When I was 19, I was an insecure, mentally ill disaster. I was isolated and alone. I had dropped out of college and moved 500 miles away from home. I didn’t have friends. I spent most of my time engaging in PMO, posting on GW, seeking sexual attention, etc.
I discovered r4r, made a post, and started messaging a guy. After a few months of talking to him, we met up. I moved almost immediately and we got married 3 months later.
It wasn’t until after I moved in with him that I realized he was physically unable to be intimate with me. We would have sex, but he would have to leave at the end, go in the bathroom next door, turn on the fan, and watch porn until he made himself cum.
I was hurt, but he told me he had an addiction, and that he didn’t want to have to watch it. But he never made any effort to stop. Eventually, it turned into “but you said you watched porn, just watch it with me”. So we would. We would lay down, he’d turn on whatever he was feeling into at the time (I wasn’t allowed to put anything on that I liked because it was “gross”). It was usually professional, very made-up women who had a lot of surgical alterations. I would touch him while he watched the screen and made comments about the women, and told me he would like me to study them so that I can be more arousing to him because porn was the only way he could get off.
It was my first “real” relationship. We were married. I didn’t know, I guess I thought that maybe all men were like this. So I allowed it. I also cried for hours every fucking night over how terrible I felt, how badly he wanted me to change and be different, how I felt a huge separation between us. All I wanted was to be able to get him off on my own, and he did not care. He told me, “all guys do this. You have to get over your insecurity. This is a fact of life. It will never stop.”
If I would need to use the computer, as soon as I typed something into the search bar, it would just be hours worth of porn related searches, seeking out subreddits to find new pornstars, looking up very specific types of women. He eventually stopped wanting to have sex with me, and I would just look at his history to see who was responsible for stealing him away from me.
It destroyed me. It ruined me. He would talk so specifically about certain porn stars. They are burned into my memory. I tried to watch porn on my own still, tried to find things that would fulfill me since the sex we had was, in his words, “a chore”. I couldn’t understand how he could feel fulfilled by getting himself off to people on a screen over having real sex with a real woman who was doing everything in her power to be fit, sexy, interesting and fun in bed. I felt broken because I would just cry as soon as I opened the browser, or as soon as I finished, because I didn’t want to be doing it at all. I wanted to be loved. Everything hurt. They won. Pornstars won. Porn held my husband’s sexuality in it’s hands and that was the way that he wanted it.
I find it extremely fucked up that this is so widely accepted. Relationships… monogamous ones… can not function like this. It hurts me to this day. I’m very much divorced and have been through extensive therapy to get over this and other aspects of our relationship that were abusive, but even the topic of porn and how insanely accepted it is that women just “have to get the fuck over it and guys will always sneak around and do it” makes me stomach sink deep into the fucking ground. I truly, truly believe that there is a huge problem with the way we view the acceptability of porn in relationships, and what relationships have even become. It’s more rare to find a couple who is truly dedicated to caring for the other person sexually, and I’m inclined to believe that many people have never experienced sex with someone who dedicates that portion of their brain to being exciting for their partner, and their partner only.
So, point being, I cut porn out of my life 6 months ago for good. I have not watched it at all. I started [using porn] when I was 12, continued for 10 years. Benefits from quitting… clear mind, clear conscience, more creativity, more optimism, and seeing my body as beautiful rather than something that needs work or surgical alteration.
I have found that not watching porn helps cut off those bad memories and feelings of deep hurt and inadequacy. But I still can’t help but feel like porn wins, no matter what. No matter how hard you try to cater to your partner’s needs and interests, no matter how kinky and fun you are in bed. I know this because my current relationship is a much more mild version of my previous one. He knew my hurt surrounding it, how important it was for me for us to not watch porn, and he still did anyway, while I remained totally true to my word. He looked me in the eyes and said “aspiringdropout, I know how badly he hurt you. I am not him. I respect this, and I only desire you”. Once I realized he was lying to me, I remember asking him how he’d feel if he knew I was getting off to guys jerking off every night and he said he would be very hurt and angry. There’s a huge double standard here that makes very little sense and I seem to find it no matter where I go. I’m not saying this is exclusively an issue with men, but I have only been with men, so – why is it that men do not understand what the issue is at large? Is it just a societal thing?
Honestly I’m not one of those people who doesn’t watch porn for the sake of ethics. I’m sure there’s a lot of fucked up shit that happens in the industry, but I’m not freaked out by “violence”. I understand rough sex and I enjoy it a lot, and I understand fetishes like being degraded, BDSM shit, I don’t think any of that is morally wrong. Sexuality is fluid and it’s fun to experiment. I have an open mind and I’m kinky, but that doesn’t have to be tied to porn or watching porn. Get fucking creative, what the hell?
All I want is a man who will respect me enough to understand my feelings about porn. Why can’t we just fucking live out our fantasies instead of watching random ass people fuck? Christ. It feels impossible to find a guy who doesn’t watch porn, who won’t make me feel insecure and worthless, who won’t spend hours fantasizing about fucking some girl who has had thousands of dollars worth of surgical alterations and professional makeup applied every 20 minutes.
I needed to rant, that felt good. Thanks.
Keep on going fellas, you’re smart. Don’t fucking be one of these guys.
Before I continue, I’ll say that I’m speaking from my perspective as a woman who has only been with men. I know there’s definitely situations out there were the woman is the one with the porn problem, it’s just a little more rare or less spoken about.
It’s pretty incredible what it can do to your self esteem as a woman. Along the same lines of society accepting men “inevitably watching porn”, women are kind of expected to be able to excite their men in bed long-term. It makes you feel like a complete failure when you realize he is turning to another woman, and I say this as someone who expresses and encourages openness in the bedroom. I want to know my partners kinks, desires, how often they need sex, etc., so that I can take care of them properly. I think many people who are interested in genuine, positive relationships feel this way but struggle to be open and end up turning to porn because they are unfulfilled.
Kind of rambled off a bit there, but point being, I can pretty much guarantee your girlfriend/future girlfriend is going to be so much more able to give you fulfilling sex if your focus is on her rather than on porn. We all need to feel confident, attractive, and wanted. How else can you enjoy fucking someone and having it be really good? You can’t. Your mind wanders – is he thinking about that one pornstar he kept searching all week? Are my tits too real for him? Is he going to just jerk off later anyway?
So many people complain about their sex lives, but if you ask them if they communicate about what they even want, they will say no. People who are genuinely in love are more open than you’d think, we are all fucking humans with insecurities and there are more truly fulfilling things in life when you are able to have true intimacy with another person. It’s really precious. Porn can’t give you that, and never will, and you only realize it once you stop and have enough time for your brain to restore itself.
I think my example is pretty extreme, but this is really how bad it can get. Before I met him, he basically lived on the internet. I was the first person he had ever been with sexually, and he discovered that he simply couldn’t do it.
To his credit, from what I understand he is now “done with porn”. I am not willing to entertain a relationship with him at any point in the future because of the damage that was done, but if that’s really true, then I applaud him, because he was not going to be having any kind of future with a woman if he continued that way. Or maybe he would, and just drag them down the same hole of submission that he held me in.
I am not willing to settle. I don’t think I can continue in my current relationship because of what happened, maybe due to the past and maybe that’s unfair, but it was a big lie considering he knew this story and many other more personal aspects of it that I did not share for the sake of staying anonymous. I’d rather be single than be with a guy who can’t control his thoughts and actions. I’m human too. I have a high sex drive. I’m dirty. But when I lay down at night and think about getting off, I can remind myself why I’m choosing to not watch porn, and then I fucking don’t, even though I know my partner is. Because I know I’m better than that. Men are capable of the same and I will accept no other truth.
LINK – Why I quit [24F]
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