Guardian article on dad watching porn while looking after baby

[rivetingrosie]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/13/my-husband-looks-at-pornography-while-hes-taking-care-of-our-baby-girl

This makes me so cross!!! Her response is basically "poor lamb he's got an addiction because he's sad, you should be nice to him"
I mean when will he stop doing this? When his daughter is 1? 5? 10? If he can't stop himself now...

Is it just me or is this whole thing horrendous?

Yeah think Annalisa went easy on him. Someone posted on Relationships a while back with a similar story. I think porn should come with a health warning. Why isn't there more open discussion about the harms? Are men talking about it or only women as usual?

Honestly? I'd be very concerned about him getting sacked from work. When you're viewing porn regularly at work and wanking in the bogs, as well as not being able to put it down while you look after your kids, then you're into problem territory. He doesn't want sex with his partner. It's all fucked up isn't it.

He does need help, I would put that in the addiction category. And then there's the other issues around porn to contend with.

I've worked with 2 men who got sacked for porn use. I'm surprised that angle isn't pursued more really (although I did only skim the article).

Sex addiction mannifesting in extreme amount of porn use is included in my psych text book, so people seem to be learning. Slowly.

What's really bizarre is the number if men in the comments who think that watching porn while minding your baby is perfectly ok and anyone who thinks otherwise hates men. I would say that anyone who think that most men do this or find it ok is really the one who hates men.

There's a reason why exposing children to porn is considered abuse.

Personally, I can't imagine what future that relationship has. Her letter is dripping with what I'd consider perfectly appropriate contempt.

The number of people excusing his shitty behaviour by suggesting it's the woman's fault that he's doing this, that she's "pushed him back to his porn" is sickening.

Gaslighting en masse.

I know, the comments are so depressing.

I feel like this is a classic example of pathologising and thereby excusing bad behaviour. He's not just a selfish wanker who gets off on objectifying women when he should be looking after his baby daughter, he neeeeeeeds porn because he's ill.

We hear the same stuff from people who defend paedophiles by claiming it's an involuntary sexual orientation, which seems to be increasingly popular e.g. that channel 4 doc a little while ago. Pathologising this stuff obscures all of the political issues, incl. feminist ones. 95% of paedophiles are men. Unless the paedophile gene is only found on the Y chromosome, there's something else going on. Saying it's an illness makes it very difficult to look at issues of power, sexual domination and so on.

Ditto with porn addiction. I'm not saying that this guy doesn't need help from a professional, but it would have been nice if Annalisa had brought up the feminist issues, e.g. maybe your husband doesn't have a great attitude towards women...?

I guess I must have just got used to the MN advice in relationship issues. I'm regularly surprised to read Agony Aunts' advice in columns. They never say LTB!!

It's individual responsibility and choice again isn't it, which so many men like to claim they don't have. He neeeeds porn right now. The paedophile, who possibly does have an involuntary sexual orientation, and therefore just has to act on it right now and must therefore rape children (as children cannot consent). The rapist of women who just saw a short skirt walking around late at night and therefore has to force himself on her.

Some men really are worthless and shouldn't be allowed to walk around freely by their own admission.

Annalisa is usually very sensible, I did think she was a bit soft on him, possibly there were reasons in the full letter.

I haven't read the comments. I was shocked by the question. What on earth is going on in his head. To be honest if he were my husband I wouldn't let him feed her again.

Beakyminder I have seen a local church group having 'porn addiction' groups but it doesn't get much advertising or talked about tbh. That was the first time I had seen it actually referenced.

BreakingDad thanks - you're a man aren't you? I'm really curious to know if in your experience men talk about this stuff amongst themselves?

Beakyminder I have never heard it talked about tbh, when I mentioned it (porn addiction) to brother, he though seemed to know a lot about it and recanted peoples stories he'd read online of how it had ruined them and their perception of sex. (I think he had believed he had become addicted to it)

I don't read a lot of mens literature these days so wouldn't know if say Mens Health or any others have run something.

I think maybe a lot comes from sadly the normalisation/numbing coming from it, we get exposed to it from such an early age, I remember finding old escort/mensworld mags in the woods as an early teen.

There was an article in New Scientist where I think they were looking for boys to take part in a study into porn and they couldn't get a control group as they had all been exposed.

BreakingDad oh dear how depressing

I thought this Chris Hedges article on porn was great (pissed off a lot of sex positive feminists though)...
www.truthdig.com/report/item/pornography_is_what_the_end_of_the_world_looks_like_20150215#.VOH9-UEfHyc.twitter

quoting Gail Dines - “The porn industry has hijacked the sexuality of an entire culture and is laying waste to a whole generation of boys, and when you lay waste to a generation of boys, you lay waste to a generation of girls.”

I LOVE HER

Pleased to see that Annalisa is getting some flak for this on twitter - twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=%40annalisab&src=typd

I've worked with 2 men who got sacked for porn use. I'm surprised that angle isn't pursued more really (although I did only skim the article)

When the idea of every office worker having a PC was still fairly novel , and even more novel at home , one of the big insurance companies sacked a male employee for downloading porn in work hours on to his work computer.

He appealed to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal and won because the company had not set out a clear internet use policy.

Really how stupid do you have to be before you need to be told not to download porn to a work PC (aside from the fact you are meant to be working and not another activity starting with " w" at work)

clam I know of one who does say LTB. Philippa Perry does in her column in Red. It was in a case of emotional abuse.

still

Lad did that at my place of work once

He was caught because he printed off pictures

I think he got a slapped wrist...it was a very long time ago though

I'm really curious to know if in your experience men talk about this stuff amongst themselves?

Porn addiction you mean? People who drink too much rarely consider themselves to be drunkards, porn is much the same. If you want the Alcoholics Anonymous of porn you would want to look into the NoFap community:

www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/

www.projectknow.com/discover/taking-a-whack-at-porn-addiction/#.VQge_ohSmMg

Seems one can be very stupid and still be a judge.

Judges sacked for watching porn - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31920906