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.

All men watch porn

Researchers at the University of Montreal were unable to carry out a study comparing the views of men who had never watched porn with those of regular users because they were unable to find a single man who hadn’t seen it!

“We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” said Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse. “We couldn't find any.”

They all do it and have done it whatever they tell you.

You're using a small study of 20 men all in their 20s, undertaken in 2009, which claims they've all watched porn, to prove that every man in the world now regularly uses porn?

Wow.

Did anyone here claim that their husband had never seen porn in their life?

No.

So what's your point?

There's a big difference between "has never consumed pornography" and "is a pornography user". Most people who are not porn users have at some point in their lives seen porn, not least because it's everywhere you bloody look.

Realised my last post was unclear - I mean that most people who are not porn users still could not tick the "has never consumed pornography" box.

Yes yes all men watch porn, all men need visual stimulation to get turned on (no women do of course), all men lie about this and they are just not as 'emotional' as women. They're also much better at reading maps and putting up shelves and need to eat special food for real men. And men are completely different to women and there is never any overlap ever. Blah blah blah....

I can't bear all this rigid stereotyping - who benefits from it?

I am not a porn user. I have seen porn. I fail to see how I could justify giving such a negative view of it, if I hadn't.

Some people grow up and realise it is exploitative and a nastily cheap way to get an orgasm. Is that so difficult to grasp ?

AnyFucker - me too. I just meant that all these studies saying "every man of 20 has seen porn" still doesn't mean all men, including the men in the survey, are porn users. Some of them could have seen it a few times when they were 14 and since then grown up a bit and not watch it now. But the headlines from that kind of study could still say "ALL MEN HAVE WATCHED PORN!!1!!1".

Don't worry Higgle - as JohnFarley said your DH is secretly watching porn according to Rock - so you don't need to feel too glum.

I've seen porn. I've also taken coke. I'm neither a drug addict nor do I use porn to orgasm. I have no time for either coke or porn - for very similar reasons actually,

I am 100% certain that my DH does not use porn now and has not for at least the last twenty years. He did read magazines like Playboy when he was young.

Why am I so certain?

1. because he does NOT lie to me
2. because he tells me that porn and how it is made disgusts him
3. because he never accesses the Internet on his own without me. He is totally techno phobic and does not possess a phone or tablet.

The idea that women on MN are being fooled by their DHs and DPs on masse with reference to porn is ridiculous. It is belittling to both men and women.

I can almost guarantee if your husband uses the internet and is in good health then he has watched porn within the last 3 months.

Unless maybe he is part of the 1% who doesn't

Whether you like it or not, if you show how judgemental you are about a partners sexual needs, then they will be well versed at hiding it.

Same as if a man is judgemental about DW fantasies then she'll become well versed at hiding them.

I don't police my DH so who knows Arsenal. But he is anti page 3 and anti porn. Maybe he's been lying to keep me happy but his feminist ally credentials pre-date our relationship.

This isn't about controlling desires or disliking sex. It's not me jealousy guarding my DH's erections. It's about not contributing to an industry that is steeped in violence and control of women. My DH gets that. I know you're determined that he can't possibly but he does. He doesn't want our sons and our DD growing up accepting that a woman can be described as bitch, slut , whore who wants to be anally raped and loves it. You don't have to search far and wide to find 1000s of those images.

Just as he gets the human beings he meets in RL aren't his to get off on - he gets that on line is the same.

We are all consumers. We are what we eat, watch, read and these inform who we are. For some of us, because if what we know of the Porn INDUSTRY we don't watch it.

If you're watching it you're justifying it.

There's some real man hating going on here. And not from anyone who is anti-porn.

"ALL men do it."

"All men will lie about it if you show disapproval."

"Men can't help themselves."

Well you know what? I refuse to infantilise men and treat them like they can't help themselves. I refuse to believe they all like the same things. I refuse to buy into the bullshit that we can't be honest about what we want from a relationship and expect honest and respectful dialogue. Shut up and put up because men will do it anyway is both man hating and woman hating. People hating!

Applauds Koala

I won't see my DH or my DSs like that.

Shut up and put up because men will do it anyway is both man hating and woman hating. People hating!

I don't believe everyone that isn't anti-porn is saying this. I am neither anti or pro porn. I am completely indifferent to it. What I find odd though is people moaning about how their DH/DW/partner/boyfriend/uncle Johns dog next door is watching / reading porn and this is making them unhappy. If you are unhappy about your other half watching porn and you have spoken to them about it but they choose to continue then you have two options:

1. Leave. If you are unhappy just leave him/her. You have full control of that decision.
2. Stay with him/her even though they chose to continue watching porn even though they know it makes you unhappy. If you stay then you can't moan about it because choose to remain in that situation. The only exception to this rule is in cases of abusive relationships.

That should be pro porn...

Well said Koala Face

But the issue for me Little is that a broadsheet newspaper prints advice saying that porn addiction is "sweet" .

Putting aside the fact that no addiction is sweet - this is damaging advice to the wider public. We are enabling porn addiction if we don't at least present an alternative view.

Be pro porn. But as with anything you consume educate yourselves as to the impact of this product and how & why you got to see that film you're getting off on.

We live in a county were freedom of speech is valued. This means not everyone will agree with what's written. But with regards this particular bit of advice. I am still perplexed as to why anyone would ask GN for relationship advice, never mind take it seriously.

Does GN actually say porn addiction is sweet? From followings thread I don't believe he does or have I missed something? Or are you saying anyone that uses porn s an addict?

Plus the woman doesn't even know if her husband is even using porn so how can she assume he has an addiction.

There is alot of conjecture here.

I don't want my son or even daughter to be calling women sluts, whores etc. I wasn't raised that way and will not raise my children that way.
Frankly I don't have time to be judgemental about how people fulfil their sexual needs.
But it's naive to think to think its your husband that's part of the very very minuscule amount of men that does not watch porn.

No I'm saying everyone who uses porn is an addict.

Yes GN advised the woman to see her husband's addiction - the telegraph's word not mine - as sweet. Worse he said if he's not looking at porn then god knows what he might do.

So nice assumptions about men right there.

My issue is we are sleep walking into a world where poem is acceptable by all and it is violent. What we watch and how we orgasm will impact on real life behaviour. Children are watching porn from an earlier age and the young impressionable mind is being influenced by porn.

Watch the YouTube video I

Just as I'm judgemental about a corporation that has got rich thanks to abuse and violence - I'm judgemental about the people who are making money out of porn. If you want to contribute to that as a consumer that's your choice.

I'm presenting you with an alternative view. I don't take coke. It made me feel great for a while. But it's production and South American drug cartels wreck lives. So I will never take. I see porn in the same way.

Anyway - watch the video I posted if you want an alternative view. If you disagree then at least you're clear what you're actually pro.

"I don't want my son or even daughter to be calling women sluts, whores etc. I wasn't raised that way and will not raise my children that way."

Have you never seen that happen in the porn you watch, or the titles that come up when you google for porn? "Who're loves dick" or "slut can't get enough" are relatively mild in terms of search results, I'd've thought.