Porn - don't know how to feel

[Mum157]

So, I've just looked at the history on my husband's iPad (I know I shouldn't have!) and it shows that he was looking at a porn site last night. The only time I can think that he was doing that was when he was sorting out the BBQ and I was upstairs having a bath.

Husband has a higher sex drive then me and I know that he likes porn, but I've never really thought about him watching it much..... and certainly not when I'm just upstairs having a bath! He must of just been watching it for a bit and not 'acted on it', so to speak....

I don't have a problem with porn per se, it just looked like really cheap crap stuff. And I think that it probably creates unrealistic expectations for men to have about their partners bodies and sexual behaviour.

I don't really know how I feel about it (and I know I'm rambling); I feel a bit disappointed and yucky, but also aware that he hasn't done anything wrong and he adores me, so I probably shouldn't give it another minute's thought.

What are other people's experiences? Thoughts?

TIA x

For all we know OPs DH could have been watching amateur couple stuff for instance. Or founf a studio regarded as ethical. We just can't know what he does or doesn't care about
Maybe, but we're not going to know unless OP knows and is willing to tell us. But I seriously doubt your average male watcher gives any thought at all to the provenance of the stuff he watches, or puts any effort into finding 'ethical' porn. Besides, isn't the more immediate concern for OP the fact that it's a distasteful (to her) habit that he deliberately hides from her- yet again, porn viewing linked to dishonesty.

Not all porn is exploitative. But most of it is.
Porn is having a damaging effect on society, and on the way young people think about sex and how men think about women.

But nothing trumps a man's desire to wank to whatever he wants to wank to.

PollyGasson24 Wouldn't you think that the vast proliferation of easily accessible porn has resulted in more (mainly males) who watch it? And that if you regard porn watching as a normal, casual activity you class the stuff you watch as the norm also?

Sure. A lot things can feed into a sense a person has of what is "normal" or "expected". If you lived in the 30s you probably wouldn't see sex outside of marriage as normal or expected in the way people did in the decade following the sexual revolution. Or if all of your past sexual partners were happy and willing to do X then maybe that will feed into it.

Still though, if a male coerces a female into some X isn't the issue that you have a male who thinks it is OK to coerce? And not porn, the sexual revolution, the willingness of past girlfriends, or anything else that may have given him a sense of "normal" over whatever he wanted to do but she didn't.

But I still agree that more should be done to keep it out of the hands of youngsters. Which is not really about porn per se, but more about too easy availability.

Not all porn is exploitative. But most of it is.

If most cosmetics were tested on animals or most t-shirts made in child labour or sweatshops, the person who is making a point of not contributing to these is not going to be "guilty" of them.

Still though, if a male coerces a female into some X isn't the issue that you have a male who thinks it is OK to coerce? And not porn, the sexual revolution, the willingness of past girlfriends, or anything else that may have given him a sense of "normal" over whatever he wanted to do but she didn't.
Absolutely. Though as I said, I think the 'normality' of porn is increasing this number.

Posters saying he is hiding it, or needs to explain.

What is he hiding? Does he have to disclose every website he visits? Do you husbands tell you about and account for every minute they spend online?

Does he have to disclose if he was looking at sports results?

What is he hiding? It's not hiding something just because you don't tell someone about something they do t need to know about.

If ppl didn't have some internal shame about watching, they wouldn't hide it. I don't think looking at sports results is the equivalent, as it would rarely come as such a shock or surprise to find out your DP had checked them. You would have plenty of contextual knowledge about this behaviour already

getting more and more desensitised as they want harder and harder stuff.

That's not how porn use works for the majority of people. I've been watching porn for well over a decade and I've not been desensitised, nor do I want "harder and harder" stuff.

For all we know OPs DH could have been watching amateur couple stuff for instance.

A significant amount of that kind of porn has been uploaded without the woman's knowledge or consent - so-called 'revenge porn', images of intimate partner abuse, etc. It's very far from being the ethical option.

A woman once told me that one of the most distressing aspects of the rape and abuse she suffered was that images of it had been disseminated over the Internet. She had to cope with the fact that, years later, it was likely that men were still masturbating over what had happened to her.

girly that's really disturbing. The more I learn about porn of any kind, the more disgust I have for the whole thing.

That's not how porn use works for the majority of people.
I can testify to the fact that the stuff my OH has looked at has changed over the years to more explicit stuff. Not weird, afaik, but then again I wouldn't know, most of it being on incognito.

I can testify to the fact that the stuff my OH has looked at has changed over the years to more explicit stuff.

One anecdotal piece of evidence does not a fact make.

Girlywurly Significant amount? images of intimate partner abuse? rape and abuse?

No, watching someone being raped/abused etc would far from be the ethical option. But when people talk about amateur porn you should probably assume they mean stuff that shows consensual activity not footage of someone being raped etc.

Of course there is the theoretical possibility that someone is such an outstanding actress that they simply give nothing visibly away of the fact that this is non-consensual I suppose. Not even so much as a negative vibe that would distinguish them from a normal couple having entirely consensual sex.

Well, we can do that sort of what if about other activities such as Swinging and threesomes, where people can be coerced into them by partners.

Guess the swingers, threewaysters, and amateur couple porn viewers will just have to keep their fingers crossed.

One anecdotal piece of evidence does not a fact make.

We know things can happen such as porn addictions just as we know that people can become alcoholics say/ But since I have been OK with both porn and alcohol for years I am not worried such will happen to me. Sad for the people it does happen to though, of course.

JAPAB I know. That's why I said majority and not all.

Basically, nothing must come between a man and his wank fodder.

JAPAB, no one can say for sure how much amateur porn is produced in the context of abusive relationships. And it's anyone's guess whether or not the women in these films have consented to have them uploaded to the net. But we do know that rape is sadly commonplace, and that most rape is perpetrated within intimate relationships. We also have heard the testimonies of women who say their lives have been ruined by revenge porn.

Against this background, and in the absence of any 'ethical' guarantee, I choose not to watch any of it. For me, just one publicly shared rape is one too many. Don't you feel the same?

One anecdotal piece of evidence does not a fact make.
No, I'm not that dumb. But I bet if asked and answered honestly, there would be a lot of similar 'anecdotal pieces of evidence' . After all, it's trotted out as researched facts in a number of reports in various places too, if you care to google. Not saying it happens to everyone obv, as all circumstances differ. You, for eg, probably have a very different profile to my DP!

Maybe I should add that my wake up call came after seeing a film of an 'amateur' woman who was clearly being raped on pornhub. This material is out there, on mainstream sites. I wish it wasn't so, because I like watching people fuck as much as anyone would, but it is so. Having watched that film, I'm a participant in the continuing sexual humiliation of that woman. Anyone who watches is complicit.

Even in the case of the women who are 'consenting' in the crudest sense, ie. they're 18 or over, signing on the dotted line and taking the cheque... Surely you have to look at the context in which that consent is given? When I was eighteen, I was still living with Mum and Dad who were getting ready to bankroll me through Oxford. The women who appear in these films have often suffered abuse as minors, and are without family support, access to education or career opportunities. It seems wrong to me that someone who's had all the privileges I've had would use these girls as disposable orgasm fodder. It's horrible. I didn't always feel this way, but I do now. I hope more people will open their eyes to what porn is, and what it does.

Girlywurly, if 'no-one can say for sure' then you probably shouldn't claim 'significant amount'.

Maybe I should add that my wake up call came after seeing a film of an 'amateur' woman who was clearly being raped on pornhub.

Who would want to watch that? I am not sure what rule there is obligating people who watch amateur porn to watch stuff like that.

As far as I am concerned you might as well be arguing that it is unethical to be a swinger or have threesomes with a couple, because you can cite stories of women getting coerced into these by abusive partners. Then you cite an instance of a threesome you were once on were the woman clearly was being made to act against her will.

OK, so walk away from that threesome. Switch off that clip. Walk away from that swingers party, if something is clearly wrong with the woman or one of them.

If on the other hand there is nothing to say that this isn't all consensual, well I suppose you could still boycott it anyway just in case. But good luck with persuading too many other people to follow suit. This sex stuff can be rather important. People will not readily chuck it all away on a what if.

This is a lot of speculation.

Personally, I don't have a problem with my grown adult partner watching porn occasionally. I watch porn sometimes. I read porn. It would matter to me what kind of porn, but unless I saw something particularly troubling I'd either not mention it or tease him about it.

There are issues with porn. I count myself a feminist. But I also trust my partner to be able to use judgement and not consume exploitative material. And I don't see that objectification of women in porn is much different to mainstream culture.

JAPAB, surely any amount is significant when we're talking about matters of this magnitude? If a film of me having sex was distributed online, I'd certainly consider it significant, to say the very least.

Regarding the film I described, I did not deliberately choose to watch a woman being raped, but that's what I ended up doing nonetheless. The point is, it was presented quite innocuously, unflagged and unremarked on a mainstream porn site. That tells me something about the 'ethics' of the industry and also about how porn desensitises its users. (Including me. To my shame, although I clicked off it straight away, it took several minutes for the full magnitude of what I'd seen to sink in).

Threesomes, etc are in my experience completely different because they're unmediated human-to-human (...to-human ) contacts in which you can check in with the other person (people) that they're ok. A threesome is a relationship, albeit a transient one. It's completely unlike porn which is a product to be passively consumed.

Girlywurly Out of curiosity, how did you know she was being raped?

But good luck with persuading too many other people to follow suit. This sex stuff can be rather important. People will not readily chuck it all away on a what if.

I can have an active and exciting sex life without porn. Porn does not equal sex. It's a lie of the industry that conflate s them.

WhatToDo: She was lying very still, trying to hide her face and quietly sobbing.

I've watched lots of rough sex porn, BDSM stuff, etc. This was something different. It was unmistakable.