Porn

[EmpireBiscuit]

Looking for some sense to be talked into me...(and you all seem like a pretty honest bunch!)

I discovered on Saturday night that dh sometimes watches porn online when alone in the house. He says he doesn't do it often.

Now, I think I'm maybe overreacting but I feel disgusted. He knows I have strong feelings against strip clubs etc and I am at a loss to how he thought this wouldn't bother me.

I am massively insecure and can't get the thought of him pleasuring himself looking at prettier, thinner woman and comparing us. We are still talking etc but I feel odd about him seeing me naked, or even touching (let alone being intimate). I feel sad thinking about it all.

What do you all think? Huge over reaction or would you have similar feelings?

Thanks!

I do not ever accept the argument that just because there might be other nasty professions out there, it somehow mitigates how damaging porn is

does not compute and never will

Read what I actually said, AF, not what you want me to have said; I do not try to mitigate porn - I say it would be better if it could be banished.

But those who castigate the legal consumer choices of others on moral grounds concerning the wellbeing of the principals have to be extraordinarily sure about the morality of their own consumer choices. I simply don't think saying "women in porn are mistreated" is the strongest argument if someone making it embraces a thousand other consumer choices that involve abuse and exploitation.

Uppity - what are your search terms though? If you search "humiliated sluts" that's what you'll get. If you search "big tits" that's what you'll get. And so on.

I did not say you mitigate porn, I said I never accept that argument as mitigation

There is a difference. I didn't make any other personal judgement on what you typed, and certainly did not see anything that was not there.

Sgb, it would be more polite to not accuse me of "bleating" about the existence of nasty porn and then go on and agree it exists coming from a different viewpoint

I said some men (meaning some men who use porn) not all men nor even all men who use porn

Are people feeling a bit stabby today ?

I think the search term is literally just "porn" AFD.

Have never done it myself but some stalwart researchers have and they pretty much get the same sort of shite each time.

Thanks Emily, I thought I was typing on a different page to everyone else for a moment

Thank you all for your comments.

I'm not sure how I feel now, I have swung between feeling better and even more repulsed. There are obviously aspects to the industry that didn't occur to me, I simply focused on my own feelings and not the woman who take part in it (willingly or not).

We have talked again and it seems he only looked at pictures, didn't pay for anything - not that I believe this changes anything it made me think him less of a monster then he was being painted by some of the above comments.

I'll get past it, it'll just take time.

Pictures of lone females.

So maybe I am missing something but...

instead of saying "nobody watch porn", which gets flamed as being prudish

we could say "if you are going to look at porn, go watch Petra/Anna/etc, you can still get your rocks off and not contribute to the exploitation industry" ?

All the best, EB

Well, just as there are aspects to this industry that didn't occur to you, the same might apply to him. I personally have enormous faith in men and women's core decency and genuinely believe that if more people actually found out what really happens in the making of porn, they would rethink their use of it.

I'd put some store by the fact that your partner was honest about it. This suggests that if you both did some research about porn, he might come to his own conclusions about it and you can then jointly agree your boundaries.

BTW, some men's porn use has stopped not only because of the ethical issues documented so heavily on this thread, but also because of their realisations that porn was desensitising them to enjoyable sex with their normal partner(s).

Mr.Man I agree. Even ethically-made porn can still become addictive and used in preference to sex with a real-life partner, with consequent problems for sexual relationships.

windsor but if people are going to look at porn, isn't better if they at least go to an ethical source?

I just did as uppity suggested and followed the top google threads for porn, and looked around those sites. I feel the need to wash myself for the next hour. With bleach. There is some seriously fucked up stuff out there.

Maybe even ethical porn isn't perfect. But surely it is a hell of a lot better than consuming what is on those other sites.

Yes, I agree, but just with some safeguards that it's not causing harm to the user's ability to connect with a real-life partner, or the habit is excluding intimacy with said partner.

How are those sites even legal? Why haven't they been shut down? Aren't people aware of what they are selling?

Surely if a normal shop tried to sell stuff like that, there would be an uproar and they would be closed?

Now I have a problem with the anti-porn argument that looking at porn stops you having a wonderful heteromonogamous love relationship.For one thing, couples often watch porn together and when it comes to DVD rentals as opposed to random googling, there is a thriving market in 'couple porn'. BUt I also think the insistence that the only properrelationships are heteromonogamous ones is actually harmful bullshit. Not everyone wants a couple-relationship. Not everyone wants to have partnered sex. This is what I mean by some opponents of porn having a very prescriptive and controlling view of other people's sexual behaviour.

I have no problem with people having sex with as many, as varied, as kinky, as often, as unpartnered, as partnered with 25, as whatever if it is consensual

If the people partaking want to be there, and not that it's the only way they can put bread on the table

That they are not forced to acquiese to practices they find increasingly painful, physically-damaging and degrading (unless being degraded is their "thing"). That they don't risk STD's because they get more money for bareback. That they don't often suffer mental ill health and go on to have problems forming healthy relationships in the future.

So I don't accept either that it is only hysterical monogomists who ever have an issue with the exploitation of women in porn.

This old chestnut again. Havent read anything but what the OP said.

Its the supply and demand arguement (oldest profession in the book). Men are visual women aren't. I quite like soft porn. It enhances my relationship.

If he was on the computer loads watching it and really not taking any notice of you then it's a problem. If its hard core stuff, its a problem.

In my world anyway.

am assuming John not getting any

I couldn't give a fuck about people's lifestyle preferences, as long as everyone impacted by it knows the deal, hasn't been given different expectations about their sex lives and no-one is harmed or exploited in the process.

AF I understand what you are saying. People are exploited everywhere. Take a look at your clothing labels for a start. It's not going to go away. Arseholes are everywhere we look, in every walk of life. I know men that are bullied by women and I know women that are bulled by men.

I know quite a few women in the porn trade that genuinely make a mint out of it and laugh their sox off belittle men.

At the end of the day it is enjoyed by both sexes quite a lot.

MAM, with respect, I don't think you are understanding what I am saying at all