Graham Norton's answer on his "advice" page in the Telegraph

[SauceForTheGander]

I'm just catching up on the weekend's papers & read this - and posting here as it's not dissimilar to threads started in Relationships.

Q: Dear Graham
I strongly suspect my husband is looking at pornography on his computer, and I don’t know how to approach him about it. He seems to look at it at any opportunity: when I am watching my favourite programmes, or I go out. He says he is doing his photos (he is an amateur photographer) but I know he isn’t. If I go upstairs there is a lot of shuffling about (this also happens if I open the front door having been out). I have tried creeping up the stairs to see what he is doing, but they creak too much. I have obviously thought of asking him directly, but I feel he will not admit it and I am not computer literate so I don’t know how to prove it. Have you any suggestions? You may say this is something a lot of men do, but I don’t like him doing it. I have even thought of buying a spy camera, which really shouldn’t even enter my head.
Poppy,
Buckinghamshire

Here's Graham's answer

A: Dear Poppy
No man is especially proud of looking at porn but in terms of bad behaviour in a relationship I think we can all agree that it ranks fairly low. I understand that there are questions of morality when it comes to the production of these films but then you probably wear make-up that has been tested on animals. The modern world is a moral minefield and we must all tread carefully.
There are some questions you must ask yourself. Is your husband paying you less sexual attention than you’d like? If the answer is yes then you have a right to comment on his computer-based activities because you would rather he focus his attentions on you. If, as I suspect, the answer is no, then you may just have to accept that you have married a man with a sex drive considerably greater than yours. Deny him his online fun and I wonder where he might go next? A lot of women bestow on men an emotional depth that we don’t possess. This has nothing to do with you or your relationship. It is very basic. Part of his pleasure may lie in the fact that it’s secret. Try to forgive his weakness and see his inept attempts to hide his clandestine internet activities as somehow sweet. By the way, if you really are completely computer illiterate, good luck operating that spy camera!

Poppy - I doubt you're mumsnetter - but I wish you were. I wish you'd come to the relationships section and talked to us first.

Any other Poppy's out there? Graham is talking utter bollocks. Looking at porn constantly (if that's what her DH is actually doing) is not "sweet"

This was in the telegraph FFS. I don't think he should be allowed to give out advice - I hope Poppy hasn't followed it.

[SauceForTheGander]

Report Stalin if you think it's defamatory to assume GN wrote the advice.

[LittlePeaPod]

Just nipped back to have a nosey and some of the posts really are amusing.

I believe Stalin was been facetious Sauce..

Loving the Rupert Murdoch one liner. Brilliant.

[pleaseaffixstamps]

Just reading this thread through for the first time, and hit bingo in page three (ha!), where WildBill brings out the old canard of "wife objecting to husband secretly accessing porn" = "wife thinks sex is distasteful".

Attitudes to porn =/= attitudes to sex.

I think BeCool has written a lot of sensible stuff on this thread. I wish I could say I was more surprised at GN, whose comedy I enjoy, but he's never really been a man who understands or likes women. (I don't mean "likes women as potential sexual partners" sense, obviously, but in the "likes women as other fully human beings" sense.)

[SauceForTheGander]

Ahh I see. That'll teach me to read posts in a rage and on the school run.

[arsenaltilidie]

I think what GN is trying to say in a roundabout way is all men (in good health) watch porn.
I roll my eyes whenever I see a woman on here say her DH doesn't watch porn.
Most men will say anything to keep the peace, what's the point of arguing with DW to be allowed to watch porn when he can simply say 'yes dear, I hate it too' and just get better at hiding it.

[SauceForTheGander]

Genuinely my DH doesn't. It wasn't always that way for either of us but now he doesn't.

[JohnFarleysRuskin]

I can't stand that insistence that most men are liars. Its really, really nasty.

You have no idea what ALL men do, arsenal.

[BeCool]

YY John

This thread is relatively short yet so far, as a pro-porn argument people have said:

Most men are liars;
All men watch porn and will do so secretly if they think their P wouldn't like it;
Men aren't capable of emotional depth;
If you object to porn you don't likes sex;
Men would prefer you don't talk to them about any silly issues like porn use that might be degrading your relationship or your trust in them;
It's OK for the Telegraph to publish such an article because "everyone knows" GN didn't really write it despite claiming he does.

Not to mention the brilliant post pointing out that "porn is different from paedophiles"



Even despite it's content there are clearly some big issues around porn and relationships and stereotypes.

[RockOnRuby]

Ok sorry have we all gone mad here?

I must have missed a bit of that letter but where exactly does it say that he's lying to her??

As for shuffling and saying he's doing his photos, she actually hasn't got a clue what he's doing. If he is masturbating to porn, he's hardly going to come to the top of the stairs and shout it to the world is he??

And some of you actually suggesting he may be looking at abuse? How dare you!

I take it none of you bought Fifty Shades, left H watching Match of the Day and went for an early night and a fiddle then?

And for those that say their husbands genuinely don't watch any porn. Good luck with that!! Careful you don't burst that bubble you're living in.

[JohnFarleysRuskin]

Do you know all the husbands, Ruby? Do all the husbands like sports cars and football too?
Maybe ALL the 20-something men are cracking one out to porn whenever they've got the opportunity, I dunno about them, but I can assure you, many 40-something men are not. So don't tell us to 'careful you don't burst that bubble you're living in' because you know fuck all about all the men.

[SauceForTheGander]

No I didn't read 50 shades of grey and go for a "fiddle" while DH watched match of the day.

You seem to be conflating the right to masturbate with the right to watch porn.

[SauceForTheGander]

Rock "Good luck with that!!"

Haha- thanks so much. Good luck with your binary vision of the world.

[weatherall]

What a pornified society we live in!

It's violence and causes further violence.

GN should hand his head in shame for this 'advice'

[SauceForTheGander]

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

GN gives relationship advice from his "persona" - I think it's not meant to be taken hugely seriously. Didn't he used to alternate with Ruby Wax?

[RockOnRuby]

JohnFarley you say I know fuck all about all men but you seem to know that most 40 something men are not watching porn.

And you know this how? Have you asked a few? Is that what your DH tells you? Me and DH are both early 40's and we LOVE it.

Sauce

In the letter, she doesn't even know he's watching porn!!! He might be masturbating to some other thoughts in his head. Would that be ok?

[JohnFarleysRuskin]

I didn't say most. I said many. I know many who don't. And yeah, I don't like being told that DH is lying and has no respect for me, which is what you smugly insinuated.

Fuck-me! I can't believe you're in your 40's and you don't get the difference between a book and porn. Jay-sus.

[AliceDoesntLiveHereAnymore]

I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would ask GN's advice on relationships..... haven't even got past that to consider the question and answer.....

[ThinkFirst]

There's a lot of assumptions going on in both the Q and A, but the advice is horribly biased in favour of the husband.

I think celebs should not be allowed to do advise lines, they are clearly influential but only give their own opinion as they are not experts.
However, I wonder if Graham Norton thinks he's an expert on sex from his experiences co-hosting that awful game show Carnal Knowledge

[SauceForTheGander]

Yes Rock one of the many issues is that she assumes he is watching porn and might not be. Might not be even masturbating. A point that has been made already by a few of us.

Would I object to masturbating without porn - is that what you're asking me? After I've said don't conflate porn & masturbation. That's the problem with those who are pro porn. You think that those of us who are anti are anti sex. Not true.

[SauceForTheGander]

Think I'd bloody forgotten that show!!

[SauceForTheGander]

Can I persuade you all - lurkers, anti porn, pro porn & undecided - watch the clip posted above. It's an hour long but it's great. It's fucking brilliant in fact.

That's who we should be listening to.

[higgle]

GN usually gives very sensible advice, but MN is always very anti porn.
A few men I know watch porn, I don't think any the worse of them. DH doesn't, but I wouldn't mind if he did, indeed it might be preferable to him constantly playing chess and scrabble against a computer on his I pad.

[JohnFarleysRuskin]

I'm afraid you are wrong, higgle. Arsenal and Ruby know your DH and according to them he definitely does use porn. Your DH is lying to you for an easy life. He is just getting better at hiding it. Good luck, apparently, you are living in a bubble.

[AnyFucker]

I think some men lie to other men when they say they watch porn