Partner watching porn

[HBXO]

Hi all, I'm looking to see if I am over reacting?!
I have just caught my partner watching porn via his browsing history yet he denied it. He knows I don't like it after me previously catching him twice before and he promised he would stop.
His excuse is that he has a high sex drive, we do have sex but only around once a week. Is it my fault because I'm too tired? (I have a newborn baby this is why I'm tired lol)
Any help would be appreciated!

yokatsu the OP says she doesn't like her DP watching porn, some posters replied with things like "men watch porn, get over it " etc, implying that it was unreasonable for her to expect her DP not to do so. I was making the point that not all men watch porn and so supporting the fact that the OP wasn't asking her partner to do something that was impossible.

It’s an interesting ethical problem, porn. I’d guess the majority of average husbands just use it to assist with masturbation - they probably don’t give much thought to the women abused in the filming of it, or the vile objectification of women implicit in the attitudes of the men in it.
Would it be ethically ok if a man masturbated while fantasising about abusing women, without using porn in the process? Would that be better or worse than watching some of the very few examples of ethically produced “female friendly porn”?
I think porn is a far worse problem since the arrival of the Internet. In my day, all that was easily available were fairly harmless vanilla mags, with women sending in pics of their husbands naked, and men sending in pics of their wives. Couples often read the mags together for a laugh.
All the violent, abusive stuff was a rare specialist thing, not accessible in the mainstream - it required contacts and under the counter deals, so wasn’t corrupting the minds of young teen boys with horrible attitudes to women.

MN... the place where the 'it's no big deal' brigade hangs out.
Porn is the downfall of our society. No big deal.
It's the reason so many women have shit sex lives because their partners can't get it up for them because they've exhausted their dicks and resources on watching (almost certainly) underage women having vile shit done to them. Please stop supporting blatant misogyny then shouting 'I'm a feminist' from the sidelines.
'He has sexual needs'.... ahhh poor lamb. How dare OP be too exhausted/pregnant/recovering from birth to please her husband. Shame on her.
You know what, he can take it to the shower and bash one out down the drain, is my answer.
Respect to you OP. Porn is shit... in a relationship, in society. It's wrong. And today's porn sure as shit isn't dad's Playboy stashed behind the toilet seat circa 1976.

It isn't arrogance, I just know how he feels about it. He's genuinely worried about teenagers growing up exposed to this extreme sex and thinking it's normal.

I feel like this thread is getting derailed from the OP though.

What did your DP say when you confronted him about it OP?

Well said vanguard

And here's one for the 'It's no big deal' brigade.
If you can say, hand on heart, that if it were your own daughter in those videos, and still you'd have no problem with men watching porn, then you have a problem.

If you can say, hand on heart, that it's no big deal because it's someone else's daughter being gagged and mysogonised to the strains of your husband's wanking, then you have a problem and zero empathy.

Women who are cool with porn are not enlightened or liberated. They are misogynists.

My ex was addicted to porn. He spent hours finding images and putting them into folders according to his kinks.

When he was supposed to be working, he was watching porn. I have a high sex drive and he would turn down sex with me but wank off to porn instead.

Yes he had a major problem and we split up over that and many other reasons.

My DP of 4 years and I watch it together and he also has kinks of his own. We have a fantastic sex life, but on the odd occasion where I'm not up for it, he asks me if I wouldn't mind if he watches some porn and relieve himself. I have no problem with this at all because we have full disclosure and 100% respect.

Same goes the other way around actually! Sometimes he's not up for it and I do the same thing.

OP you have a new baby and sex might be the last thing on your mind and that's natural. He hasn't and his sex drive is still there. But yeah the real issue here isn't that he's watching porn, but that he is lying to you about it. That's a trust killer right there.

There needs to be a frank conversation about this and quickly imho. For both your sakes.

The issue is that you're not understanding each other and you're not talking about it.

Sending loves and congratulations on your new baby

When I confronted him of course he lied and then I told him I knew what he was doing. He went mad and said it was my fault because sometimes I'm not up for it etc. He promised he wouldn't do it after he had calmed down but he said that x2 before. He also can't understand why I don't like it, all I can say is the thought of him watching it and my daughter being in another room makes me uncomfortable.

I think that if you want different amounts of sex, he is within his rights to watch porn. Most men want to orgasm more than once a week, so why shouldn't he do it himself if you're not up for it?

Fair enough you don't like it but if he has a sex drive is watching porn not better than him going elsewhere? My partner has a higher sex drive than me and I don't mind him sorting himself out. I'd rather that then him cheat and break the family up?

I agree with Harmlesschap in that it sounds like he’s not rejecting you for sex in favour of porn and masturbation, and that he’d prefer to be with you. For him, like for many of us who tend to avoid these threads now, it’s not a big deal but that’s not to say that it’s not perfectly acceptable for you to set you boundaries wherever you see fit to, and him to either accept them, reject them, or lie.

It’s up to you how you feel and whether it’s a deal breaker.

TheVanguardSix you have a very prudent, old fashioned attitude to sex. You are factually incorrect when you confidently state that the OP’s partner is ‘almost certainly’ watching underage girls. Erm no, that would be called paedophilia which is illegal and if found watching it he would be put in prison. Did i really need to spell that out?

Whether he is whacking one out in the shower or whacking one out whilst viewing consenting adults having sex on a phone screen, really what difference does it make?

But you’re right, porn is different to how it was in 1976, which is great. It caters for all different needs, including women’s. There’s more erotic literature for women, porn aimed exclusively for women and a wider range of sex toys for women. Porn is not the devil, it simply aids masturbation and unless it becomes and addiction, it is completely harmless.

helmlover porn is very bad for women in society. I’m anything but old fashioned. But you don’t need to know any more than that. What I am is a woman who has been around a while. I watch the waves come and go.

How old is the smartphone? How long have teenage boys been able to randomly access unfiltered online porn of all flavours whether they’re on the bog or at the lunch tables at school? Not long enough to know the depths of this damage.

You celebrate the diversity and availability of porn. I don’t. And it’s not because I’m old fashioned. It’s because the jury is still out on this new (and in your opinion improved) phenomenon: this increased access to ANY type of porn. Porn blurs our moral margins and can introduce and/or perpetuate the Madonna-whore complex in many, many relationships- maybe not in your relationship but that doesn’t make your opinion the opinion absolute .The majority of porn normalises the sexual debasing of people. There’s nothing old fashioned about me disliking ill treatment of women or people in general. You argue that I don’t know if the OP’s husband is watching underage women. I didn’t say this confidently. The clue of this is in the use of the word ‘almost’ before I wrote certainly. You don’t know that he isn’t looking at underage porn. 17 is underage. 17 can look like 21. But this is not the entire point of my disagreement with you.

It’s a deal breaker for me. Not all men watch porn, my fiancé doesn’t unless he’s doing it at work whilst driving (obviously he isn’t!)! It’s down to the couple, if you don’t mind then fine but if one doesn’t and the other doesn’t stop then you need to consider ending it. Both my ex husbands were addicted to porn and there were issues relating to abuse tied in with porn which has made me totally against it. My fiancé understands this and doesn’t watch it but in fairness he rarely watched it when single and he isn’t fussed by it. I have had friends who’s partners didn’t watch porn and those whose partners did so it’s unfair to say all men watch it.

And it is not harmless. My first husbands excessive porn use led to sexual abuse and in turn I had no self esteem, confidence or belief in myself. It does harm people and some of the women in porn , webcams are exploited.

@NotAnotherHeffalump
was unreasonable for her to expect her DP not to do so.
Realistically it is. he will keep doing it and He will keep hiding it because the OP is someone who doesn't approve and he is someone who does it.

Morally is a whole different argument.

And as much Ive never said porn isn't harmful, I do think that absolutes like "a good man doesn't do porn" nieve and short sighted. Equally i find attempts to censor female sexuality that seem to go alone with ban porn harmful. I absolutely hate the "no woman finds porn/whatever sexual practice sexy", if youre wrong about that on such a fundamental level how can you be so sure about anything. But in the end this shouldn't be about the rights or wrongs of porn or the on going censorship of female sexuality.

The OP finds it unacceptable. Her DP does it. Ultimately it's about whether she can live with him doing something she doesn't agree with. I don't particularly care what that thing is, it could be eat broccoli. If you're incompatible, you're incompatible.

Ending it could lead to a lot of unnecessary heartache for the OP IF the rest of the relationship is good. Equally Continuing the relationship will also lead to heart ache if you are not realistic about the DP's on going relationship with porn.

Whether a poster on heres husband is so fantastic he apparently doesn't do it is as irrelevant as all men do it.

yokatsu we will have to agree to disagree. I think it's perfectly reasonable for a man to only get off in that way to his wife and to resist the urge (not denying there might be an urge) to look elsewhere for release. I'm not saying it might not take some effort, but so what?

People watching porn don't know if they are contributing to some poor women who is being exploited, or a women who is making a choice of their own free will. Lots of it is extreme and I don't think that sort of appetite or view of women should be encouraged.

NotAnotherHeffalump sometimes I think this is why I'm not the marrying kind anymore, im too cynical!!!

or maybe I'm not single because I'm too gullible

@TheVanguardSix How is porn bad for women in society exactly? Which women are you referring to? Because personally I have never met a woman whose relationship ended because of pressure put apon them by a partner to ‘act’ like a porn star. I know women whose relationships have ended due to their partners addictions however, whether it’s gambling, porn, gaming etc, but that is a completely separate issue.

Contrary to your popular belief that all men are hyped up, sexually aggressive predators obsessed with viewing underage girls on the internet, the most searched for, common ‘scenario’ on porn sites is ‘man and woman in a hotel room’, so basically the sort of harmless stuff dads were probably looking at in their playboy magazines in the 1970’s. Nothing has changed in that respect.

Women are not being ill-treated or debased in porn. In the same way you view men in such a negative light, you also seem to view women as helpless, passive little creatures who can’t think for themselves. Women in porn are consenting adults who, for whatever reason, have chosen that as their desired career path. If an actress agrees to being tied up by another consenting actor for example, and is getting paid for it, who exactly is being abused or degraded here? Interestingly, female porn stars earn more money than their male counterparts so you could argue the case that it was the man in this scenario who was being exploited.

The truth is, as long as porn doesn’t include children or people incapable of giving consent then no one is being exploited or degraded. If porn is not your cup of tea then that is fine, no one is forcing you to watch it. Most people who view porn are in normal, conventional relationships with normal, conventional sex lives (if there is such a thing), and those perverts who view dark porn and then go out and commit rape are the same sort of people who would watch a horror film or play a violent video game and then shoot up a school or rob a bank-unfortunately a small minority of weirdos have always, and will always exist, with or without the availability of porn.

@NotAnotherHeffalump total derail but you made me laugh so much with that. Thank you for taking the time. Agreeing to Disagree with someone is my favourite way to end an argument with someone whose opinions are well worth having.