I was better-looking than the women in the films, and not remotely uptight sexually or socially.

The idea that women worry about porny partners through feeling they can't match up is so much poisonous bollocks. I'd bet my last pound they feel insecure due to the way their partner interacts with them.

Also, what SGB said about "men". Sexuality is as varied as people, there's NOTHING that appeals to all men or all women.

[solidgoldbrass]

GN: The entire entertainment industry has undergone a radical change for the worse, which has little or nothing to do with a higher level of explicit sex being involved. It's the cult of cruelty that's the problem, the way people are set up to be laughed at and humiliated, the 'reality' entertainment that is not fucking 'real' in the least but which caricatures and manipulates both the audience and the participants. And it's all motivated by a wish to keep the masses under control - Hate this! Love That! BUY IT NOW! then hate it and throw it away and BUY SOMETHING ELSE - and don't question your betters, they know better than you...

[garlicnutter]

I was thinking about this last night - remembering X1's porn media. In as much as the films had a story, the women generally played a part in its development. It wasn't all about men "taking" them, iyswim. Then he started going abroad to buy more violent, rapey stuff. It does escalate, doesn't it, like a Class A drug ... Consumer sex, as you said.

[Insomnia11]

I've said to DH that I don't mind him looking at porn but that it doesn't turn me on to watch others having sex - in fact quite the opposite. I'm sure he does view porn, it's so easily accessible.

But then he's not unduly bothered by my obsession with crush on Richard Armitage.

Great thread by the way, wonderful points about mass media.

[Oakmaiden]

Here is a thing - where is the line between watching porn and voyeurism?

MY husband watches porn and I don't like it, and I have told him I don't like it. However, despite this he is really free to watch what he likes (despite the impression people have got from another thread, I don't really tell my husband what he can and can't do - I just make sure he knows how I feel about it, and he then makes a decision on what he is going to do.).

We have talked about objectifying women and the damage the porn industry does to the lives of individual women. He counters this with the argument that the "sort of porn " he watches isn't like that. Apparently he just likes to watch videos of people having sex.

I have to be honest, I find it a bit yucky and creepy. To me just seems like online voyeurism. He has compromised though in cutting down on the "solo action" as it was having an impact on our sex life (in that the sensations are so different he was finding it hard to engage normally in sex, and I responded to his difficulties in engaging by just avoiding sex altogether. Things have improved though.)

Sorry - too much information, but just wanted to add some thoughts to the debate.

[electra]

sgb - I completely agree with your post of 09.53.

[electra]

What's wrong with voyeurism though? As long as you aren't spying on people.

[Oakmaiden]

I don't know. It just feels a bit yucky to me. Which is quite possibly my own hang up.... I guess it reminds me of the "peep shows" you used to get in some places. Is that almost childhood conditioning, then, to think of things like that as "seedy"?

Is porn the same as voyeurism then? Effectively? Without saying either is right or wrong.

[mapleleef]

@40notTrendy If you're unhappy about your dh looking at porn then that's valid and you shouldn't have to look for reasons why you feel the way you do. My dh and I weren't brought up with the porn online generation. When I discovered he'd been looking at it I felt gutted like he'd been having an affair.
I have rarely felt so upset and angry and I told him so. I knew that what he'd looked at did affect our relationship because I didn't want to have sex with a man who masturbated to such images. I lost so much respect for him. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not prudish, I'm pro good loving sex but that's not what he'd been looking at. He'd looked at cold, unfeeling, unemotional, unpleasurable (well, for the women anyway) type of sex. What had upset me so much was that he'd still, despite that, found it titillating.

We've had several discussions and arguments since then. He promised not to look at porn any more because it had upset me so much. It also helped us talk about our sex lives more easily and things have definately improved. I trust that he doesn't look at it anymore for many reasons I don't need to go into.

If his watching of porn is upsetting you and spoiling your relationship, then I hope he can put his relationship first.

I'm now concerned that my ds's sexuality will be hijacked by the multimillion dollar porn industry, because it is an industry and it's all about profits to the detriment of real relationships.

[garlicnutter]

There's something wrong with it for Oakmaiden, electra. Everyone has different likes & dislikes.

Very good point about avid masturbation putting a person off real sex. Once again, it seems so much easier. Glad you got that one sorted out, Oakmaiden!

[mapleleef]

@electra What's wrong with voyeurism though?

I associate a good sexual relationship with intimacy, closeness, shared giving of pleasure, and not watching others. As to masturbating to images, what's wrong with imagination? That doesn't hurt anyone or give profits to anyone either. You can create your own images without having them fed to you. I feel you somehow have more freedom that way.

[electra]

Yes I know it's a preference. I wanted to know whether some people feel it's wrong or damaging for some specific reason. mapleleef, oh I see. It is certainly a problem when people in a relationship don't have the same view about use of porn, it does boil down to that.

[electra]

Also don't agree that masturbation in some way impedes a relationship - I think it's generally a healthy thing to do.

[40notTrendy]

In my generation (40+) sex generally is not discussed much. Maybe this is another underlying problem. Being open about preferences, being proud of what you like/don't like whether you are man or woman is needed more. Maybe then the 'seedy-ness' would not lead to the/my uncomfortable feelings?

[breaktime73]

thisis the points you make about men fascinate me.

I know that generalisations about men and women are dangerous. However I think you've really hit on something about the current cultural conditioning of th e Western man- to disconnect from reality in favour of a series of fantasies about being in control, always winning, top dog, powerful, emotionless/rational etc. Porn helps to fulfil all these. Emotionless sex on demand.

I am very wary of porn having been through a stage of near-addiction to it during the manic stage of a bipolar breakdown. The emotion- and complication-free 'hit' it provides is definitely desensitising and encourages the casual objectification of others-- even if the viewer is not at all like that most of the time, the fact is that porn provides this sort of window onto the world and sexuality. Men watch porn, I suspect, on the whole because it is an easy way of accessing the sexual 'hit' which they are continually told is a. theirs by right b. a way of proving their manhood and virility to themselves and perhaps others.

None of this is meant to blame and stigmatise any porn user. I stay well away from it now as I see it as rather like drug use: instantly pleasurable, often very disturbing and long term incredibly corrosive.

[PattyPenguin]

One of the problems of men - no, of your/my man - watching porn is when watching is no longer enough and he decides that what you/we do together is boring and wants to do with you/me what he's seeing on the porn websites and videos.

Being expected to do endless oral / anal / rough / jizzing on wherever, and enthusiastically at that, and being nagged to do threesomes / lesbian sex / bondage etc, eventually very soon gets off-putting. Even for someone who used to like sex.

As a general rule I think women tend to keep their fantasies as fantasies, and men eventually want to act theirs out. And a lot of their fantasies are framed by whatever porn they watch.

[breaktime73]

true Patty. However I do know of men who watch porn occasionally (my DP does when he's not with me) and find it a good 'masturbation aid' but don't take those steps 'up' to obsession with all the porn 'must-dos'.

Sadly though I've also been with otherwise caring and pleasant men whose sexual repertoire was exactly as you describe. Miserable. It wasnt' the presence of any of those particular 'likes' that especially bothered me, more the fact that in sex itself the man seemed to desensitize exactly as thisis says and become somehow less there...less of a person, while I felt like a (bad) porn actress playing a part I hadn't signed up for.

[solidgoldbrass]

Actually, acting out your fantasies is not inherently bad. Something which does women-as-a-whole no favours is this idea that the sort of sex women like is all lovey, intimate, gazing into each other's eyes, no toys or funny positions, all about commitment and emotion, and only men like anal, dressing up, bondage or group sex. Fair enough if it floats your boat but actually for quite a lot of women that sort of 'loving' sex is bloody boring, because the actual sex bit of it consists of a bit of kissing, inept fumbling and 20 minutes of PIV which is supposed to be transformed by Love into something ecstatic. One of the good things about [some] porn is the range of potentially enjoyable activities you get to see.

[Insomnia11]

I think many men watch porn because it's there and immediately available. I suspect that if it wasn't for the internet/TV only some would bother to go and buy DVDs/magazines over the counter.

I grew up thinking porn was for men in dirty macs and that's the way I still think of it really!

[garlicnutter]

Masturbation, for men, is a very different sensation from sex. It's harder, faster, firmer and done at a different angle. A vagina feels pretty loose and squishy by comparison, plus few women enjoy thrusting at the breakneck speed most men masturbate (if they ccan even do it that fast.)

I've got no idea why so many people, especially women, refuse to comprehend this. You only have to watch a man giving himself a hand-job to see how different it is to sex.

Men whose primary sexual activity is mastubation end up having a problem with PIV sex. Porn use exacerbates the problem - the brain associates the feeling of sexual stimulation and release with the images, pretty much forgetting about the entirely different pleasures of sex with a warm-blooded human.

I'm not making this up; it's a simplification of why porn addiction happens. You can easily find out about it on the Web.

As someone who's never been particularly impressed by gooey-eyed, soppy sex, SGB, I maintain there is a world of difference between fucking someone who's enjoying fucking you and someone who's 'using' you as a prop for the movie in his head ... or, same actually, if he's only interested in his feelings to the point he's almost forgotten who you are.

I have been guilty of this myself at times; I have a strong imagination. My partners noticed and disliked it, just as I did.