Can I move past his former adult industry career?

[MissStake]

Name change to avoid being recognised.
I met a lovely guy 2 months ago. We've been on a handful of dates, but so far haven't slept together, we only kissed. There is this crazy connection so far, chemistry is on point. Handsome, emotionally intelligent so far. I had exes and dates that were absolute nightmares, and someone like him is just what the doctor ordered. It all seemed to be too good to be true, and sure enough, I know what they say about things that seem too good to be true. Things are starting to get serious, and he hit me with something heavy: He used to be in the adult industry. Not a one-off, a lot of experience, a lot of hardcore stuff. He spent 20 years taking all kinds of roles, but is now retired from it. He just wanted me to know before we got serious.

Credit where credit is due, at least he was honest about it. That's already more honesty than what I got for most of my exes. But I don't know if I can be ok with this. I don't think I can, but he is just such a great guy, I have to remind myself of the things he said, because my brain can't even imagine.

I guess it serves me right, for years I have been very vocal about shallow men who care about a woman's past being absolute dicks. And now here I am. It it really doing my head in. If I wasn't a hypocrite I should look past this, but I just don't think I can. I am not proud of myself, I thought I could be more open-minded than this.

Well done you can be proud of how you behaved.

Oh that’s both a good ending, and a heartbreaking one. I wonder how many times he has heard this? How long ago since he retired from it all? I wonder how he feels about it now. Has he been single a long time? So many questions.

But - onwards and upwards as they say.

Someone who has been paid to fuck hundreds and hundreds of women or men has got to be emotionally damaged and if they don't act that way, they are a sociopath.

There will be some deep routed trauma that made them feel that this was even a pathetic to choose.

I feel deeply sorry for him, but women are not hospitals for broken men.

I'd avoid this one like the plague tbh.

*path, not pathetic - that was a Freudian autocorrect

Thank you, dont worry, we all have bad days. 💐

So let me see if I can understand. This man said he did HARDCORE porn. Most of OnlyFans isn't hardcore porn, and to you, that means he probably won't have been involved in the mainstream, aggressive, abusive hardcore porn? Please do explain your logic, because I think you lost it somewhere on your mission to downplay how abusive a lot of porn is.

Out of interest - what do you mean exactly when you say abusive, aggressive porn?

We talked about this in length. He's retired about 7 years ago. So far had one serious relationship, but he was cheated on so that ended. And about 4 women he tried to build a serious relationship me included. One tried to get used to the thought, but in a few months they separated because she just couldn't get over it really, and the rest of us, we can't from the start. He thinks he should regret it, but at the end of the day he bought his house, cleared mortgage and got financial stability with investments so he can't say that. He misses someone he can be close to, a real romantic partner, but he says he doesn't know what his profession would have been. That was so sad to me. Most people I know know that they would like to work with animals, or love teaching, want to be doctors or artists, something. you know what I mean. It is so sad to see someone not having something like that.

How is it sad? Plenty of people just enjoy life for what it is. Having an ambition is great but no one’s life is necessarily lesser or “sad” without one.

Honestly it sounds like he feels he “should” feel guilty for his work choices, but he doesn’t. Like he’s trying to say what he’s supposed to say. Personally I say good on him for working his…tadger off for years and achieving financial stability.

I think it’s sadder you have to pretend your work was awful when you clearly enjoyed it, just not to offend other people. Just because it’s not our cup of tea, so what? Im sure it brought a lot of joy to a lot of people. That’s more than a lot of jobs can say.

If however, it was aggressive porn like you say then of course that changes things, he clearly fell down a dangerous rabbit hole and I couldn’t be with someone that promoted that to others.

I do think also that the “they left in a few months becuase they couldn’t get over the idea” might be a red herring too by the way. More likely they didn’t like how he was behaving in some way. Possibly in the bedroom. But who knows.

I find your last paragraph really odd there. I don't think he's any different than most people in that respect. I'm a software developer. It's not something I love, it's just something I'm good at. I could probably find something that I enjoyed doing more, but it'd likely pay less, so instead I'd have either less time or less money to spend actually enjoying my life.

The guy you're dating isn't any different on that front really.

Well, he’s probably cleared his mortgage at the expense of a relationship. Which must surely have been obvious to him when he made a career in an industry that has caused untold harm to women, both the ones in it and the ones who deal with expectations of violent and extreme activities caused by porn-using male partners? I don’t give a damn how many past sexual partners anyone’s had, but I’d put the porn industry in the same category as drug dealing.

ETA My point is that it suggests a serious lack of judgement not to think he’d struggle to find a longterm relationship.

Ok, I did not express it properly. It's not really a "career choice" or passion for some sort of work exclusively. Anything, really. not just work. interests, wishes, dreams, even on a basic level, like I want to see the world, or I wish this or that. He said it scared him that he felt empty he didn't feel anything about anything. But that is hardly the main takeaway anyway from all this.

I’d say it is. It sounds like a reaction to an emotionally damaging environment. We are supposed to have boundaries. They create safety and allow you to be vulnerable. Without them, we risk being insensitive, basically. It always worries me when parents say they don’t worry about what their DC watch as they aren’t bothered by it. No nightmares etc. To me, that insensitivity is a warning. What will they seek out when they are older and want to feel a thrill of fear? How will they know what dangers to avoid?

I think that's a big takeaway OP. Not feeling anything about anything sounds like he's been pretty damaged to me. I glad you were able to end things amicably.

There’s an idea several times in this thread that porn is inherently coercive and extreme, with throating called out more than once. I’m pointing out that the majority of hardcore porn isn’t that. I’m not in anyway referring to the soft core/nudity only parts of OF. Rather I’m making the point that most people who have actual sex on camera for money don’t do the more extreme sex. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. There a strong backlash against liberal feminism and pro-sex attitudes going on, but a lot of it is judgemental rather than based on facts.