Is watching porn totally normal for guys?

[dogmama]

Just looking for some advice here. A couple days ago I caught my husband watching porn on the computer, and he quickly pulled his pants up and apologized profusely. I was totally shocked and half asleep because I had just come in to see why he was still awake at 2am. I was upset because I have asked him a few times if he watches porn, and he's always said no. He now says he didn't think I'd approve, so he lied. The lying bothers me a lot, and the porn bothers me a little, but I'm not sure why. Maybe it's prudish, but I just find it a little gross, and I wonder why he has to resort to it. We have sex pretty much whenever he wants, although there was a period after I had my son that it didn't happen that often. He says that's when it started, and he only does it occasionally, like every couple weeks. He is not proud of himself for doing it, and says now that he'll stop. I just can't help but wonder what else he's lying about (he swears there's nothing else), but mostly I want to know if the porn thing is totally normal for guys? I just can't get that image of him naked sitting at the desk out of my head.

[Ross_K]

Yeah it's definatley normal.

 

Although if a guy has a sex partner I really can't understand why he'd want to look at porn when he can have the real thing.

[kellbell]

Hi there and welcome to eNotalone!

 

Yes, IMO it is normal for men to watch and look at porn. Men tend to be stimulated visually so watching or looking at porn is normal. What is not normal as with anything else, if it starts to hinder your relationship or if he using it as a subsitute for sex.

 

Perhaps you expressed your distaste about porn in the past and did not realize it, perhaps prompting him to believe you would not approve. I would talk to him about it. The fibbing is what bothered you the most and that having and honest relationship is important to you.

[ehm doubleyou]

Hi dogmama.....

 

I would not be too hard on him, I am sure he was embarrassed enough when you caught him with his pants down....and as kellbell mentioned, us guys are very visually stimulated...If there is one lie in the world that should not be taken serious that a guy lies about....porn would be it .... why? because most guys love watching it and a lot of women are against it.

 

Guys watching porn is like watching your dog rub itself against a dead fish in excitement to get the dead fish scent on itself. Sure it looks disgusting to us...but to the dog, its heaven. I really would not worry about it to tell you the truth...I myself will still look at porn from time to time....I do have a girlfriend, and she does not know as of yet that I view it, but the reason I do view it and masterbate to it is because...sometimes I just want a quick fix...I do not want the foreplay or even pleasing my girlfirends needs....I just want a quick fix to release some pressure so to speak....clean myself up and be done with it satisfying my needs. Thats all it is...It is great that you let him have sex with you pretty much whenever....which I am sure he respects...but all guys need that special time alone to do their own business with or without a girlfriend/wife

 

Its not about wanting to have sex with the particular person on the screen....not at all...its just there to stimulate our visual needs. So if you are gonna talk to him about it....what you should really ask him is what it does for him and not as much as what it does for you seeing him look at it. There is no reason your man should feel bad about this cause if you do....he will hide it even more....let him open up to you about it by asking the right questions and not the ones that will make him feel bad about himself.

[thegirl_00]

Yea, porn is extremely normal for men AND women. I look at porn often and i have a boyfriend.

Fact: porn is the most popular thing downloaded on the internet

[Ross_K]

Wow, some women like watching porn?

[kellbell]

Yes they do!

[thegirl_00]

haha yea, i watch more porn then any guy iv ever dated does.... its like an obession for me lmao! but none of my boyfriend(s) cared/care and find it hillarious and definitly encourage it.

[Ross_K]

So how common is this? Aren't most women into erotic stories and are turned off by visual porn?

[dogmama]

Thanks for your help, ehmdoubleyou. I thought it was probably true that it is a natural guy thing, and I do know that some girls like it. I think it probably started at a low point in our sex life and then became habit as a tension release. We have been having some difficulties in our marriage (but not sexual - that is our number one way to makeup!), so I think it's all connected. We will talk more about it tonight because I told him I just want to understand a little more about it.

[thegirl_00]

Maybe some are, I don't have many friends who are girls so it's hard for me to compare.

I know a lot of girls aren't open about the fact that they look at porn though and are ashamed of it, but i laugh about it and am very open. Sometimes girls wont want to tell their boyfriend they look at porn because they don't want THEM to look at it because they get jealous. Which I personally wouldn't get jealous over. But if girls do get jealous over it then it wouldn't hurt to ask if they stop because everyone has different levels of jealousy.

[AntiLove_SuperStar]

Porn is vile and degrading in my humble opinion. Sexuality is an awesome thing that we have, let's not cheapen it. That finally clicked for me after years of watching it and I prefer to be emotionally faithful to my partner. (I consider it cheating, although I appreciate people have different views).

 

To say porn is natural is like saying macdonalds is natural. As in...visual stimulation is natural, eating meat is natural, but NOT in those forms. Abhorrant.

[thegirl_00]

(I consider it cheating, although I appreciate people have different views).

Would it be concidered cheating if you looked at porn but your partner didn't care?

[AntiLove_SuperStar]

To me, it would. I would feel bad. I would feel as though Id cheated myself out of a mentally monogamous relationship and gone against my principles. And I believe that on some level everyone cares about porn, its just that a lot of people have been trained to think its OK.

 

Fascinating - huh - topic.

[Ross_K]

Porn is vile and degrading in my humble opinion. Sexuality is an awesome thing that we have, let's not cheapen it. That finally clicked for me after years of watching it and I prefer to be emotionally faithful to my partner. (I consider it cheating, although I appreciate people have different views).

 

To say porn is natural is like saying macdonalds is natural. As in...visual stimulation is natural, eating meat is natural, but NOT in those forms. Abhorrant.

 

Nah, I dont agree with that.

[AntiLove_SuperStar]

OK. I don't agree with the nuclear arms race either. Peace out

[Ross_K]

OK. I don't agree with the nuclear arms race either. Peace out

 

Neither do I. Peace.

[thegirl_00]

Yea i'v heard about a few people who think that porn is a form of cheating, but i have never heard ONE man think so. It just depends on your beliefs, or the way you look at it.

Come to think of it though I can honestly only think of one girl off the top of my head who looks at porn and she was a lezbian lol. So many I'm just one of a kind.

[thegirl_00]

Haha, nuclear arms race? Common, lets stay on topin here lol

[Day_Walker]

Pornography can be exactly what people want it to be, it can be sensual and erotic or it can be highly questionable in nature, such is the variety that pornography represents.

Pornography is a medium which protrays fantasy, and they can get pretty explicit. Commonly what happens with pornography is that people want to legislate taste into a medium which is pretty much open to anything. To say that pornography is disgusting seems to be a subjective argument but you are entitled to have it. I believe that pornography can be what you want it to be.

[Ross_K]

If someone thinks porn is bad, then surely shouldn't doing the real thing be way way worse?

 

And no one tell me that porn ain't like real sex, a lot of people like doing all sorts of crazy stuff. I know I would anyway.

[ehm doubleyou]

your welcome dogmama ...when talking to him tonight about it ....try and have an open mind about it....I assure you, your man is not looking at porn because he does not love you...just ask him questions like what it does for him...you may open up some things about him that you did not know about and it may lead to some sexy fun with you....Just try your hardest to not make him feel bad about it....men masterbate....its a given ....to have something to visually look at to masterbate is great...and sometimes to hear the moaning of a woman (if watching a movie)which drives me nuts all the time and helps me to release quicker lol.

 

AntiLove_SuperStar

I "kind of" respect your views on it ...but to say that you consider watching porn cheating is a step too far....So if you boyfriend was masterbating to a picture of a beautiful landscape scene...would that be cheating? .....its not about who the person is in the pic or movie or whatever....its about the act that is being displayed that gets us guys turned on and want to relieve ourselfs of the pressure that is building up. What you are saying is masterbation is a form of cheating....cause there is no guy in this planet that would watch porn without masterbating....porn is just a visual masterbating tool to help us get off quicker, and to try and make us guys feel as though it is cheating is wrong.

[Luke Skywalker]

Here is some hard advice:

 

It seems like your husband has a porn addiction. If he was doing something right, then he wouldn't be hiding it. If you give approval for something like that, then you may as well also give approval for him cheating on you and committing adultery if that's how you want things to end up.

 

People may think it is normal to look at porn, but the reality is, your body should be good enough for your husband so he wouldn't have to get further visual stimulation from other women. It's an escalating problem that just gets worst, like any other addiction. Either the images he views will get more hardcore to fix each successive high, or he will seek to act them out and start spending money in the adult entertainment industry, if he doesn't end up breaking the law.

 

Aside from that, there are various psychological factors in porn usage, including depression, or anything that would cause a low self-esteem, and in fact, I'm in a rigorous self-help program I invented to control my own porn usage as follows:

 

1) I will not use the internet if I'm feeling depressed, (porn provides a temporary 'high' from feelings of depression, although you feel like crap after you are finished 'realeasing yourself' and feel worst off than if you did not do anything, sort of drug-like).

 

2) I will not browse on the internet after 11:00 p.m. (late-night internet browsing is a high-risk)

 

3) I will try to leave my house for at least an hour before relaxing on the internet. (Most relapses to view porn is due to mental understimulation - if you stay at home and bum around the internet, you could end up viewing porn for the stimulation. Furthermore, if I'm showered and groomed, it is different than if I'm wearing pajama clothes where it would be easy to 'release on' - or expendible clothing).

 

----

So far, this system I made for myself seems to be working. (I will allow myself to view porn, however, one month during the year, and under exceptional circumstances, two months during a year - any other time, I consider myself doing it against my will.)

 

What I am saying, is that you should treat your husband's porn problem as an escalating problem. Today is porn, tomorrow it may be a strip-club and hookers, or who knows what else. You have to get him into a no-porn board, councelling, or proactively find out the root causes that he is viewing that stuff.

[nmduipd]

Yes, some women do watch porn and yes, women too are visual creatures. Sometimes when I read these posts, I have an impression that men think all women are blind!

 

Unless a woman has some moral or religious issues with the porn, she can still enjoy it. But, by porn, women mean action. Watching people who are actually doing it!

What women find hard to understand about men, is that porn more often than not means 'naked women'. And that is the part about porn that a lot of women don't like. They than start comparing themselves with those models, and that is where problems start…

 

If women new that porn is more about the 'action' and not about lasting over other women's bodies, maybe more women would not only approve it, but also appreciate it.

 

BTW, I like the comparison with the fast food - it's quick, it's easily available, it's not as satisfying as 'the real thing', but you can get addicted and ... although it can't ruin your health, it can ruin your relationship

[emptychipbag]

Porn is like chocolate.

 

 

Even if someone is in a relationship and has access to sex with their partner,.. why wouldn't they still like porn? Just because someone has a partner doesn't mean that they won't feel like masturbating sometimes either. It's all normal,.. depending on how conservative and religious/superstitious they are.