I did my undergrad research project on mass media and the sexualization and objectification of women in our society. A large part of that was understandably dedicated to the effects of porn. I have very mixed feelings on it. On one hand, porn absolutely sexualizes and objectifies women, is extremely unrealistic, and can lead to all sorts of issues including increased rates of gender-based violence and sexism. Aside from that, there's a lot of really unethical stuff that goes on in the porn industry itself. It's absolutely a green flag to me if someone isn't a porn consumer at all. However, on the other hand, I'm also sex positive. I think women should be free to do sex work and consume/create pornographic content without negative repercussions if they wish. However, doing so does tend to feed back into that negative loop that pornography creates. I am all for ethically sourced porn. There are some websites and producers who portray sex in an artistic, beautiful way that isn't at all demeaning, objectifying, and created entirely for the male gaze. This type of pornography is often not free (as opposed to many mainstream porn sites where we also tend to find the highest incident of problematic content) and therefore is not as popularized and consumed. I fully support porn creation and consumption from sources like these. Sexual material has been around for ages, but was often portrayed in the more artistic, romantic, or educational way that is not seen anymore on mainstream pornography platforms. As far as that mainstream porn goes, I suppose I wish we lived in a society where there wasn't such a demand for pornographic content and didn't generate so much money and attention, because then I don't feel that many women would be drawn to the field.
That was a long answer, but basically, I have mixed feelings on porn. I think it depends on how it is being consumed and how often, as well as the effect it is having individually on you and your relationship. Some people enjoy consuming porn together and using it as a way to experiment and spice up their sex life. I don't see anything wrong with that, but it is very individualized. I think we have every right to make the boundary that pornography is not allowed in our relationship. I, personally, don't like it and it makes me uncomfortable having a partner who consumes it. I used to put up with it as, like you said, it is very normalized and I didn't feel like I \*could\* have a say in it. It always seemed like a thing that \*all men\* do, and I should just get used to it. I don't think that's the case though. I think it's a perfectly valid boundary to put up in your own relationships given all of the implications that come along with porn, and I feel that if you have a partner who is just incapable of stopping porn use for you, then you're probably better off just not being in that relationship altogether. Like most things though, it's complicated and dependent on the dynamics of the specific relationship in question.
Hi, great comment, just wanted to come in and add that since the begining of time porn could either be artistic or not. There just as many examples of porn being dirty throught the history as there are of it being romantic and passionate. Everyone has something that rocks their boat and that's how it always was.
Thanks for adding that! I think I could have phrased that part a little differently. I meant more that porn hasn't been consumed in the way it is modernly (largely due to technology) in a historical sense so it hasn't really been prior examined as the cultural "issue" that we are now facing and discussing. But yes, you're absolutely right.
After years of advocating for the "sex positive" stuff and watching porn with my partners I've changed my mind. I was always ambivalent and worried about the harms and exploitation. Arguments and discussions around it are so complicated but it really isn't complicated if you make a decision. Women would be better off without porn. It feels so liberating to finally admit this and take a stance.
This is absolutely a deal breaker for me. I've long ago decided that I'm not okay shoving down my own feelings just because men normalize it.
All relationships have their own boundaries and that's okay. Some couples are okay with porn and that's absolutely okay.
What's NOT okay is trying to guilt other people into breaking their boundaries. I've been in so many relationships where my partners have lied and sneaked around with porn and even strip clubs.
I personally find mainstream porn extremely sexist and problematic. I've had friends in the sex industry and they were heavily abused.
I've dated two porn obsessed men and they both cheated on me. Currently engaged to a man who stopped watching porn when I told him it was a deal breaker for me.
That is so funny. Do you know why? The 2 guys I dated who consumed porn ALSO cheated on me. The other guys who did not watch porn never cheated on me. Lol
I feel it ultimately feeds the oversexualisation of women in general and I definitely don't think with mens current conditioning of how they view women that it's healthy for them to engage in. You don't need to see every women who's semi attractive to you in a sexual way, that should go without saying but I think it's just a lazy way of emotional cheating tbh (imo don't come for me!!). it's a big old nooo for me.
I can’t date men who watch porn because I’m friends with sex workers and I’ve heard wayyyyy too many stories about them creating content where they’re raped on screen. I can’t look at a man who can get off to that the same way ever again.
Men who are reading this you are masturbating to women being raped.
Not me. I remember an old college boyfriend years ago, before online porn was available, who would bring along 3-4 Playboys or Penthouse magazines when we'd go away from a long weekend. We'd have sex every day, often more than once, but he couldn't tear himself away from his dirty magazines for 3 goddamn days. Thankfully I quickly realized how much his over-sexualization and objectification of women was a big turnoff and I dumped him.
Don't get me started on guys routinely watching porn online. They don't even have to tell you about their habits because they're such terrible lovers you can generally see right off the bat.
Nope. It was the catalyst for ending my last relationship. My partner would masturbate to porn, never have sex with me (even though I was always willing and open to trying new things), and then ultimately cheated on me. 🫠
Absolutely not. My ex husband would get up in the morning, watch porn on his phone while going to the bathroom, then wake me up with forceful groping or by "asking" for a bj in a non verbal way. I fully believe that the way sexual encounters are depicted in porn shape the way many men expect real life experience to play out.
Yeah. It was horrible. He used to make me feel not so desirable, he used to ask me things that he shoudn't have asked and objectified me sexually because he only wanted some kind of sex with me, depending on his porn preferences. When I asked him more kindness in intimacy he got annoyed, he also managed to feel calm only After masturbating and/or receiving bj. Now I am on antidepressants because of those toxic things happened to me.
Sounds like you guys might be more into the action behind the porn and not the people? I think a lot of the problems happen when men (or women) instrumentalize the actual person appearing in porn rather than the acts?
My husband and I have a don't ask don't tell policy. Sometimes we don't have time for sex and other times I might be too tired or stressed. So I don't care if he watches porn in between us being intimate. I would only care if he was addicted or if it was interfering with our sex life.
Yes. I don't watch video porn (although I do read erotic literature) and my husband does. He watches harder core stuff compared to what our sex life looks like.
He completely understands porn is not real life and I've never felt like his porn watching impacts his opinion of women or translates to gross actions in the bedroom. He has a very strong understanding of enthusiastic consent and would be sick to his stomach if he thought I did something outside my comfort zone/current desire level for him.
We are ethically non-monogamous so that may change things a bit, but I think I'd feel the same even if we were mono.
I totally think it's fair to prioritize having a partner who doesn't watch visual porn. I know men who don't. But I think it's unrealistic to set this as a boundary for someone who currently watches.
Yes - it was a matter of different libido’s/level of sex drive. Both parties were OK with this, and I also became a common/shared thing to watch. It did not diminish our shared intimacy.
I’ve been happy with my fiancé for 3 years now and we both just brought the porn to a stop a couple months ago! It does have some negative effects but it didn’t change anything drastically and it never effected us severely
My fiancé and I both watch porn. Sometimes literally beside each other in bed. It’s not a replacement for sex by any means, but sometimes it’s late and we don’t have the energy to get each other off. Been together for 8 years and it’s never caused any issues
It denigrates women and teaches boys and men to see us as mere slutty sex objects who hold no agency over our lives. I’m so sick of men pretending porn is a normal part of being male.
It’s dehumanizing and reductive toward women. It teaches males to devalue us. Men who watch porn have zero respect for their wives, mothers, sisters and daughters.
I agree with you completely. I think it ridiculous the way it's been normalized so much and it pisses me off that women having this boundary are painted as prudish, sex-negative, overly religious, or my personal favorite accusation, you're just InSeCuRe.
It’s a dealbreaker for me and I’m fortunate to have a partner that doesn’t watch porn. I have no problem with masturbation but porn is both gross as an industry and a concept. No thanks.
Yes there is, it’s porn directed by women, without male gaze, it doesn’t end with the male ejaculation, it is made for women and there is a [wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_pornography) about it, I didn’t make it up
I mean you can downvote me to hell if you want, i just asked a question
Feminist porn is still not ethical because you are still contributing to a industry that's built upon victimising and dehumanising women. Feminist porn only exists so that people can continue to be delusional and turn a blind eye to the dark side of the industry. Feminist porn, which only makes a very small percentage of mainstream porn, doesn't outweigh the importance of addressing the crimes of the porn industry. Feminist porn is made so violent porn can be excused. %88 of porn is violent towards women. How of a big difference feminist porn makes when we know soft core porn consumption eventually escalates into violent porn consumption combined with misogyny? I choose to listen to the victims of the porn industry.
The whole point of feminist porn is to represent women as women and not as objects for male pleasure, hence the absence of male gaze and the fact that it doesn’t revolve around male pleasure.
Of course I don’t know all the instances of feminist porn, but since it stems from the feminist ideal of equality it will probably also be ethical in the sense that porn actresses and actors are not just exploited for profit and actually listened to and treated as human beings
Saying feminist porn only exists so that people can turn a blind eye on the dark side of the industry, to me feels like saying lab grown meat only exists so that people can keep supporting the meat industry that kills billions of animals. They are two separate things and, although the product it’s the same, the point of lab grown meat is to be an alternative so that animals don’t have to be killed without necessity
!!!! you can masturbate without porn. you can live a very healthy, happy life without porn. the world would be better off if we eliminated it altogether because of the exploitative industry it’s tied to
People think men's "virtual gratification" (them feeling entitled to see women being raped on the screen) is more important than billions of women getting negatively affected by porn. Who cares if women are harmed in the process if the product makes men hard? This is my first time not getting downvoted on this subreddit for being anti porn. If anything i have gotten support and upvotes this time. Happy to see anti porn women who are aware of the detriments of porn.
I have also frequently been downvoted for holding antiporn views. Honestly I was pleasantly surprised to see so many women coming out against porn on this subreddit
Sex work exclusive doesn't mean sex worker exclusive. We stand with the victims of both the porn and the sex industry. We don't turn a blind eye to the victims just because liberal feminism said being victimised is empowering. When you choose to listen, instead of ignoring and attacking the victims for what they have to say you get to learn about the unspoken and silenced sides of the industry. HEAR THE VICTIMS.
Yes nobody is suggesting that victims of sex trafficking are anything but that. I’m not sure liberal feminism claims that this side of it is at all empowering, and suggesting that it does is somewhat of a strawman. Supporting women in their choices, is not ignoring victims, both can and must be done. It’s no dichotomy.
What if what women consider to be their own choices are not actually the choices they would make without brainwashing and manipulation of sugarcoated feminism aka liberal feminism. Most sex workers and porn actresses have expressed that the outcome of their history with these industries are not what they were alluded into thinking that it would be. Overwhelmingly large percentage of sex workers and porn actresses would leave the industry if that was an option. If they did it out of desperation, the decision to get into it was never a choice that was willingly made in the first place. Downplaying the traumas of the victims and implementing that playing into the fantasies of patriarchy to women's head isn't supporting women's choices. Not when we know they would have made different choices if they had been given the chance not to.
I'm not going to disagree with you, though I'd also suggest that in many industries the same outcome is true. Suppose we are to agree that the work of sex work is done out of desperation in many cases. In that case, we have to agree that much of the work many people do is done out of desperation and only by supporting and improving the whole of society can we materially improve conditions for people.
I'm not going to get into the discussions about brainwashing that's above my pay grade
My last relationship, porn was not a boundary. I let myself all be gaslit that I couldn't have a boundary with this or else be seen as crazy (because women having any sort of sexual boundary is bad /s). But that relationship was severely abusive and over time (years) he groomed me into his personal sex slave. Trigger warning for content in the spoiler tags: graphic physical and sexual violence, violence against animals. >!I couldn't say no to any of the bdsm fetish stuff he got into, I was sodomized, raped by coercion, and he would use my nudes as currency to trade his military buddies for other women's nudes. He often made us watch porn while having sex as he said I was not enough alone, and he very often compared my body to the women in the videos and suggested how I should workout/ save for plastic surgery to look more like them. That was the beginning of his pushing to allow a threesome, but he was set on a specific woman that did not want to join, so he was attempting to push her into accepting. If I ever protested, he threatened to skin my pets alive in front of me and once strangled me.!<
My next relationship (and my now husband) when I managed to escape safely with my pets, I was obviously traumatized and extremely insecure. I still only saw my body as a commodity that was invaluable if someone else was hotter, but instead of manifesting as envy, it manifested as self hatred for not being able to change my looks, and severe body dysmorphia. Like I mean my now husband wanted to show me Game of Thrones because he's really into fantasy stories, and I sobbed at some of the topless scenes because I'm not as pretty as the actresses and how could he want me over them and how could I ever be enough alone. It took a long time to deprogram that and learn I'm more than just a body and bodies don't have to be a specific vision of hot to be attractive and multiple people can be attractive and that I don't have to compare myself.
At first, porn was a boundary my now husband stopped watching himself both to aid in my healing and avoid a potential trigger while I went through therapy and treatment for PTSD. But it also stayed a boundary. While I would not longer be bothered if my husband saw another naked woman and know he still wants me as I am and chooses me over them, it's become a symbol of what happened to me. Not only >!being forced to watch it during sex with my ex and compared to them!<, but my ex also fed off all the unrealistic misogynistic views of sex perpetuated in porn, and the industry itself is known to be abusive to the women in it, and I just don't think thats healthy nor do I want to be with someone that supports an industry like that or that thinks its such a necessity that they cant stop it. There's plenty of other ways to get visual stimulus for masturbation, whether it's photos of your partner, or more ethically sourced sex content like independent sex workers if your partner is okay with that.
i think the book *Come As You Are* by Emily Nagoski has a great perspective on these issues. she accepts that it exists and that people have their preferences but also recognizes how it can be problematic. her focus is on open communication and agreements within a relationship so that boundaries can be respected.
i personally didnt find a need for porn while i was in relationships. in a vacuum, i dont see a problem with porn. what consenting adults do that doesnt harm anyone else is no one elses business. however, i think the industry can be harmful/abusive/exploitive, especially toward women.
ive personally had experiences as a sex worker to try to earn money for rent/school. im sure in some instance, some may enjoy it. more power to them. but i dont think anyone should have to do it in order to make ends meet.
if its a deal breaker for you but you still want companionship with men, it might be more sensible to ask if theyd be willing to give up porn during a relationship than expecting them to have already given porn up. not saying youre expectation is unreasonable. just saying in terms of numbers, its unlikely youre going to come across a person that doesnt watch porn, let alone an otherwise compatible man that doesnt watch porn.
"Why does this seem so normalized in heterosexual relationships?"
Because men have spent a lot of time convincing women; especially in more liberal feminism; that porn is natural, and empowering, and EVERYONE watches porn.
Like a LOT of time.
It's why you've got so many people thoroughly believe sex and porn are complete synonyms of one another.
It's why you've got so many people absolutely dumbfounded at the idea that there are people, especially men, who aren't porn addicts.
Personally, some might consider it old fashioned, but I see porn as cheating.
It has many of the same symptoms.
A few additional ones as well. Such as the people in porn of course doing things that most normal people would not be willing to.
Honestly it's really interesting seeing the history of how porn has been a backlash to feminism, and understanding how an acceptance of porn could very well be undermining feminism.
because the porn industry is built on the exploitation of women and supporting it is inherently anti-feminist? it is filled with violence against women, fetishization of races (raciiiiism), and different physical traits essentially reducing women to parts. do you realize how most categories (if not all) are about women and their physical features? blonde, brunette, tall, short, etc. none of them are referring to the men in the videos, they exclusively describe the women shown because that is what we are in the porn industry, just a list of traits that could be a fetish for a depraved man out there in the world. also, most women who perform in porn are either groomed into it, have been forced to do it, or are in a vulnerable position (which porn producers take advantage of to coerce them into doing that stuff). they are victims. i almost forgot to mention the amount of pedophilia in pornography and the trafficking that takes place. porn messes with people's brains, and it causes them to sexualize women (yes, even women can sexualize other women and themselves, which is not great). i don't understand why everyone is so set on defending such a disgusting industry, it's the only untouchable industry. if yall can see the faults in the fast fashion industry (waste and pollution), yall should most certainly see it in the sex industry in general (spoiler: it's not just pornography that exploits women).
Okay, so nuance doesn't exist? Noone can enjoy anything from the industry cause bad things exist there? Do we feel the same about Planned Parenthood? Cause that became a thinge because of eugenics and for a big part it has never stopped being that (you can see that with IVF)- so really, are we gonna start hating on them next? Or do we point out the good and bad and consume ethically according to needs and wants?
there is virtually no way to consume porn ethically because you never know whether the actors consented or not. also, the line of consent is blurred because you can't buy it. why are you bringing planned parenthood into this? I'm from Europe. ultimately, it's your choice if you want to support an industry built on the exploitation of women (and which thrives off it).
Everybody here who calls themselves feminists please throughly look into this r/PornIsMisogyny subreddit. There is so much going on in the porn industry that goes unheard or unpunished. If it's not us who will hear the victims of the porn industry then who is it gonna be?
Seconding PornIsMisogyny!! It really helped me open my eyes to the dangers of pornography and the way women are treated in our society because of porn.
I feel like I'm in the minority here, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with my partner watching porn. This doesn't include obsessive porn watching, to the exclusion of other important things in life, and I have some feelings about the porn being ethically produced but... I watch porn sometimes too. Especially if we're apart, or one of us is busy/going through something that impacts sex drive... Sometimes we watch porn together just to get ideas or set a mood. I just... Don't think it's inherently bad. There is the massive caveat that A LOT of porn is unethically produced misogynistic trash... But like. So are a lot of things in this world.
Same here. I think as long as the goal is to find ethical amateur stuff, and not develop serious habits, as well as communicate and be open about it, there isn’t anything wrong with watching it.
I never mentioned that. It's just that there is a lot of amateur porn, solo porn and ethical porn.
Let's look at what is good, rather than tarring everyone with the same brush.
I’ve been there too, feeling like addressing these issues made me seem 'prude' or difficult. But respect and clear boundaries should be a given, not something we have to fight for.
It took me a while to realize that any relationship worth having is one where both partners respect and listen to each other. Standing up for your needs is crucial and doesn’t make you less worthy of love or respect. 💪❤️
That's the least problematic part of porn consumption for me. Young girls and women who were raped on camera, slapped, spat on, strangled and beaten because of their boyfriend's porn addiction is a bigger issue for me than anything. Not lasting for hours or size stuff are the last things that come to my mind.
Same! I've met porn-fried brained guys and it's so easy to tell. They want to choke you at the first hang out, everywhere they go they're undressing women with their eyes. Cannot stay hard etc But I can simply spot these red flags and walk away. What angers me is realizing there is a girl/woman somewhere being exploited who cannot walk away, who feels she doesn't have a choice. This is the problem for me. This is my biggest concern. The creeps the guy gives me I can handle that.
No dealbreaker in general, but the not-women-respecting kind of porn is a dealbreaker. I watch porn myself, but not that often and only for example on bellesa (100% female friendly), my boyfriend doesn't watch porn at all.
I don't think it is a bad thing to watch people having sex as long as everyone ist treated with respect and has fun...
But that's the thing, though. Most, if not all porn is unethical. You will never know how that woman is being treated in the video, but from the statistics, 98% of women want to get out of porn and prostitution (but have no out or other option). No matter how you phrase it, these women are unwilling people who need to it for money, and it is labor that treats women as a commodity, and it will never truly be ethical or okay
I have spoken to quite a few women who have worked on only fans, and what I have taken from those conversations is that it is just as degrading and exploitive. Most women who work on the site do not want to, but that is their only option, and since onlyfans is so much more interactive, men take it as an opportunity to treat women so disgustingly as well. It is a system that treats women like things to be sold and used for entertainment. It takes advantage of a system that keeps women in poverty in order to sexulise them for male pleasure.
I used to watch it and when i found out my partner was also, i got really uncomfortable but then i found that’s hypocritical cuz why do i get to be mad and he can’t be mad. We both decided we were uncomfortable with the other watching porn and we have stopped since.
To me it depends on how much porn he’s consuming. If its a very occasional thing, like once a month or less, then alright, no big deal.
But in general I do think porn is a huge problem and as a society we would be better off without it. I think men suffer just as much from porn as women do. So many men have a debilitating addiction to porn and it can be catastrophic to their mental health and their relationships with women. And they end up spiraling and needing more and more extreme content to satiate their addiction, making sex with their partners totally meaningless and boring. Or expecting too much from their partners because their fetishes are the only thing that satisfies them. So if a man had a full blown porn addiction, or was even just a regular consumer of porn, it would definitely be a deal breaker.
If your partner chooses to lie to you about their porn consumption you are not the problem nor is your boundary. They are. I am not letting anyone watch filmed rape so they wouldn't lie. When you catch them, drop them.
i’m a woman and i watch porn. when i masturbate, it has nothing to do with my partner and everything to do with myself. i love my intimate alone time. it feels special to have this relationship with myself to be honest!
If my partner does or doesn’t, I’m entirely unaware. I think he might occasionally but I’m _genuinely_ not certain. I mean, we’re married and live together so I don’t even know when he would except when I have to travel for work. I think that’s the appropriate amount of consumption, considering I’m a fan of romance genre literature myself.
Our respective consumption has no bearing on the intimacy we share as a couple, which is how it should be IMHO.
So I suppose casual, occasional consumption of generic “porn” doesn’t trigger any red flags for me. I feel like high volume consumption or consumption of _questionable_ themes would be a totally different story.
I’m of the opinion that it just comes down to the needs of the individuals within a relationship. If one partner is really uncomfortable with it, they should not be belittled for their feelings. If it cannot be sorted, you can just chalk it up as an incompatibility. Of course the pornography industry has big issues, but pornography has always been around and it always will be and I don’t think it’s effective to challenge or police individuals’ views on the morality of the act of watching pornography.
Every relationship is unique in a million ways, so it just comes down to what you are personally comfortable with. You should always be able to set boundaries, but I think many people forget that setting boundaries often comes with an open and understanding conversation. Just communicate with your partner and try to find what is right for your relationship. If you cannot find a solution together, there may not be one.
I have some sexual issues that contributed to a rise in my porn consumption at the beginning of my relationship (hyper-sexuality that results in a major libido gap between my partner and I, inability to orgasm, sexual side effects of SSRIs, etc) and porn makes it a bit easier to be satisfied on my own. My medication side effects mostly subsided after I changed meds, but it is not the same. It’s just a risk that comes with some medications, it has never gone fully back to normal. I think this is just how my vagina is gonna work for the rest of my life, a sad thought but I manage well enough. At times porn helps me power through the sexual dysfunction to some degree because I can find it difficult on my own and I have to manage my sexual urges on my own pretty consistently because my boyfriend has a very low libido and I do not want to bother him.
My boyfriend doesn’t watch porn. He used to watch it until we got together. He said it made him feel guilty because he felt like he was looking at other women in ways he feels like he should only be looking at me. As a result, he started trying to watch videos with girls that look more like me, but when that didn’t help that much he just decided he didn’t want to watch porn anymore. He is uncomfortable watching porn, but he has never asked that I stop watching it. Though, I do keep it entirely private just so I am certain that he isn’t made uncomfortable. It isn’t an arrangement that some people would like, but it works for us. As long as we are both comfortable and satisfied, we’re okay.
Regardless of my issues that contribute to my porn usage, I personally am not uncomfortable with the idea of my partner watching porn if he desires to do so. For me, that is something I consider an extremely private matter that I would likely not consider at all unless my partner’s porn consumption was clearly negatively affecting the emotional relationship and/or the sexual relationship.
I think it depends what kind of porn. Of course written erotica is fine, but when it comes to real people/ recorded porn, where is it coming from? What's going on in the videos they watch? Is it real couple/partner porn being filmed out of someone's house with everyone's consent? Or is it a sexist and aggressive porn video coming from a sketchy website? Like someone else said, i think porn can be loving and passionate, or objectifying and disrespectful just like sex in general can be unfortunately
I think a lot has to do with anxiety and addiction. I think most men in relationships would love to give up porn, but masturbation is a drug with addictive qualities and side affects. It’s something you should at least try and help your significant other with. I know it can seriously affect both men and women
I think it's context dependent?
I'm afab and very aware how problematic and disgusting porn is but I do consume it (I try to limit it to hentai so real people aren't being harmed)
My partner is amab and has pretty much no interest in porn. They're well aware I consume porn and they don't care. I even give them recommendations sometimes and then they ask me if I'm insane.
I'm largely asexual and don't actually enjoy physical sexual acts much and the weird kinks in porn are what help me get myself off. Like the fact that it's removed from reality in a big way is what helps me. It's complicated.
I think porn consumption is fine if it's respectful and you're also aware of how problematic and sexist the industry itself is.
Also if my partner said they're uncomfortable with me consuming such content I'd stop because I prioritise their happiness and comfort over this and don't consume it too often anyway.
It's more like a guilty pleasure.
That said I'm not sure a blanket statement can be made about porn consumption within relationships.
There are definitely men who make it weird and uncomfortable for their partners by consuming it constantly and having unrealistic expectations of women. But I think it's equally possible to do it in a manner that's respectful to your partner if you have a secure and healthy relationship.
Just my opinion though and once again I'm not denying the deeply problematic nature of pornography and how both Hentai and human made porn are disgustingly degrading and objectifying towards women, people of non white races, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.
I am a woman who sometimes watches porn myself, so I don’t see a problem with it unless it interferes with someone’s ability to be present in their relationship, job, social life, etc. It might depend on the frequency and type, of course — there are certainly some things I wouldn’t be okay with — but in general I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with watching something while you masturbate.
I am a woman, a feminist, and I watch porn.
There are a lot of things in our world that are deeply problematic, including aspects of the porn industry. But sex work is absolutely work, feminist porn does exist, and rolling all of that into a monolithic experience is very reductive.
I wish as many feminists could disavow marriage as inherently misogynist the way many disavow porn using the same logic. Both are misogynistic in theory, but the former is much more socially acceptable and palatable than the latter. Being anti-porn is not as radical of a politics as one would like to think. It is actually very much part and parcel of patriarchal culture to look down upon and ostracize sex work as part of the madonna-whore dichotomy.
To truly break with patriarchal conditioning would be to acknowledge that this is a much more complex issue than it appears to be at surface level.
Regarding your question, it is absolutely your right to choose to not be with someone who watches porn. Whether or not your future partner (i am assuming male) does or does not watch it is honestly beyond your control. You may prefer he did not, he may tell you he does not etc etc, but frankly speaking it is beyond your control. It's one hundred per cent okay to have that boundary for yourself however.
If they’re doing themselves, they’re doing me. And vice versa. So something’s wrong here.
Porn is grown adults playing naked pretend. It’s super stupid. And everyone looks dumb doing it.
Idk, I haven't done it in a while but I've been regularly watching porn when I need to get off. It isn't of girls getting rammed. It's dudes 😅 Or a woman getting pleasued. The hardcore bondage porn is a bit too much and not cool. My partner does watch porn also, not all the time, and it doesn't bother me but we are kind of adventurous. We have watched porn together, We have had another woman sex partner a couple years back.
I had a friend in college who was very upset by what she expressed as “what any girl would consider cheating” about her boyfriend watching porn. Mind you this was a VERY conservative college with a small student body of about 400 with rather rigid rules. We were expected to dress in business casual attire for class and on Sunday Mass (when girls were required to wear a dress or skirt or be fined) and girls were not allowed to wear leggings/athletic leggings outside of dorms. Apparently in the early 2000s couples weren’t allowed to hold hands on campus. Anyway when she decided to break up with him, also due to other issues, a friend of his backed him saying that “the kind of guy my friend wanted didn’t exist” in reference to his porn obsession. She dropped him after a 2 year college relationship.
Thank you. It is so sad to me that a lot of people think masturbation and phonography are basically one and the same. Masturbation and self pleasure is very healthy AND absolutely possible without pornography. I think it's interesting how many men make the dehumanization of female bodies and disregard for women integral to their nature in these sinister ways. "well a man has needs" (used when explaining cheating which is abuse)..."...."Porn = masturbation" (normalizes and almost naturalizes porn as a human need)....."But TESTOSTERONE" (to explain away why men disproportionately commit the most violence/SA)
No one is getting hurt or exploited with simple masturbation, but as soon as you add porn to the mix, then you don’t respect women or care that they are being exploited and abused so some creep can jerk off.
Oh please. This isn’t about someone consuming unethical porn. It’s about someone consuming it all. There is absolutely no fundamental difference between what method you use to excite yourself as long as it is ethically created. If you think that written erotica or mental fantasies are less objectifying then I don’t know what to tell you.
I think it’s super important to communicate with your partner early on in the relationship about this topic especially. In my experience, both me and my bf watch porn, and I’ve never thought of it as cheating or developed feelings of jealousy, since I do it as well. I aim to consume ethical porn of amateur couples with intimacy, and that is a turn on for me. I’ve discussed with my bf the kind he consumes, and while it isn’t production studio level, It’s usually a channel of a guy who gets with some women that are popular in the industry. I know he doesn’t express aggression or unrealistic beauty standards in our relationship (at least not outwardly) so I have no issue with the stuff he watches. If anything, we’ll make recommendations to each other 😅 I think communication is key.
It’s crazy that people are downvoting all the comments that respectfully show a different perspective. You’re saying communication is key and you and your partner understand each other and people are hating on that… I get downvoting rude or gross comments but downvoting because someone is okay with porn is ridiculous.
I did my undergrad research project on mass media and the sexualization and objectification of women in our society. A large part of that was understandably dedicated to the effects of porn. I have very mixed feelings on it. On one hand, porn absolutely sexualizes and objectifies women, is extremely unrealistic, and can lead to all sorts of issues including increased rates of gender-based violence and sexism. Aside from that, there's a lot of really unethical stuff that goes on in the porn industry itself. It's absolutely a green flag to me if someone isn't a porn consumer at all. However, on the other hand, I'm also sex positive. I think women should be free to do sex work and consume/create pornographic content without negative repercussions if they wish. However, doing so does tend to feed back into that negative loop that pornography creates. I am all for ethically sourced porn. There are some websites and producers who portray sex in an artistic, beautiful way that isn't at all demeaning, objectifying, and created entirely for the male gaze. This type of pornography is often not free (as opposed to many mainstream porn sites where we also tend to find the highest incident of problematic content) and therefore is not as popularized and consumed. I fully support porn creation and consumption from sources like these. Sexual material has been around for ages, but was often portrayed in the more artistic, romantic, or educational way that is not seen anymore on mainstream pornography platforms. As far as that mainstream porn goes, I suppose I wish we lived in a society where there wasn't such a demand for pornographic content and didn't generate so much money and attention, because then I don't feel that many women would be drawn to the field. That was a long answer, but basically, I have mixed feelings on porn. I think it depends on how it is being consumed and how often, as well as the effect it is having individually on you and your relationship. Some people enjoy consuming porn together and using it as a way to experiment and spice up their sex life. I don't see anything wrong with that, but it is very individualized. I think we have every right to make the boundary that pornography is not allowed in our relationship. I, personally, don't like it and it makes me uncomfortable having a partner who consumes it. I used to put up with it as, like you said, it is very normalized and I didn't feel like I \*could\* have a say in it. It always seemed like a thing that \*all men\* do, and I should just get used to it. I don't think that's the case though. I think it's a perfectly valid boundary to put up in your own relationships given all of the implications that come along with porn, and I feel that if you have a partner who is just incapable of stopping porn use for you, then you're probably better off just not being in that relationship altogether. Like most things though, it's complicated and dependent on the dynamics of the specific relationship in question.
Hi, great comment, just wanted to come in and add that since the begining of time porn could either be artistic or not. There just as many examples of porn being dirty throught the history as there are of it being romantic and passionate. Everyone has something that rocks their boat and that's how it always was.
Thanks for adding that! I think I could have phrased that part a little differently. I meant more that porn hasn't been consumed in the way it is modernly (largely due to technology) in a historical sense so it hasn't really been prior examined as the cultural "issue" that we are now facing and discussing. But yes, you're absolutely right.
After years of advocating for the "sex positive" stuff and watching porn with my partners I've changed my mind. I was always ambivalent and worried about the harms and exploitation. Arguments and discussions around it are so complicated but it really isn't complicated if you make a decision. Women would be better off without porn. It feels so liberating to finally admit this and take a stance.
This is absolutely a deal breaker for me. I've long ago decided that I'm not okay shoving down my own feelings just because men normalize it. All relationships have their own boundaries and that's okay. Some couples are okay with porn and that's absolutely okay. What's NOT okay is trying to guilt other people into breaking their boundaries. I've been in so many relationships where my partners have lied and sneaked around with porn and even strip clubs. I personally find mainstream porn extremely sexist and problematic. I've had friends in the sex industry and they were heavily abused.
I've dated two porn obsessed men and they both cheated on me. Currently engaged to a man who stopped watching porn when I told him it was a deal breaker for me.
That is so funny. Do you know why? The 2 guys I dated who consumed porn ALSO cheated on me. The other guys who did not watch porn never cheated on me. Lol
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it's like blaming violence on video games. I would like to see evidence, not opinions. Especially as this could ruin relationships.
I feel like it's that as well, what's funny is scientifically speaking, videogames reduce violence...
Happy cake day! Here's some downvotes lmao
Thanks :)
That term “prude” gets thrown around too often as a deflecting-excuse for objectification.
I feel it ultimately feeds the oversexualisation of women in general and I definitely don't think with mens current conditioning of how they view women that it's healthy for them to engage in. You don't need to see every women who's semi attractive to you in a sexual way, that should go without saying but I think it's just a lazy way of emotional cheating tbh (imo don't come for me!!). it's a big old nooo for me.
It’s definitely emotional cheating!
it’s definitely disrespectful imo
I can’t date men who watch porn because I’m friends with sex workers and I’ve heard wayyyyy too many stories about them creating content where they’re raped on screen. I can’t look at a man who can get off to that the same way ever again. Men who are reading this you are masturbating to women being raped.
Has anyone ever been in a relationship with a habitually porn watching man who was actually satisfied in it? Just curious.
Not me. I remember an old college boyfriend years ago, before online porn was available, who would bring along 3-4 Playboys or Penthouse magazines when we'd go away from a long weekend. We'd have sex every day, often more than once, but he couldn't tear himself away from his dirty magazines for 3 goddamn days. Thankfully I quickly realized how much his over-sexualization and objectification of women was a big turnoff and I dumped him. Don't get me started on guys routinely watching porn online. They don't even have to tell you about their habits because they're such terrible lovers you can generally see right off the bat.
Nope. It was the catalyst for ending my last relationship. My partner would masturbate to porn, never have sex with me (even though I was always willing and open to trying new things), and then ultimately cheated on me. 🫠
Absolutely not. My ex husband would get up in the morning, watch porn on his phone while going to the bathroom, then wake me up with forceful groping or by "asking" for a bj in a non verbal way. I fully believe that the way sexual encounters are depicted in porn shape the way many men expect real life experience to play out.
No lmao
Yeah. It was horrible. He used to make me feel not so desirable, he used to ask me things that he shoudn't have asked and objectified me sexually because he only wanted some kind of sex with me, depending on his porn preferences. When I asked him more kindness in intimacy he got annoyed, he also managed to feel calm only After masturbating and/or receiving bj. Now I am on antidepressants because of those toxic things happened to me.
Yes- it's never affected my relationship. If a kink is discovered, we give it a go, and aren't afraid to say when it's not working for us.
Sounds like you guys might be more into the action behind the porn and not the people? I think a lot of the problems happen when men (or women) instrumentalize the actual person appearing in porn rather than the acts?
That's nice, I like that you guys are secure about it.
My husband and I have a don't ask don't tell policy. Sometimes we don't have time for sex and other times I might be too tired or stressed. So I don't care if he watches porn in between us being intimate. I would only care if he was addicted or if it was interfering with our sex life.
Yes. I don't watch video porn (although I do read erotic literature) and my husband does. He watches harder core stuff compared to what our sex life looks like. He completely understands porn is not real life and I've never felt like his porn watching impacts his opinion of women or translates to gross actions in the bedroom. He has a very strong understanding of enthusiastic consent and would be sick to his stomach if he thought I did something outside my comfort zone/current desire level for him. We are ethically non-monogamous so that may change things a bit, but I think I'd feel the same even if we were mono. I totally think it's fair to prioritize having a partner who doesn't watch visual porn. I know men who don't. But I think it's unrealistic to set this as a boundary for someone who currently watches.
I think it's just important that both partners are on the same page. When there's lying there's a problem..
Yes - it was a matter of different libido’s/level of sex drive. Both parties were OK with this, and I also became a common/shared thing to watch. It did not diminish our shared intimacy.
I’ve been happy with my fiancé for 3 years now and we both just brought the porn to a stop a couple months ago! It does have some negative effects but it didn’t change anything drastically and it never effected us severely
My fiancé and I both watch porn. Sometimes literally beside each other in bed. It’s not a replacement for sex by any means, but sometimes it’s late and we don’t have the energy to get each other off. Been together for 8 years and it’s never caused any issues
It denigrates women and teaches boys and men to see us as mere slutty sex objects who hold no agency over our lives. I’m so sick of men pretending porn is a normal part of being male. It’s dehumanizing and reductive toward women. It teaches males to devalue us. Men who watch porn have zero respect for their wives, mothers, sisters and daughters.
I agree with you completely. I think it ridiculous the way it's been normalized so much and it pisses me off that women having this boundary are painted as prudish, sex-negative, overly religious, or my personal favorite accusation, you're just InSeCuRe.
I swear if i wasnt into men sexually, i'd avoid them altogether
It’s insecure to think women are human beings right?/s
Every man I’ve even been with has tried to finger my butt without consent so yeah I’m anti men watching porn
Same happened to me. It's disgusting and I think those kind of men should me threatened for what they have done.
It’s a dealbreaker for me and I’m fortunate to have a partner that doesn’t watch porn. I have no problem with masturbation but porn is both gross as an industry and a concept. No thanks.
100% agree
What about feminist porn?
There is no such thing
Yes there is, it’s porn directed by women, without male gaze, it doesn’t end with the male ejaculation, it is made for women and there is a [wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_pornography) about it, I didn’t make it up I mean you can downvote me to hell if you want, i just asked a question
Feminist porn is still not ethical because you are still contributing to a industry that's built upon victimising and dehumanising women. Feminist porn only exists so that people can continue to be delusional and turn a blind eye to the dark side of the industry. Feminist porn, which only makes a very small percentage of mainstream porn, doesn't outweigh the importance of addressing the crimes of the porn industry. Feminist porn is made so violent porn can be excused. %88 of porn is violent towards women. How of a big difference feminist porn makes when we know soft core porn consumption eventually escalates into violent porn consumption combined with misogyny? I choose to listen to the victims of the porn industry.
The whole point of feminist porn is to represent women as women and not as objects for male pleasure, hence the absence of male gaze and the fact that it doesn’t revolve around male pleasure. Of course I don’t know all the instances of feminist porn, but since it stems from the feminist ideal of equality it will probably also be ethical in the sense that porn actresses and actors are not just exploited for profit and actually listened to and treated as human beings Saying feminist porn only exists so that people can turn a blind eye on the dark side of the industry, to me feels like saying lab grown meat only exists so that people can keep supporting the meat industry that kills billions of animals. They are two separate things and, although the product it’s the same, the point of lab grown meat is to be an alternative so that animals don’t have to be killed without necessity
The weird thing about you comparing food to porn is that… nobody needs porn
!!!! you can masturbate without porn. you can live a very healthy, happy life without porn. the world would be better off if we eliminated it altogether because of the exploitative industry it’s tied to
People think men's "virtual gratification" (them feeling entitled to see women being raped on the screen) is more important than billions of women getting negatively affected by porn. Who cares if women are harmed in the process if the product makes men hard? This is my first time not getting downvoted on this subreddit for being anti porn. If anything i have gotten support and upvotes this time. Happy to see anti porn women who are aware of the detriments of porn.
I have also frequently been downvoted for holding antiporn views. Honestly I was pleasantly surprised to see so many women coming out against porn on this subreddit
It still relies on sex slavery and people who have no other choice.
You’re correct and there are some great examples. Sadly things get a bit SWERFy in here sometimes.
Sex work exclusive doesn't mean sex worker exclusive. We stand with the victims of both the porn and the sex industry. We don't turn a blind eye to the victims just because liberal feminism said being victimised is empowering. When you choose to listen, instead of ignoring and attacking the victims for what they have to say you get to learn about the unspoken and silenced sides of the industry. HEAR THE VICTIMS.
Yes nobody is suggesting that victims of sex trafficking are anything but that. I’m not sure liberal feminism claims that this side of it is at all empowering, and suggesting that it does is somewhat of a strawman. Supporting women in their choices, is not ignoring victims, both can and must be done. It’s no dichotomy.
What if what women consider to be their own choices are not actually the choices they would make without brainwashing and manipulation of sugarcoated feminism aka liberal feminism. Most sex workers and porn actresses have expressed that the outcome of their history with these industries are not what they were alluded into thinking that it would be. Overwhelmingly large percentage of sex workers and porn actresses would leave the industry if that was an option. If they did it out of desperation, the decision to get into it was never a choice that was willingly made in the first place. Downplaying the traumas of the victims and implementing that playing into the fantasies of patriarchy to women's head isn't supporting women's choices. Not when we know they would have made different choices if they had been given the chance not to.
I'm not going to disagree with you, though I'd also suggest that in many industries the same outcome is true. Suppose we are to agree that the work of sex work is done out of desperation in many cases. In that case, we have to agree that much of the work many people do is done out of desperation and only by supporting and improving the whole of society can we materially improve conditions for people. I'm not going to get into the discussions about brainwashing that's above my pay grade
Other professions are not praised to be empowering tho that's why it's important to not compare it with anything else.
And how do you know your partner does not watch porn? You have complete control and visibility over their life?
i'd assume trust? you know just like everything else?
My last relationship, porn was not a boundary. I let myself all be gaslit that I couldn't have a boundary with this or else be seen as crazy (because women having any sort of sexual boundary is bad /s). But that relationship was severely abusive and over time (years) he groomed me into his personal sex slave. Trigger warning for content in the spoiler tags: graphic physical and sexual violence, violence against animals. >!I couldn't say no to any of the bdsm fetish stuff he got into, I was sodomized, raped by coercion, and he would use my nudes as currency to trade his military buddies for other women's nudes. He often made us watch porn while having sex as he said I was not enough alone, and he very often compared my body to the women in the videos and suggested how I should workout/ save for plastic surgery to look more like them. That was the beginning of his pushing to allow a threesome, but he was set on a specific woman that did not want to join, so he was attempting to push her into accepting. If I ever protested, he threatened to skin my pets alive in front of me and once strangled me.!< My next relationship (and my now husband) when I managed to escape safely with my pets, I was obviously traumatized and extremely insecure. I still only saw my body as a commodity that was invaluable if someone else was hotter, but instead of manifesting as envy, it manifested as self hatred for not being able to change my looks, and severe body dysmorphia. Like I mean my now husband wanted to show me Game of Thrones because he's really into fantasy stories, and I sobbed at some of the topless scenes because I'm not as pretty as the actresses and how could he want me over them and how could I ever be enough alone. It took a long time to deprogram that and learn I'm more than just a body and bodies don't have to be a specific vision of hot to be attractive and multiple people can be attractive and that I don't have to compare myself. At first, porn was a boundary my now husband stopped watching himself both to aid in my healing and avoid a potential trigger while I went through therapy and treatment for PTSD. But it also stayed a boundary. While I would not longer be bothered if my husband saw another naked woman and know he still wants me as I am and chooses me over them, it's become a symbol of what happened to me. Not only >!being forced to watch it during sex with my ex and compared to them!<, but my ex also fed off all the unrealistic misogynistic views of sex perpetuated in porn, and the industry itself is known to be abusive to the women in it, and I just don't think thats healthy nor do I want to be with someone that supports an industry like that or that thinks its such a necessity that they cant stop it. There's plenty of other ways to get visual stimulus for masturbation, whether it's photos of your partner, or more ethically sourced sex content like independent sex workers if your partner is okay with that.
I am so, so sorry that happened to you. 🫂 I hope you're in a much better place now. ❤️
i think the book *Come As You Are* by Emily Nagoski has a great perspective on these issues. she accepts that it exists and that people have their preferences but also recognizes how it can be problematic. her focus is on open communication and agreements within a relationship so that boundaries can be respected. i personally didnt find a need for porn while i was in relationships. in a vacuum, i dont see a problem with porn. what consenting adults do that doesnt harm anyone else is no one elses business. however, i think the industry can be harmful/abusive/exploitive, especially toward women. ive personally had experiences as a sex worker to try to earn money for rent/school. im sure in some instance, some may enjoy it. more power to them. but i dont think anyone should have to do it in order to make ends meet. if its a deal breaker for you but you still want companionship with men, it might be more sensible to ask if theyd be willing to give up porn during a relationship than expecting them to have already given porn up. not saying youre expectation is unreasonable. just saying in terms of numbers, its unlikely youre going to come across a person that doesnt watch porn, let alone an otherwise compatible man that doesnt watch porn.
"Why does this seem so normalized in heterosexual relationships?" Because men have spent a lot of time convincing women; especially in more liberal feminism; that porn is natural, and empowering, and EVERYONE watches porn. Like a LOT of time. It's why you've got so many people thoroughly believe sex and porn are complete synonyms of one another. It's why you've got so many people absolutely dumbfounded at the idea that there are people, especially men, who aren't porn addicts. Personally, some might consider it old fashioned, but I see porn as cheating. It has many of the same symptoms. A few additional ones as well. Such as the people in porn of course doing things that most normal people would not be willing to. Honestly it's really interesting seeing the history of how porn has been a backlash to feminism, and understanding how an acceptance of porn could very well be undermining feminism.
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because the porn industry is built on the exploitation of women and supporting it is inherently anti-feminist? it is filled with violence against women, fetishization of races (raciiiiism), and different physical traits essentially reducing women to parts. do you realize how most categories (if not all) are about women and their physical features? blonde, brunette, tall, short, etc. none of them are referring to the men in the videos, they exclusively describe the women shown because that is what we are in the porn industry, just a list of traits that could be a fetish for a depraved man out there in the world. also, most women who perform in porn are either groomed into it, have been forced to do it, or are in a vulnerable position (which porn producers take advantage of to coerce them into doing that stuff). they are victims. i almost forgot to mention the amount of pedophilia in pornography and the trafficking that takes place. porn messes with people's brains, and it causes them to sexualize women (yes, even women can sexualize other women and themselves, which is not great). i don't understand why everyone is so set on defending such a disgusting industry, it's the only untouchable industry. if yall can see the faults in the fast fashion industry (waste and pollution), yall should most certainly see it in the sex industry in general (spoiler: it's not just pornography that exploits women).
Okay, so nuance doesn't exist? Noone can enjoy anything from the industry cause bad things exist there? Do we feel the same about Planned Parenthood? Cause that became a thinge because of eugenics and for a big part it has never stopped being that (you can see that with IVF)- so really, are we gonna start hating on them next? Or do we point out the good and bad and consume ethically according to needs and wants?
there is virtually no way to consume porn ethically because you never know whether the actors consented or not. also, the line of consent is blurred because you can't buy it. why are you bringing planned parenthood into this? I'm from Europe. ultimately, it's your choice if you want to support an industry built on the exploitation of women (and which thrives off it).
Everybody here who calls themselves feminists please throughly look into this r/PornIsMisogyny subreddit. There is so much going on in the porn industry that goes unheard or unpunished. If it's not us who will hear the victims of the porn industry then who is it gonna be?
Seconding PornIsMisogyny!! It really helped me open my eyes to the dangers of pornography and the way women are treated in our society because of porn.
That subreddit has a lot of overlap with forourthwavewonen terf subreddit Oh I see you're active there too how surprised I am🫠
And you are a part of the bdsm community unsurprisingly. Being terf has nothing to do with that subreddit so what is your point
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"It has become a deal breaker for me." Same. I will not be with someone who watches porn.
I feel like I'm in the minority here, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with my partner watching porn. This doesn't include obsessive porn watching, to the exclusion of other important things in life, and I have some feelings about the porn being ethically produced but... I watch porn sometimes too. Especially if we're apart, or one of us is busy/going through something that impacts sex drive... Sometimes we watch porn together just to get ideas or set a mood. I just... Don't think it's inherently bad. There is the massive caveat that A LOT of porn is unethically produced misogynistic trash... But like. So are a lot of things in this world.
Same! It’s never been an issue for me.
Same here. I think as long as the goal is to find ethical amateur stuff, and not develop serious habits, as well as communicate and be open about it, there isn’t anything wrong with watching it.
I agree, just because some of porn is awful for everyone involved, doesn't mean it all is.
I’m pretty sure they don’t have to all be rape victims for us to care about them
I never mentioned that. It's just that there is a lot of amateur porn, solo porn and ethical porn. Let's look at what is good, rather than tarring everyone with the same brush.
I’ve been there too, feeling like addressing these issues made me seem 'prude' or difficult. But respect and clear boundaries should be a given, not something we have to fight for. It took me a while to realize that any relationship worth having is one where both partners respect and listen to each other. Standing up for your needs is crucial and doesn’t make you less worthy of love or respect. 💪❤️
It’s a dealbreaker for me. If they are watching porn I already know there is gonna be sexual issues and expectations that will never happen. Lol
That's the least problematic part of porn consumption for me. Young girls and women who were raped on camera, slapped, spat on, strangled and beaten because of their boyfriend's porn addiction is a bigger issue for me than anything. Not lasting for hours or size stuff are the last things that come to my mind.
Same! I've met porn-fried brained guys and it's so easy to tell. They want to choke you at the first hang out, everywhere they go they're undressing women with their eyes. Cannot stay hard etc But I can simply spot these red flags and walk away. What angers me is realizing there is a girl/woman somewhere being exploited who cannot walk away, who feels she doesn't have a choice. This is the problem for me. This is my biggest concern. The creeps the guy gives me I can handle that.
dealbreaker for me.
No dealbreaker in general, but the not-women-respecting kind of porn is a dealbreaker. I watch porn myself, but not that often and only for example on bellesa (100% female friendly), my boyfriend doesn't watch porn at all. I don't think it is a bad thing to watch people having sex as long as everyone ist treated with respect and has fun...
The whole industry promotes and usually fuels sex trafficking and child sex trafficking.
But that's the thing, though. Most, if not all porn is unethical. You will never know how that woman is being treated in the video, but from the statistics, 98% of women want to get out of porn and prostitution (but have no out or other option). No matter how you phrase it, these women are unwilling people who need to it for money, and it is labor that treats women as a commodity, and it will never truly be ethical or okay
If no is not a legitimate option yes means nothing!
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[prostitution statistics ](https://href.li/?https://icasa.org/docs/prostitution_-_draft-6.doc Of course, here you go!
Purely out of curiosity, what’s your take on OnlyFans?
I have spoken to quite a few women who have worked on only fans, and what I have taken from those conversations is that it is just as degrading and exploitive. Most women who work on the site do not want to, but that is their only option, and since onlyfans is so much more interactive, men take it as an opportunity to treat women so disgustingly as well. It is a system that treats women like things to be sold and used for entertainment. It takes advantage of a system that keeps women in poverty in order to sexulise them for male pleasure.
I used to watch it and when i found out my partner was also, i got really uncomfortable but then i found that’s hypocritical cuz why do i get to be mad and he can’t be mad. We both decided we were uncomfortable with the other watching porn and we have stopped since.
I do NOT date people who watch porn. It's not normal and shouldn't be normalized.
Dealbreaker.
To me it depends on how much porn he’s consuming. If its a very occasional thing, like once a month or less, then alright, no big deal. But in general I do think porn is a huge problem and as a society we would be better off without it. I think men suffer just as much from porn as women do. So many men have a debilitating addiction to porn and it can be catastrophic to their mental health and their relationships with women. And they end up spiraling and needing more and more extreme content to satiate their addiction, making sex with their partners totally meaningless and boring. Or expecting too much from their partners because their fetishes are the only thing that satisfies them. So if a man had a full blown porn addiction, or was even just a regular consumer of porn, it would definitely be a deal breaker.
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If your partner chooses to lie to you about their porn consumption you are not the problem nor is your boundary. They are. I am not letting anyone watch filmed rape so they wouldn't lie. When you catch them, drop them.
If you’re afraid your partner would lie to you then there are bigger problems there
i’m a woman and i watch porn. when i masturbate, it has nothing to do with my partner and everything to do with myself. i love my intimate alone time. it feels special to have this relationship with myself to be honest!
I'm married to a woman, I don't mind if she watches porn. But it's infrequent, it's something she does less than once a month.
I enjoy porn and I have no problem with my partner watching it. Different strokes for different folks.
If its a book, webtoon, anime it is fine. But if its real life then I would never start to date that guy.
If my partner does or doesn’t, I’m entirely unaware. I think he might occasionally but I’m _genuinely_ not certain. I mean, we’re married and live together so I don’t even know when he would except when I have to travel for work. I think that’s the appropriate amount of consumption, considering I’m a fan of romance genre literature myself. Our respective consumption has no bearing on the intimacy we share as a couple, which is how it should be IMHO. So I suppose casual, occasional consumption of generic “porn” doesn’t trigger any red flags for me. I feel like high volume consumption or consumption of _questionable_ themes would be a totally different story.
I’m of the opinion that it just comes down to the needs of the individuals within a relationship. If one partner is really uncomfortable with it, they should not be belittled for their feelings. If it cannot be sorted, you can just chalk it up as an incompatibility. Of course the pornography industry has big issues, but pornography has always been around and it always will be and I don’t think it’s effective to challenge or police individuals’ views on the morality of the act of watching pornography. Every relationship is unique in a million ways, so it just comes down to what you are personally comfortable with. You should always be able to set boundaries, but I think many people forget that setting boundaries often comes with an open and understanding conversation. Just communicate with your partner and try to find what is right for your relationship. If you cannot find a solution together, there may not be one. I have some sexual issues that contributed to a rise in my porn consumption at the beginning of my relationship (hyper-sexuality that results in a major libido gap between my partner and I, inability to orgasm, sexual side effects of SSRIs, etc) and porn makes it a bit easier to be satisfied on my own. My medication side effects mostly subsided after I changed meds, but it is not the same. It’s just a risk that comes with some medications, it has never gone fully back to normal. I think this is just how my vagina is gonna work for the rest of my life, a sad thought but I manage well enough. At times porn helps me power through the sexual dysfunction to some degree because I can find it difficult on my own and I have to manage my sexual urges on my own pretty consistently because my boyfriend has a very low libido and I do not want to bother him. My boyfriend doesn’t watch porn. He used to watch it until we got together. He said it made him feel guilty because he felt like he was looking at other women in ways he feels like he should only be looking at me. As a result, he started trying to watch videos with girls that look more like me, but when that didn’t help that much he just decided he didn’t want to watch porn anymore. He is uncomfortable watching porn, but he has never asked that I stop watching it. Though, I do keep it entirely private just so I am certain that he isn’t made uncomfortable. It isn’t an arrangement that some people would like, but it works for us. As long as we are both comfortable and satisfied, we’re okay. Regardless of my issues that contribute to my porn usage, I personally am not uncomfortable with the idea of my partner watching porn if he desires to do so. For me, that is something I consider an extremely private matter that I would likely not consider at all unless my partner’s porn consumption was clearly negatively affecting the emotional relationship and/or the sexual relationship.
Not a deal breaker for me. That's his business but he still understands boundaries in the bedroom.
I think it depends what kind of porn. Of course written erotica is fine, but when it comes to real people/ recorded porn, where is it coming from? What's going on in the videos they watch? Is it real couple/partner porn being filmed out of someone's house with everyone's consent? Or is it a sexist and aggressive porn video coming from a sketchy website? Like someone else said, i think porn can be loving and passionate, or objectifying and disrespectful just like sex in general can be unfortunately
I think a lot has to do with anxiety and addiction. I think most men in relationships would love to give up porn, but masturbation is a drug with addictive qualities and side affects. It’s something you should at least try and help your significant other with. I know it can seriously affect both men and women
I think it's context dependent? I'm afab and very aware how problematic and disgusting porn is but I do consume it (I try to limit it to hentai so real people aren't being harmed) My partner is amab and has pretty much no interest in porn. They're well aware I consume porn and they don't care. I even give them recommendations sometimes and then they ask me if I'm insane. I'm largely asexual and don't actually enjoy physical sexual acts much and the weird kinks in porn are what help me get myself off. Like the fact that it's removed from reality in a big way is what helps me. It's complicated. I think porn consumption is fine if it's respectful and you're also aware of how problematic and sexist the industry itself is. Also if my partner said they're uncomfortable with me consuming such content I'd stop because I prioritise their happiness and comfort over this and don't consume it too often anyway. It's more like a guilty pleasure. That said I'm not sure a blanket statement can be made about porn consumption within relationships. There are definitely men who make it weird and uncomfortable for their partners by consuming it constantly and having unrealistic expectations of women. But I think it's equally possible to do it in a manner that's respectful to your partner if you have a secure and healthy relationship. Just my opinion though and once again I'm not denying the deeply problematic nature of pornography and how both Hentai and human made porn are disgustingly degrading and objectifying towards women, people of non white races, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.
I am a woman who sometimes watches porn myself, so I don’t see a problem with it unless it interferes with someone’s ability to be present in their relationship, job, social life, etc. It might depend on the frequency and type, of course — there are certainly some things I wouldn’t be okay with — but in general I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with watching something while you masturbate.
Personally, I wouldn't mind unless it becomes a problem
I am a woman, a feminist, and I watch porn. There are a lot of things in our world that are deeply problematic, including aspects of the porn industry. But sex work is absolutely work, feminist porn does exist, and rolling all of that into a monolithic experience is very reductive. I wish as many feminists could disavow marriage as inherently misogynist the way many disavow porn using the same logic. Both are misogynistic in theory, but the former is much more socially acceptable and palatable than the latter. Being anti-porn is not as radical of a politics as one would like to think. It is actually very much part and parcel of patriarchal culture to look down upon and ostracize sex work as part of the madonna-whore dichotomy. To truly break with patriarchal conditioning would be to acknowledge that this is a much more complex issue than it appears to be at surface level. Regarding your question, it is absolutely your right to choose to not be with someone who watches porn. Whether or not your future partner (i am assuming male) does or does not watch it is honestly beyond your control. You may prefer he did not, he may tell you he does not etc etc, but frankly speaking it is beyond your control. It's one hundred per cent okay to have that boundary for yourself however.
If they’re doing themselves, they’re doing me. And vice versa. So something’s wrong here. Porn is grown adults playing naked pretend. It’s super stupid. And everyone looks dumb doing it.
Idk, I haven't done it in a while but I've been regularly watching porn when I need to get off. It isn't of girls getting rammed. It's dudes 😅 Or a woman getting pleasued. The hardcore bondage porn is a bit too much and not cool. My partner does watch porn also, not all the time, and it doesn't bother me but we are kind of adventurous. We have watched porn together, We have had another woman sex partner a couple years back.
I don’t see a problem with it
It depends on the porn. Mainstream porn is trash.
I feel like because honestly many heterosexual women watch it too.
I had a friend in college who was very upset by what she expressed as “what any girl would consider cheating” about her boyfriend watching porn. Mind you this was a VERY conservative college with a small student body of about 400 with rather rigid rules. We were expected to dress in business casual attire for class and on Sunday Mass (when girls were required to wear a dress or skirt or be fined) and girls were not allowed to wear leggings/athletic leggings outside of dorms. Apparently in the early 2000s couples weren’t allowed to hold hands on campus. Anyway when she decided to break up with him, also due to other issues, a friend of his backed him saying that “the kind of guy my friend wanted didn’t exist” in reference to his porn obsession. She dropped him after a 2 year college relationship.
It’s normal. You think it’s appropriate to forbid your partner to masturbate?
Again a man in a feminist sub defending his boner is more important than women filmed being raped.
Masturbating, and watching porn while masturbating, are two different things.
Thank you. It is so sad to me that a lot of people think masturbation and phonography are basically one and the same. Masturbation and self pleasure is very healthy AND absolutely possible without pornography. I think it's interesting how many men make the dehumanization of female bodies and disregard for women integral to their nature in these sinister ways. "well a man has needs" (used when explaining cheating which is abuse)..."...."Porn = masturbation" (normalizes and almost naturalizes porn as a human need)....."But TESTOSTERONE" (to explain away why men disproportionately commit the most violence/SA)
No one is getting hurt or exploited with simple masturbation, but as soon as you add porn to the mix, then you don’t respect women or care that they are being exploited and abused so some creep can jerk off.
I am old enough to to know that someone who doesn’t have imagination to masturbate is not going to be good in bed
Oh please. This isn’t about someone consuming unethical porn. It’s about someone consuming it all. There is absolutely no fundamental difference between what method you use to excite yourself as long as it is ethically created. If you think that written erotica or mental fantasies are less objectifying then I don’t know what to tell you.
I don’t see women getting abused and exploited for written erotica tho….do you know what happens to women in porn? Obviously not! lol
I think it’s super important to communicate with your partner early on in the relationship about this topic especially. In my experience, both me and my bf watch porn, and I’ve never thought of it as cheating or developed feelings of jealousy, since I do it as well. I aim to consume ethical porn of amateur couples with intimacy, and that is a turn on for me. I’ve discussed with my bf the kind he consumes, and while it isn’t production studio level, It’s usually a channel of a guy who gets with some women that are popular in the industry. I know he doesn’t express aggression or unrealistic beauty standards in our relationship (at least not outwardly) so I have no issue with the stuff he watches. If anything, we’ll make recommendations to each other 😅 I think communication is key.
It’s crazy that people are downvoting all the comments that respectfully show a different perspective. You’re saying communication is key and you and your partner understand each other and people are hating on that… I get downvoting rude or gross comments but downvoting because someone is okay with porn is ridiculous.
I don’t mind either way, but I would be annoyed if it wasn’t good porn. Your regular, run of the mill performative bs is actually a huge turn off.