h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

During a random chat at work it seems some of the people I share an office with believe that if their financee watched porn they would consider that to be to infidelity.

My repsonse was.

1.

2. No it isn't.

3. He probably watches porn anyway and is just really good at hiding it.

I kept opinion 3 to myself...

I wish to plead the fifth amendment.

B

You know, you can go blind doing that.

I think I may have stumbled into a den of innuendo that is too labyrinthine and complex even for me to get out of.

B

I'm being informed by L that "it depends". Better delete my search history just in case*.







*This is a joke. I obviously use incognito browsing. What do you think this is? 2002?

Any women wish to comment?

Sure, I'll comment.

I don't personally watch porn, not that I find it bothersome, I just don't bother for whatever reason. But I certainly wouldn't consider it cheating if I did. Nor would I consider it cheating were my husband to watch. Which I assume he does sometimes, perhaps even frequently.

I guess I'd only consider porn watching to be "cheating" if one person were to get all of their sexual fulfillment from porn at the expense of having any sex with his/her partner.

I'll add that it's not that I've *never* watched porn, because I have. I've also been to burlesque shows (with my husband) and nudie bars (with a bunch of male colleagues)- at one of which I got a free lap dance.

I wouldn't consider it cheating. Often we'll watch stuff together, but I think either of us is comfortable with the idea of the other watching or reading it.

If it became an "instead of" rather than "in addition to", then I could see how it might become an issue.

>> If it became an "instead of" rather than "in addition to"

Does that happen? Isn't that like giving up on eating your dinner in favour of watching Masterchef and chewing on your toenails?

'Isn't that like giving up on eating your dinner in favour of watching Masterchef and chewing on your toenails?'

Pump that sentence up to 60,000 words and you've got yourself a smash success of a diet book!

Porn can become an addiction, especially if you and your partner share different tastes in sex, and one party feels they don't get what they want/need from the other. But I'd say there that the porn is a symptom of poor communication, and an example if why not having sex before marriage is irresponsible.

It doesn't bother me in the slightest, but. I would like to know in order to prevent the above.

No I wouldn't consider it cheating

It would depend on your partner's point of view, not your own.

I've got no problem with it, although as someone said, if a partner was more interested in getting revved up with porn than their partner they've been with for 30 years then that would be an issue.

To the subject line: no. Next question.

To engage a little more fully... if you are bothered by your partner watching porn, try using your brain for a moment and asking why they're doing that. They clearly have some sexual mojo going on that you are, for whatever reason, not satisfying. At this point, you have a number of choices:

1. Start satisfying them. Common sense would suggest that this would be the approach which would please you both the most. Bafflingly, it hardly ever seems to occur to people to try this one.
2. Start whining about it. This is, in my experience, the most common approach, which baffles me because I can't understand why any adult would consider it a constructive tactic or think for a moment that it would end well.
3. Ignore it. Also popular, but probably unsustainable. Usually ends up turning into option 2.

The question becomes even more ridiculous if the porn in question is something randomly selected off the internet featuring people you don't know and have never met, rather than, say, to take an entirely hypothetical example which isn't in any way connected to anything that has ever happened to anyone I know and definitely not me, home-made pr0n featuring the viewer and a previous girlfriend. Even in that ENTIRELY HYPOTHETICAL case, however, the options boil down to the three listed above, and if you haven't got the sense to see that option (1) is the only sensible one, you probably shouldn't be in the relationship, or possibly any relationship involving sex.

I'm not entirely comfortable with porn. I imagine that my partner watches porn occasionally and I wouldn't consider this cheating but I don't want to know about it.

The argument that a person is watching porn because they are not satisfied and therefore the logical argument is that the partner should start satisfying them to prevent them watching porn is more or less what I don't like about porn.

It objectifies sex, relationships and women.

"the partner should start satisfying them to prevent them watching porn"

You don't propose a realistic alternative to the three options I presented, though.

Nobody I know watches porn for the quality of the script or the acting or the special effects. They watch porn because they have a sexual appetite that isn't being satisfied by a partner. Any partner they might have can choose to ignore their choice of stimulus, or do what they can to provide that stimulus themselves, or just whine and moan and nag about it without doing anything constructive.

You say it "objectifies sex". No, it doesn't. MEN objectify sex. You might like to pretend that they do not. You might like to wish that they did not. You might like to whine and moan and nag about the unarguable fact that they do, always have, and always will. If you do, you'll hardly be the first. But frankly, those who bleat about it should reflect whether they would prefer their partner to not be using porn, and instead seeking stimulation from more willing partners out in the real world.

I think it really depends on what you mean by "cheating on". If, for example, your partner and you are fundamentalist christians who agree that such things are bang out of order, then yes. You're "cheating" on her/him, because you're hiding something. On the other hand, if your partner doesn't give a shake whether you watch porn or not, then no. You aren't "cheating".

I think "cheating on" is the thing that needs to be defined, rather than "porn" - which is the word most of the responses have homed in on thus far.

Who mentioned 'Browser History'?

Incognito!

Actually, I was in fits when Microsoft was running TV ads for IE version whatever-it-is. One of it's features was the equivalent of Incognito...'So you can buy surprise presents for your partner!'

I don't think that everyone who uses porn is doing so because they are unsatisfied with their partner....

(citation, personal correspondance which I'm not willing to reveal)...