Pornography and relationships......

[orchidia.livejournal.com]

Hi, all. I am a 27 year old female who has been married and divorced once, and then, I married again. I have never really taken on any 'titles' to my points of view. I have strong feelings about things, but I have never classified them into a group of other's beliefs. I have never found one system of beliefs that fit everything I think and feel, so I don't bother trying to find one. I don't believe in God or any spiritual entity, but I do have my own ideas about morality.

I am curious how different people in this community might feel about pornography. I am curious if one feels it is okay at a certain point in life when one is not married or in a relationship. I am curious about one's feelings of its use inside a marriage with or without a spouse who consents to it. I am curious how one thinks their spouse should react to it. I am curious if one thinks it affects how he/she looks at him/herself. I am curious if one thinks it affects how he/she looks at others. I am curious how one thinks it changes their expectations in real sexual relationships. I am curious if one thinks it creates intimacy issues inside a relationship.

There are many other curiosities I can come up with, and if you are curious about my own viewpoint, you can read my own personal journal entry on it, which was the last entry I made in my own journal.

I am curious about this, obviously that I am posting it in this community, in a male viewpoint, as pornography is mainly geared towards men, and I believe them to be the main consumers of pornographic material.

Comments

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

I have a very "live and let live" relationship with people & porn. If you enjoy it, I don't see anything wrong with it.

Inside a relationship, I would almost want to separate one's identity from his porn, just because they're not necessarily related. If he needs certain "elements" within porn to turn him on, it doesn't make him a bad person. I think that having porn with those elements might allow him to keep them secret, if he's ashamed of it. I think it could create intimacy issues, but I also think that his partner could try to non-judgmentally accommodate them within their own sex life. Dan Savage has written a few things about this in his column "Savage Love." I can't find them right now, but I think they're worth checking out.

[orchidia.livejournal.com]

I would be intersted in reading the article that you are talking about. I will see if I can find it online using those keywords.

This cannot be more obviuously geared towards a current situation that I am going through. This has come up more than once in my life.

This is coming about due to the fact that I married a man who lied to me telling me that he did not use, like or need pornography. All this was on the table before we said our "I do's". I had already been through this with my first husband whom I found looking at child pornography, scrotal inflation, sex with amputated limbs, sex with anorexics, sex with animals - you name it.

I have no problem with masterbation. I think it is a good thing on many levels. I actually like fantasising about my husband masterbating. That is what I do when I am without him and feeling sexual. I fantasise about him.

Unfortunately, I have been doing many different things, all that I am capable of. I am not a missionary-only girl. I was doing other interesting things until it actually caused me some health problems - I am sure you can imagine what that is.

I am finding a husband who is obviously not satisfied or excited by what I am doing. Maybe, he doesn't like what I look like. Or, he would not have risked his marriage to go out and find what he needed/wanted in pornography. I just don't know. He isn't telling me anything.

You must have trust in marriage, and after this, I fear I will not be able to trust him. He should have been honest about this before we got married, as it is a seriously sensitive issue for me after what occured in my first marriage.

I also believe that if he is capacble of lying to me and hiding this, he might also be capable of making other decisions and hiding them from me, such as an affair. If I cannot trust him to my feelings, how can I trust him with my body?

Just to let you know, I am not trying to pass judgement on anyone else and their own personal boudries set up within their own relationships. I do uderstand that for many couples, it is all fine and good. What I have a hard time understanding is that I was honest and upfront, and my spouse was not.

Not only did he not tell me that this was an obvious necessity in his life, he did not communicate his feelings about it. He didn't before, and he hasn't now. He still hasn't told me much that might help me understand. The only thing I get out of him is "I don't know". That answer isn't helping me resolve this issue. I need to understand. Maybe I can accept it - who knows?

I am aware that I have an extreme point of view on the subject, and for all the other views and values I have or don't have, it is rather odd that I have a problem when it comes to this issue. I am aware of that.

...........

[mediaprophet.livejournal.com]

"risked his marriage to go out and find what he needed/wanted in pornography"

Do you seriously think porn would be a reason to leave him? If not, then it's not a risk. Lies are another thing, entirely; on the other hand, since porn is very taboo, a lot of people are very uncomfortable talking about it. He may be evading and hiding because he's embarassed, not because he wants to decieve you. Trust is a two-way street; he has to trust that you will not make him feel bad if he talks about the porn. That means you have to talk about it in a positive way, avoiding negative terms and closed or disapproving body language. A therapist will do these things with you, so that may help.

The tension from your feelings of disconnect and lack of intimacy due to your feelings of mistrust may make him MORE likely to seek alternative outlets for his desires (But he seems like the kind to watch porn instead of dog around on you, which is good! That should make you want to trust him more!).

"I thought that within time, I would begin to see an inner person. Either he is not allowing me to know his inner self, or there just isn't one.... I am never getting to see a soft underbelly, the vulnerable 'I need you' side."

He sounds like a typical masculine male. Men express their emotions differently than women. When a woman expresses emotional pain, she cries, talks, screams, sulks and presents a host of nonverbal cues. When a man expresses emotional pain, he drinks, fights, becomes irritable or critical, becomes absorbed in a hobby or work, and perhaps takes stupid risks (like DUI and drugs). This is because men are supposed to be masculine, and masculine people don't cry, talk about their feelings, or otherwise become visibly upset (other than angry). Masculine people also don't express joy as easily, so watch out for that, too. Latino men, by the way, tend to be very VERY high on masculinity scales. His family, his father, are probably just as stoic as he is, or moreso.

That has almost nothing to do with pornography. The pornography issue is just an instantiation of the transnational gender relations that happen to be a factor in your marriage.

Read Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus or get really deep into gender sociology, or women's studies, or men's studies, or gender psychology. I'd recommend the book.

[orchidia.livejournal.com]

The most important issue for me is that pornography had long since been discussed before we got married. I said what I thought about it, as I thought he said what he thought about it, too.

It has been a serious issue in my life, where I was exposed to 'not-so-friendly' pornography before ever being given to chance to see 'friendly' pornography. It has, obviously, deeply affected my perspectives on pornography. I cannot accept pornography within a relationship without relating it back to myself, my spouse and what my spouse must think of me. What crazy things are going to come to my table? One never knows. And you would have to be understanding of how I could feel that way after finding "child pornography, scrotal inflation, sex with amputated limbs, sex with anorexics, sex with animals - you name it" on my home computer and from a man that you never would have guessed was interested in those things.

I did trust him. I trusted him with myself, and I trusted him with my son. That makes it even uglier. I trusted him until I asked to borrow his car the other day. I was looking through the back floorboard for some cd's and pulled a little black bag from under the passenger seat. It was empty DVD cases. So where were the DVD's?

They were in our closet, in a box, easy enough for my 10 year old son to reach - let alone me. This is a whole 'nother issue.

Not only did he do something that I thought we had long discussed and it left me feeling lied to among many other things, he left this material in a closet that he knows my son snoops through on a regular basis. He can make that choice for himself regardless of me approving of it, as he did, but he also made a choice for my son. One that I obviously do not take lightly.

You know, I have tried very hard through this relationship not to view him as a Latino male. Stereotyping is something I try to avoid at all costs. Should we say 'if the shoe fits, where it'? I have never really liked that saying. He does have some masculine behaviours that seem over exhagerated to me, being an American female - and now placing a cultural label on myself.

I will tell you that he has allowed me to and understood when I explained to him that getting out of his car to confront someone because they cut him off in traffic is not a positive behaviour in American terms. I also got him to understand that beating other men up over me isn't a good signal to me either. I explained that in his culture, it was probably considered manly. In this culture, you are considered less of a man by women when you don't have control of yourself.

I have seen his entire family cry and multiple times. Everytime they go to the airport to drop one or the other off, they cry - his sister, brothers, father and mother. What also hurts is that he cries when he takes his family to the airport, but he doesn't cry for me.

I'm sorry. I just feel hurt, lied to, distrusted and disrespected on multiple levels at this moment in my life, which all makes me feel 'unloved'. I am very appreciative of everyone commenting, whether it is to agree with me or not. I didn't come here to look for people to agree with me. I came here for a different perspective than my own.

Everything that has been said in this thread has given me something to think about, and I appreciate that.

*I have heard of the book that you speak about, but I must tell you that in my life, I have only read two books from front to back, when I was a teenager - Siddhartha and Damien. I am a non-fiction sort-of person, and though I guess you would consider the book that you speak of as being 'non-fiction', I just reference books and don't ever actually read them in entirity - my mistake in life. I like articles, though.*

[orchidia.livejournal.com]

.........

I am going to be asking my husband if we can see a couselor together. I am hoping that he will agree to do this and not get even more upset about the situation. I want to see a counselor not just because I think there is something wrong with my husband but because I am aware that there may be something wrong with me and my perspectives.

I want to feel like a whole person and as if I have a whole relationship. I also want to feel like my husband is whole person - which is another problem, not relating to pornography.

I need the feelings out on the table, and my husband has never been good with talking about his feelings or thoughts in general. He is not a man of philosophy. He seems intelligent with decisions that he makes in life generally, but when it comes to in depth thought about religion, marriage, love, children, social issues, culture, diet, ways of life, I am sad to say that he is lacking.

This issue of porn has brought out some potentially bigger issues in our relationship, as you can see. I knew that I was marrying a man that just lived life without much thought to its meaning, but I never realised that it would become an issue in our relationship in terms of affection, trust and communication. Maybe I was being unfair in marrying someone who could not feed me in terms of conversation and intellectual stimulation. I knew that, and I accepted the shell of a shallowness and superficiality that makes up what he finds to be important in life - cars, clothes, money. I can be those things, as well. I am multi-faceted.

I hope I am not sounding insulting. It sounds as if I am saying that my husband has no emotion, thoughts or feelings about much of anything, but unfortunately, from my perspective, that is what is being 'communicated' to me. I thought that within time, I would begin to see an inner person. Either he is not allowing me to know his inner self, or there just isn't one.

I am never getting to see a soft underbelly, the vulnerable 'I need you' side.

*Realise, that for the last three paragraphs, I am no longer talking about pornography*

I don't know what else to say. I am hoping that we can go to a counselor, and that I am wrong on everything - EVERYTHING. I would love to be wrong. I am open to anything, but what I need most is a husband who can communicate with me. The last thing I need is to find more things that he is just not sharing with me.

I need him to be open and honest. I thought I was getting at least honesty. To top the lack of emotion and communication with dishonesty is adding insult to injury.

He now seems even more self-absorbed and selfish to me than he ever did before. Selfishness can come in the form of feeling like you don't have to explain yourself to anyone or communicate your own personal feelings to anyone. Shyness can be selfishness, but believe me, he is not shy in many things that he talks about or to whom he speaks about them with.

I can accept selfishness but not to this extent. We are all selfish, but there has to be something, somewhere that allows others around you who are important to you to feel as if you would be willing to put yourself out for them.

I am trying to understand this pornography issue because I would like to move on to bigger problems - problems that I think my husband doesn't even understand the concept of. When I have tried to bring up things that I am talking about here, he looked at me pretty blankly. I thought it might be a language barrier at first. Now, I am not so sure. His English is near perfect, now, and it has been for about 3 years.

My husband is a Catholic-Venezuelan, by the way.

[firecat]

A relationship counselor seems like a good idea. Um, if I were your husband and knew you were so dissatisfied with my mind, it would definitely strengthen any barrier I felt about being intimate and vulnerable with you. Good luck.