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..)

Too many people on here trying to think too deeply about this and making out that men and women are so different.

Men and women watch porn

Men and women wank when their partners are not there

Men and women like different types of sex at different times

Men or women watching porn / wanking / not wanting the same sex all the time DOES NOT mean your partner hates you, only wants sex with people who are different than you, prefers wanking to you, is emotionally detached from you or a.n. other psycho-babble.

This sounds like a lot of self-fulfilling worrying to me.

How very rude. Lancsdad.

Don't tell me what happened in my first marriage...you RED FLAG you!

Now run along and learn some manners.

Errr, thanks Lancsdad
Wish we were all so well adjusted!

Lol, thisis :)

Hmm. Ex became emotionally detached during sex, liked me to dress and behave the same as the women in his porn, was unaware/uninterested in my experience during sex, but liked me to make the same noises as the women in his porn.

Of course, the degeneration of our sex life may have had nothing to do with the porn. Pure coincidence

And why can't I type "porn" without it coming out as "prom"?

Thing is garlicnutter, that's not because your ex had watched porn, it's because he was a twat. Any bloke with any ounce of emotional intelligence - but who also happened to get off on porn - would just keep it to himself, and just have the odd sly peek when the missis wasn't around.

Yeah, we've already been over that ground. Look for posts by confidence and replies, above.

doh, yeh

I think it's fair for garlicnutter to highlight the fact that porn seemed to give her ex the chance to explore and express his twattery more than he might otherwise have done, and possibly even some sense of justification for it. But yes, he was a twat in a way that some men have always been twats since long before internet porn - and whether he would have not been a twat without it is hard to say.

Nice to be able to have this discussion without the usual hyperbole, over-generalisation and ill feeling that surrounds the subject.

garlicnutter I think that, same as me, you were being groomed! Porn does take over the lives of some men!

Lancsdad makes the very valid point that women also watch porn, wank and indeed can be unkind to their partners. It's a big mistake to insist that it;s only men who watch porn and like sex that isn't all about emotional connection.

Valid points, yes. Good to hear all thoughts. The dismissive tone was a little unnecessary!

I didn't mean it to be dismissive although it was a slightly exasperated post.

It seems to me that all too often posts in this area progress

FROM

"my H watches porn" / "My H looks at the girl in the office when she's using the photocopier" / "My H received a risque text"

TO

"He's a twat, they're all twats, this show he has the propensity to be a twat even if he didn't do X,Y or Z.

and then

"I'd kick him out / divorce him" etc. etc. etc.

Without meaning to be dismissive or condescending in the "Real" world men and women get up to pretty much the same things and enjoy pretty much the same things, sexually or otherwise.

Thank you LancsDad for expanding
The sense I get from this thread isn't what you summarise though? From what others are commenting, the posts are not progressing in that way. I'm learning that lots of men look at porn. It affects their lives and relationships in different ways. The way it makes me feel is real, but hopefully (ever the optimist ) it won't be a negative in our marriage. Not sure anyone here has said it will be?
But I do like the incisive comments you make

Well...I like watching certain porn online occasionally but that's not something I'd tell anyone else outside a serious relationship - no women I know ever discuss porn.

I like loving sex in a relationship but have also enjoyed NSA sex when i'm single.
I can easily separate sex from emotion; yet I've known plenty of men who get too emotionally close too soon. It's wrong to generalize about men & women - we are all very individual.

Am usually a lurker but am deeply interested in this thread. Had an XH who watched porn secretly(videos, after I went to bed). XP who was into porn magazines of teenage girls (he was also a keen photographer who tried to re-create some of the scenes - he also loved photographing his erections) and then another, now XP, who was fully into bdsm porn on the internet. This last one tried to groom me; it didn't work as I am not interested in false turn-ons. Much prefer a happy, romantic appreciation of each other's body. Sadly, I was not enough for him and he turned his fantasy into reality. He is now in a relationship with a woman in the sex industry. Believe that it is possible to make £100,000 p.a. from porn internet sites. I hate it! It can take over lives and completely destroy relationships!

Yes, BobBanana - YES!

Especially this: "Our minds aren't that complex, especially where sexual desire is concerned." Made me laugh. . SO true. Women seem to insist on attaching so much STUFF to a guy looking at an image of an attractive woman and having a wank, when really - that's all he's doing. Having done it, he'll watch TV, go to work, have his dinner or check the financial pages, depending on what time it is and where things are at.

We're simple souls really. We do one thing at a time, and then move on. Women just don't seem to get that.

Cor blimey :(

I'm disappointed in you two. Pages of interesting discussion about the ramifications of sex 'n' relationships, then you come out with a load of stereotype bollocks like that.

May I just point out that neither of you have ever been a woman ... so what makes you claim to know how we think, feel, and differ from men?

All you know is how you think & feel. Not you, the gender. You, the individual. Spare us the god-like pronouncements - please.

Fair point garlic. I suppose I've just really often had the experience of women reading things into what I think or do that really aren't there, and I see the same thing when some women here write about what they read into the thoughts and actions of their partners. It's hard to avoid thinking it has something to do with general gender differences.

It's true that men and women get up to similar stuff...of course they do, the one thing we all have in common is our humanity. But the moment someone pipes up with "all women......" or All men....."

I have known men who do porn and men that don't, no REALLY! I personally prefer those that don't.

My first h did compare me, and wanted me to do things that would make me look more like the women in his porn. I, on the other hand, would never dream of expecting a man to change himself to resemble the display in the window of Schu. Although the way I feel about him now, that would be preferable. ;)

Men, in my experience are not simple souls, all the men I know are just as interesting and complex as the women I know...if anything more complex in the way they grapple with their own identities, versus the identity society expects them to have. And porn is an intrinsic part of that internal conflict. Just because they are in denial about thir identity conflict, doesn't mean it isn't there.

Thisishowifeel-- great post!

Ditto