Do you see watching porn as cheating?

[jonesy22]

My DM has caught my stepdad watching porn. She is so hurt and doesn't know if she can look at him in the same way because she sees this as cheating.

I do understand where she is coming from but at the same time I feel a lot of men watch porn. (Women too!)

What do you think? I'm trying to console her but I don't really know what to say!

The reason it feels bad, I think, is because he is NOT thinking about having sex WITH someone else. Not with a real human person, with a real inner life and self with whom he wishes to connect.

He is thinking about having sex ON someone else's body. A collection of parts, dished up for his appreciation. An object, not a subject. He sees absolutely nothing wrong with using female bodies for his own sexual gratification

This is exactly why I think it's obvious when you are having sex with a man who watches porn.

It feels like sex is being done to you or on you. Not with you. Poor communication; ina ability to respond to bodily cues; all about the 'performance' rather than the sensations...

That a big reason why I wouldn't accept porn use in a relationship. In my experience, the quality of the sex is dire.

No

Just look at all the "cool" responses here. This is as a result of patriarchal oppression by men.

🙄 nothing more sexist than a woman thinking she can speak for women as a whole ‘class’ within her own very narrow worldview. You’re entitled to your views but you don’t speak for me. I’m very much comfortable with my own sexuality, desires and sexual interests and it’s frankly insulting to suggest that I only enjoy porn before ‘the patriarchy’ has conditioned me to do so. Humans have been aroused by watching other humans have sex or masturbate for as long as there have been humans.

Different people have different boundaries. Most people are monogamous but some people are ok with poly or open relationships or swinging. I kinda see the same thing with porn. Just need to be on same page as your partner - which isn’t the case here.

Would people count strip clubs as cheating? How about live cam? Emotional affair? Personally I would see porn as cheating as if DH was gonna wank- i’d Rather it was to a pic of me.

I'm not 'cool'
It's not cheating. Cop on.

Well said rubbertreeplant!

Other women (or men for goodness' sake) telling me what I should find sexually stimulating or should accept in terms of sex grinds my gears in ways I can't even express.

Seriously, fuck off. You don't own feminism. I am a feminist. I also like to watch fucking. Why not? I also like to be spanked. It's my body.

Am I oppressed? Generally? No. I'm a white, educated female CEO of an international company. I have taken no man's name or bowed to the patriarchy. I am the living embodiment of what our feminist sisters in the 60s and the 70s fought for. I also like to be whipped with a cat 'o nine tails. That's my body and my business.

Don’t see it as infidelity.
Do see it as morally reprehensible.

@AloneLonelyLoner
Well whoop-di-doo that you're a CEO. I am mightily impressed. But by being a consumer of the porn industry you are perpetuating a culture of women's bodies being seen as objects for the pleasure of men.

Your internalised misogyny - your business.

It's cheating as much as fantasising over a celebrity is. So not at all.

It's cheating as much as fantasising over a celebrity is.

Garbage.a fantasy entirely in your head - even if it involves imagined sex acts is not all the same. The porn watched by men involved real women having to perform real acts often of depravity. You have no idea if they are of legal age or if they are doing it completely without any encouragement, manipulation, coercion or threat.

Not at all the same

You know what, I think I probably do see it as cheating. If a man can see the women in porn as real enough to get off over them then they're real enough for me to have a problem with.

I also agree with Drinkingtea that sex with porn users is beyond useless. Generally speaking.

@StephanieSJW thanks! I hope you're living your feminist dream too. Don't put a foot wrong now. Read the manifesto! 😘

I take it @AloneLonelyLoner that you see your high -status title something to be proud of hence your completely unnecessary reason to laud it here?

Tell me - would you be happy if your daughter wanted to go into the porn industry?

Not in any way cheating

Of course, if that were a genuine career choice.

And yes, of course I am. Why wouldn't I be. I work damn hard, in a male-dominated position and industry. I have achieved things that women have fought to achieve for generations. My husband took my name (one of less than 1% of husbands in the UK at the time did this). Our children have my name. I am a proud feminist and won't have someone tell me otherwise.

That was the point of mentioning it. But you know that. If you were bright enough to separate dogma from common sense.

I would love to have you come into my local girls school proudly extolling the virtues of porn as a positive career choice for girls. Have your daughter come too!

I'm not in the porn industry. Honestly, you'd be better served by getting a woman who is to come.

You are a proud consumer of this industry that has been enslaving women for decades. You have absolutely no idea of any of the women you are watching are actually adults doing it completely and entirely of their own free will (without any kind of coercion, manipulation or threat from a man).

You think it is all a bit of fun and you bask in the warm comfort your superficial feminist credentials - a status-linked job-title and a husband who took your name. Again - whoop-di-fuckin-doo... but i your spare time you have no compunction at all about watching women potentially being raped for your pleasure.

What a wonderfully motivating feminist CEO you are !!

I know right? Yay!

Oh what are your feminist credentials? I didn't realise that women needed them. Thanks for the heads up.

Stephanie

Let the girls find their own sex work it's dog eat dog out there. ffs newt up with a bit of porn, lots of men and women enjoy it.
If you don't then don't watch it, it's simple. Don't try and pretend you don't like it for social reasons, you just hope your dh isn't doing it behind your back, because there's a lot that do, when their oh isn't into it.

I don't see it as cheating, but then I occasionally watch it myself. Dh can't get off on it, I know this because when I can't be bothered to have sex I tell him to sort hisself out and he won't 🙄 sometimes I really wish he would!