Please stop with the porn

Not if your dog is a bitch.

True dat.

Slappy: I'm up for your challenge!
Being new here, first let me say that the thoughts expressed here are mine and not necessarily those of N.O.W. :wink:

However, Slappy, you issued a challenge to any woman (whom you deem must be "insecure" )to take you to task on your observations. I think I'm up for it and I'll try to keep it brief.

Your words: It (porn) doesn't mean he's cheating on you

On the contrary: if one defines adultery or cheating as being activity that one engages in outside of a committed relationship in order to procure emotional and/or sexual satisfaction, I submit to you that viewing porn passes the litmus test easily. You might counter that, since there was no physical engagement between the parties, porn doesn't count as cheating. I would counter that, since physical engagement apparently isn't a requirement to achieve sexual satisfaction, that argument is, at best, dismissable.

Your words: Men like variety in their sex life

Is this somehow insinuating that women do not? And, if you would agree that women like variety as well, then what we're really taking to task here is the method used, not a lack of desire on either party's part.

Your words: ...biologically, ..men are wired to impregnate many women over a lifetime

...and what that has to do with this argument somehow escapes me. I think it's safe to say that most men are not running around recklessly impregnating as many women as they can over a lifetime. Hence, this leads me to believe that, while the biological hard coding may well be there, it is apparent that men have repressed that need and balanced the urge with reason. And, if that's true, it goes to follow that there is no reason that they could not suppress the same urge to view porn with the same amount of rationale. Or do you disagree?

Your words: Women are wired to get pregnant
Again, that may be so but same argument as above. If you hold that this biological wiring of man and woman is insurmountable, then you will be hard pressed to explain why every woman of child bearing age isn't delivering 20 - 30 children over her lifetime. Could it be that women have also suppressed this unrealistic biological urge with reason?

The tone of your post indicates that you believe that viewing porn is a harmless activity. I respectfully submit that it may seem harmless for the male, but it's obvious that women and children are suffering as a result of it. And, I would hope you would agree that the old adage, "Anything is okay as long as no one else gets hurt should apply here as well.

You express your exasperation (along with others here) over the number of threads related to porn. Time to look at the obvious. If you really feel that the number of threads are too numerous, aren't you really just shooting the messenger? Seeing this many posts must make it crystal clearn that porn must be a problem, else why so many posts concerning women about its impact? Unless, of course, you choose to believe that insecurity is the culprit.

Years ago, I was married to a man who became an alcoholic. It got to a point that we could not drive to an event together since I was literally in fear of my life. His car was a stick shift and I couldn't drive it so we would drive seperate cars since he would refuse to let me drive once he was intoxicated. One night, in a desperate effort to get him to see that his alcoholism was a threat to our marriage, he responded, "It's not my drinking that's the problem. YOU'RE the problem! If you would learn to drive a stick shift, we wouldn't be fighting about this".

Your argument, at least to me, echos his same sentiment. Men don't want to blame their weakness. They'd rather blame the people who are hurt by it.

As to your numerous rants about deciding against marriage, I can only say that, given your outlook, you're making a wise choice. It would be foolish to burden an innocent woman with your selfish perspective. I say this as an observation, not as an insult. Marriage or committed relationships are most successful when both parties acknowledge that one is an extension of the other and that both have needs, insecurities, or fears that have to be maturely discussed and dealt with....not mocked or laughed at. Children poke fun at one another's weaknesses and engage in petty name calling; reasonable adults do not.

I can tell you that I've seen a few marriages go to the curb over this issue and I believe it is a naive man (or woman) who presumes that viewing porn is harmless. Very naive....

Looking forward to your response!

Kyrian

Oooooh, fun! Thanks for the post Kyrian. Can't wait to see the responses!

tee hee...welcome to A2K Kyrian...

Kyrian, I respect your perpspective and in fact, many of the things you say are true. However, if you'll notice, the majority of the problem lies not with the porn but with the lying, snooping and lack of communication between couples. Women need to be aware of men's sexuality and be prepared to ask questions about his perception and usage of porn BEFORE marriage. A lot of couples have the "he used to look at porn before we were married but I expected it to stop once we married" OR the "she didn't have a problem with it until recently" OR "he's spending too much time with the porn" issues. All of those issues are ones that stem from something other than porn. #1- You cannot expect someone to change behavior just because you get married. If he watched porn when he was single, he's probably watching it now. You can ask him to stop but in no way should he have to. You married him knowing full well his enjoyment of porn. #2 - You can't be ok with porn and then suddenly decide that it's hurting your relationship. Most of the women that say this have other issues with their relationship and just use the easy "porn card" to express dissatisfaction. #3 - If he's gotten more into porn, it probably isn't the porn that is the problem: It's something in the relationship. He's moving away from you for a reason. Or you've moved away from him for a reason. And 99 times out of 100 it's something that is going on in the realtionship that is NOT sexual in any way.

The point is that you may not like porn. You may think it's nasty. Tou may think it's cheating. But if you say that, then I guess any hobby that takes your emotional attention away from your spouse could be considered cheating. I truly enjoy a good book. I get emotionally involved and so I guess I am a cheater. Damn.

You may think that masturbation is cheating. But guess what? Even if you ask him not to, he probably is. It's his body. Let him whack away for gods sake. Wouldn't you rather he do it himself then enlist the help of some buxom blonde?

I guess cheating and porn perception is all in the eyes of the beholder. I think that too many people want to blame something in their relationships instead of taking a look at the real issues. The issues of communication and compromise. The issues of insecurity and trust. The issues of honesty and integrity. I could go on and on.

Porn, in most cases, CANNOT be lcompared to alcholoism. There are some addictions but more often than not, porn is just an extra-cirricular activity.

You talk about men needing to take responsibility for their "weakness"but I think that women need to take responsibility for their relationships and quit blaming porn. It didn't happen over night. Where were they all the time it has been happening?

And on a final note, you say that mocking people's insecurities is childish behavior. Well personally, I think snooping and whining behind someones back is rather childish behavior. If these women are so hurt and destroyed by porn they should say something for god's sake. Quit being a baby and speak up.

Re: Slappy: I'm up for your challenge!
Welcome to A2K, Kyrian. We're gettin' serious here! Great ;-)


But that is one scary-ass definition of adultery or cheating you got there! Every thing "one engages in outside of a committed relationship in order to procure emotional and/or sexual satisfaction" is cheating?

This is pretty much the logic that brought me into this (otherwise rather unattractive) discussion in the first place - I find it eerie, up to the point of veering into the controlling/abusive. Your partner is not to receive any "emotional satisfaction" away from you? What are you of each other, each other's property rather than two individuals who resolved to be with each other?

(NOTE: I am neither angry nor being deliberately insultive, or anything ... I just sound like that because I've resolved not to edit my posts into cautious inanity anymore ;-))

I am very happy indeed to have always found a degree of emotional satisfaction outside any relationship I had, in various healthy ways. A heart-to-heart talk with a good friend. A hug from a close colleague, when I felt upset about a project gone wrong. The chance to honestly talk about something that bothered me in my relationship with a friend who might give some sensible input from outside - or hell, could provide a little comfort if I'd had a fight or something.

Is any of that cheating? If you think so, my objections along the controlling-up-to-abusive line apply, IMHO. If you don't think so, fine - so, it means you need a different definition of cheating.

Then there is another part of the definition, the what "one engages in outside of a committed relationship" part. OK, so if you find sexual satisfaction with someone outside your marriage, you're cheating, I'll go with that, sure. (Though even there it's not like that's a magic formula that instantly takes away all dilemma's on where the border lies. If you go dancing (whether in a disco or on your local community ballroom dancing course), and the dancing heats you up a little inside and it's part of what has you extra fired up when you then make love with your man at night - have you cheated?).

The thing we're talking about here, though, is not finding sexual satisfaction with someone else - there is noone there, no real-life contact with anyone (unlike, for example, in some erotic online chat). It's finding sexual satisfaction in your head. Whether you just close your eyes and fantasize about something, someone, and get off on that, or whether you look at the picture of a girl in a sexy ad and do the same, the sexual activity you're engaging in is one by yourself, of yourself, fired by your own imagination and fantasy.

So the near-philosophical question we arrive at here is whether what takes place in one's head can be said to be in the realm of what's "outside the relationship", and thus - cheating. Personally, I very strongly feel that "die Gedanke sind Frei", or whatever that old song has it - your mind is yours and yours alone, and it is noone else's possession. Noone is to tell you what to think (or think about), not your husband or wive either. The notion that fidelity entails mind control is to me straight out scary.

Think I'm overreacting? Then consider my earlier (rhetorical) question to Montana. Do you ever masturbate? Do you ever think about someone-not-your-husband while doing so - Keanu Reeves, say, or the guy featured in that novel you were reading, or a random handsome man you saw walking past that day, or simply some fictitious guy who exists nowhere but in your fantasy? If so, what's the difference between that and a guy looking at a girl in a picture before going off (and getting off) in the realm of fantasy? Does one's vow of marriage extend to never ever thinking about anyone else while fantasising? If not, isn't there a double standard here that sets porn apart from any other form of sexual fantasy?


We've been talking about, like, Playboy here (I dont like it, but hey, thats the standard). How do children "suffer" as a result of Playboy? Are you equating something like Playboy with, say, kiddieporn? Wouldn't there be an essential difference in terms of consent, there?


For one, as was pointed out here, there are so many threads along those lines here because apparently, A2K is one of the main sites that comes up in a Google search about it. So pretty much anyone who does have a problem with this, ends up here. Seen in such proportions, the 10 threads or so about it don't exactly necessarily prove a problem of national proportions ... ;-)


How do you view the many women who peruse such stuff, as evidenced for example in this thread?

(Sorry to hear about your husband, by the way. That must have been awful.)


Therein lies the problem, I believe. Both have needs and insecurities. In the cases described in these porn threads here, those needs and insecurities are conflicting. The one needs to sometimes just be able to dream away a bit into an (erotic) dimension that, for one moment, does not include wife, kids, work or household. And the other gets mighty insecure/hurt/suspicious if he does that, and needs him to stop. How does the need in marriage to "acknowledge that one is an extension of the other" equates necessarily with the conclusion that he'll just have to give up his emotional need to satisfy hers?

Heh - who woulda thought - an actual serious discussion on this thread ... ;-)

Oh, and welcome to A2K! Happy to debate with you!

True, indeed.
Or just us women, as a matter of fact.


I can't wait to see what Slappy will be saying now. That is, if he's not too busy thinking about Bush masked midgets... hehe

And women would rather blame porn than take a look at what might really be going on in their relationship. Too many are so quick to jump on the porn bandwagon instead of actually **gasp** talking to their spouses!!

Kyrian, welcome! It will be fun to see what happens with this thread. It's fun just to see someone take Slappy seriously.

Yes, I grew up on Betty Friedan and a healthy dose of Women's Studies, even though I am a man. I anxiously await Slappy's response.

This should be good...I happen to disagree with you on the issue of porn as cheating, and I do not watch porn. As much as I appreciate N.O.W. and their goals, I don't entirely agree with some of their agenda.

There's always an exception that proves the rule...

As for the comparison of porn and alcoholism, Kristie has a good point. Even if porn addiction does exist (and one thing I have learned from these threads here is that yes, it does exist - some of the extreme examples that are described just make the mind boggle), that doesn't make *all* perusal of porn evidence of an addictive weakness. With alcohol too, after all, there are alcoholics and those who drink a glass of wine at dinner.

Neither, by the way (now that I'm going on anyway ), does the "I asked him to give it up and he won't, so he must be addicted" thing prove anything (not that you mentioned it, but many posters on those threads did). He might simply not give it up because he doesn't want to. That, again, might mean he's just egoistic - or, that you've posed an unreasonable demand. Or both. Something to talk about in the spirit of necessary compromise, I'd think, and thus not in the spirit of "you must be addicted and now I have to make you admit that and make you stop your evil ways", which prevails in much of those threads.

Come to think of it, the alcohol comparison can still be used. Say, you don't drink but you marry someone who does like a drink. Problem? All depends. Does he go on binges and pass out for hours, drive home drunk and endanger himself and others? Then, yes. Does he merely have a beer at the bar or a glass of wine in the evening? Then, probably not. Unless you have a problem with drinkers, that is, for example because of a negative experience, or because of your religious beliefs. In that case, him drinking even a little will understandably make you feel insecure or uncomfortable. In that case a compromise will need to be found - but again, no reason why that compromise would necessarily be him giving up all drinking because of how booze, you know, is an evil thing. That wouldn't be a compromise, in fact.

All spoken as someone who's only once ever had a minor argument about pictures, but who has some degree of issues about what he's experienced to have been an overly controlling partner ...

Having re-read these threads about ' husband+porn' I can tell from first hand experience that none of these men have an addiction. no way, no how.
I lived with a porn addict. I know what it is like. It aint happening here. Sorry ladies. ;-)
Just because he wants it doesnt mean he is addicted.

Of course they don't shewolf. Like I said, people need to be accountable for their actions and the outcomes of their actions. You'll notice that the happy relationships are the ones in which both couples have learned that :
1- no one is perfect
2- ain't no way you're changing your spouse
3- communication and honesty are the base for solving ANY problem that might arrise.
4- sometimes there just isn't a "right" answer to a problem and one or both of the people must compromise
5- communication and honesty are the base for solving...oh wait I already said that (maybe cuz its so important!)

LOL - I did the odd women's studies course myself ... was 'grown up' by a stridently feminist mother ... <grins> ... (haven't got a clue what her opinion about porn and cheating would have been ... my guess is she woulda condemned porn as mysoginist (as was standard then among feminists) - but wouldn't have gotten the how it's cheating thing ... ?)

<grins, shakes head 'bout the absurdity of the whole discussion and who's ended up arguing what .. Now Slappy, at least he's defending a position he was bound to defend >

Can we get a big "Boo hoo, poor me, I need to be validated" here? Hoo yeah!!

Heh heh, yeppers, my mom taught social work and still does, and was also a feminist. She doesn't care for porn, but doesn't condemn it either. If she caught dad watching some, which I actually don't think he does, she would probably laugh, rather than judge.

Kristie: you didn't read my post
Sadly, Kristie, I believe you bypassed a lot of my observations. You may need to re-read my post. However, allow me to respond to some of your comments.

Yes, the deceitful nature that men engage in certainly does not foster a trusting relationship with their partner or wife. But, as to the argument, that "well, if he was doing porn before he met you, you have no reason to expect him to stop", one might well counter that, given those circumstances, the man equally has no reason to involve himself in an exclusive relationship with another woman if porn holds so much stronger an attraction for him that he cannot/will not abandon it? N'est pas? Further, this answers your question as to why many women don't know about their men's porn use before their relationship. Have we not been discussing the fact part of the problem lies in how men hide their use? That being the case, what exactly do you suggest she look for? I've seen many a condemnation on this board against women who institute spyware to find out if their husband/boyfriend is using porn. So, what would you suggest she do? Ask him about it? Good luck. The topic itself is usually enough to send him off running scared. Not too many alternatives left, are there?

And, yes, many times the excessive use of porn is an indication of something missing in the relationship. But, I get so, so tired of the old blame the victim mentality. Jesus. Men have to take some form of accountability for their actions and stop constantly blaming the woman for being insecure or for all problems in the relationship, et al. God, it's boring.

And, yes, a woman certainly CAN be okay with porn and then "suddenly decide it's hurting your relationship" if his use of porn has increased to a degree where her needs are not being met. But, then I guess you would maintain that this is HER fault; not his. (Blame the victim, again)

You also fail to acknowledge that porn addiction is a very real problem in our society today. I'm not making those headlines up. I've no reason to. The porn of today is somewhat different than 50 years ago. It promotes unsafe sex and fosters the belief that women are objects; not people. Don't believe me? Consider this: why does Playboy refer to its women as "bunnies". Why does Penthouse refer to them as "pets"? Psych 101, my friend. Take the "human" quotient out of any reference, and you take away any feelings of guilt associated with behavior that infringes upon the subject.

Rest assured that, if a woman told her partner that she wanted to engage in sexual activity outside of the relationship because "it's how I'm wired" or "I can't help it...I'm emotionally stimulated, therefore, I need more input" and "it's just sex..it's got nothing to do with you", the man's reaction would be equal to any woman who is faced with the issue of porn in her relationship.

Also, Porn certainly CAN and HAS been compared to alcholism and other addictions. Check the Psychology Today or WebMD websites, if you don't believe me.

Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away, Kristie. While you may mean well, I don't think this issue gets resolved by telling women that their feelings of insecurity are invalid or that they're wrong for being afraid that they may lose the man they love to a fantasy image. You yourself may not be in said position. But, it is unfair and unreasonable to presume that every woman posting to this board is in your position.

My resolution? I think men have to come out of the closet with this thing, stop being defensive, sit down with their significant other and then the name of the game is reassurance! (This seems like such a imposition on many men, but, I think it might be worth the effort). Simply assure your woman that you are not attempting to replace her. Let her know that you don't expect her (and may not want her ) to act like the women in the movie. If you want to use porn to accent your sex life with her, ask her...don't impose. And, if she rejects it, drop it and let it go. Be discreet ...do not wave it in her face. Keep tabs to make sure you aren't neglecting her in favor of the porn. Most importantly, if your sexual experience with your woman is good in every other aspect, it might help to tell her that once in awhile so that she doesn't feel threatened.

Sound reasonable?

one other thing....
To Kristie and all....

Thank you for the warm welcome. Like many of you here, I have no desire to insult anyone. Not my style. I do enjoy a good debate and, if by some chance I say something that may imply an insult, I would only ask you re-read it since that's seldom my intent....

I like to look at these discussions in a little different vein than some. I'm just as committed to being proven wrong as I am to make my point. Sound strange? Maybe so but that is what I believes constitutes the learning process...

Thanks again!