How much is too much porn?

[dogscantlookup]

Will try and keep this short! My husband watches porn, and while I am not really interested in it myself, it's not a deal breaker for me. But how much porn watching is too much in a marriage?

He watches it if I am out for the evening once he is alone, or sometimes in the middle of the night (not while in bed with me though). He says it helps him get back to sleep if he has woken up and is struggling to drift off again, i guess that's more the wanking than the porn.

I think he is watching porn about every 3 days or so.

I think it might be affecting our sex life. I have noticed that sex seems to be rougher these days, and I do keep requesting what I would call softer more sexy sex, but he ends up getting carried away and things take more of a 'porn style' turn. This normally ends up putting me off really. Recenty I felt like just stopping right there and asking what the heck he was up to.

I would like to feel a connection during sex again, and feel loved and attractive. But sometimes the sex we have at the moment leaves me feeling a bit fed up. It's great he still finds me find me attractive and sexy, that much is obvious, and I do still enjoy sex for the most part, its just sometimes it not quite the sort of sex I was looking forward to. We used to have amazing sex where I felt very important and sexy and loved, and I would like that again.

It's putting me off initating sex. I am also not sure if its the porn, or perhaps he is just trying to spice our sex life up a bit. I am aware I need to talk to my husband about this, but I wasnt sure if I should bring up the porn of if it's maybe not the issue here?

Sad you are even asking if you can ask him to stop.

Also, you have absolutely no idea what porn he is indulging in every three days so until you find out you can't really know for sure where he is getting his ideas from, I hate how you feel you are doing something wrong even by just asking him.

Sad you are even asking if you can ask him to stop
Exactly.
What you are engaged in is not making love. It is submitting to being used as a sex object to liven up his porn.
I do hope you can persuade him to stop now, before the porn has entirely destroyed his normal emotional feelings.

Don't ask him to stop,TELL HIM! How can you respect someone who has no respect for either you or women in general? I loathe porn,not only for the reasons which are well debated every so often on Mumsnet but because of the way that it seems to alter previously seemingly good sex to become vile when the men who view it can't seem to get it on without re enacting what's on screen.

OP - I promised my husband I would never refuse him sex for the first year if he gave up porn, and at first he was so highly sexed and I had to remind him that I sometimes wanted calm, soft, loving sex as well as the rampant passionate sex, and that there were things I never wanted him to do.

After a few months of him not watching porn things changed. His libido eventually slowed down to needing/wanting sex two or three times a week, and his attitude towards me and my body changed. He really seems to appreciate me again, every curve and every move, and enjoys taking his time and is so much more loving and natural it's unbelievable really, considering how he had become. Don't get me wrong, we still have rampant, passionate sex some of the time but even that is different in a more sensual way.

I hope you can sort this out with your husband, as I am sure you are right about how porn is affecting the way he treats you.

Do not make assumed consent a reward for him giving up porn for heaven's sake!

I hope your chat goes well, I'm guessing that he will be absolutely horrified with himself to learn how he has made you feel.

Vivacia - I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but it worked for me and my husband. We had an agreement whereby he couldn't just assume I would roll over and be used by him, so if he wanted sex he had to make an effort so that I would want it too, no different to when I want sex I do the same, but I explained that if he was feeling that it was difficult without the porn he needed to tell me so I could help him, and this he did.

I love my husband, and I didn't want to make the process of quitting porn more hard for him, and I didn't want him to relapse and start watching it behind my back, so we worked together to make things better.

Sometimes I think too many people have opinions on a subject without ever having had any personal experience on that subject. It so happens I have dealt with the exact same problem and the way my husband and I dealt with it has worked for us, and so I am sharing my experience with the OP.

I certainly wouldn't be on here trying to tell her what to do, and I even more certainly wouldn't be telling her what to do if I had no personal experience on the matter.

How you deal with it OP is up to you, please understand I was just sharing my own experience with you.

Well, perhaps I'm the only one, but I'm happy to advise about consent and sex with or without experience.

Ps. If my husband either pulled my hair or tried to bumsex me that would be the last attempted shag he'd ever had.

One of the problems we have is that consensus about what constitutes normal/mainstream sex - which partners can reasonable expect of each other when getting together in an intimate relationship or getting married - changes over time.

Not that long ago, lights off, missionary position, lie back and think of England was the norm. Now most couples try different positions - some even have the lights on!

Oral sex was once considered filthy and depraved. Now most people expect their partner to want to engage.

Same with sex toys. Last week I was in Ann Summers on the high street and so were dozens of couples buying vibrators, butt plugs and more. Read the sex toy reviews at lovehoney and you'll see how mainstream they've become.

Now we have a situation with, for want of a better phrase, 'rough sex'.

Some women have read '50 Shades' and are up for some hair pulling, spanking, bondage and the like, but mostly it's men watching 'aggressive' porn on the internet and wanting anal, facials, rimming, strap-ons and more.

When their partners don't want this - and this is true of most women IMHO - the end result is effectively sexual abuse. Which is unacceptable. And must not happen.

The problem we've got now is that so many men watch so much aggressive porn they think it's normal - that it's how you should have sex. They consider it normal and mainstream - when it isn't.

They're now going into relationships expecting more sexually from unwilling partners and this is causing significant problems as described by the OP.

Women should never do anything they feel uncomfortable with but men are increasingly trying to coerce them to go further. They want what they've seen on the internet and feel frustrated (and short changed) when they don't get what they want.

Sadly, I can only see the situation getting worse in the future as boys who grew up watching violent porn become husbands and fathers themselves.

Up until fairly recently, the idea of women getting any enjoyment at all out of sex was thought of as odd/immoral/disgusting. No one should feel they have to engage in any kind of sexual activity they don't want, but it's bullshit that only men want non-mainstream sex. Plenty of women find, through reading erotic fiction, talking to their mates and indeed watching porn, that they want to try new things.
It's definitely worth having a discussion with your H about what you both like and want and enjoy when it comes to sex. If there is anything one of you wants to do that the other is less keen on, it's worth thinking about why that particular activity excites you, and if there is something else you could try instead that would be equally exciting but would also be acceptable to your partner.
Have you previously said to him: Don't pull my hair/spunk on my face, I don't like it? Or have you just said you want sex to be 'gentler'? If you haven't been specific, you do need to say clearly, don't pull my hair and then if he does it during sex, shout at him to stop, push him away and tell him again that he must not pull your hair during sex because you don't like it.
It is entirely reasonable to tell a partner not to pull your hair (or lick your nipples, or put a finger up your arse, or cuddle you afterwards when you want to go to the loo) and expect the partner to do what you ask.

SGB nails it here.

Talk, and talk some more. xx