I found out recently that my partner watches porn. Needless to say, it makes me very upset to know this. I’ve never watched porn. Sex scenes make me cringe, and seeing random people naked grosses me out. I realize this is not normal, and honestly it doesn’t even make sense. I love sex, I love my partner. Any good tips, advice, articles to help get me over this hump? I scheduled an appointment with a therapist, but I probably won’t bring this into it at first because I have more important issues I’d like to tackle first. Please don’t judge me or call me names. Thanks in advance.
31 comments
A major hurdle in your relationship sounds like something you should lay out on the table with the therapist. It doesn’t need to be the focus right up front, but them knowing this is an issue may be relevant to other issues.
What makes you think it’s a you problem?
Personally I’m the same way and when me and my partner discussed it he decided to ease out of it and no longer watches it. This may not work for you but there are lots of compromises that can be made. I’m upset with how people who don’t like porn are always seen as the ones with a problem that needs to be fixed :(.
You absolutely do have to bring this up as a matter of urgency if you value your relationship. If not with your therapist then at least with your partner. If you just bury your upset feelings, they’re going to fester into resentment, and your partner won’t have a clue why you’re angry.
You need to ask yourself if this is something that you will ever be okay with. Like, seriously, it’s so much better for you and your partner to be on the same page about it. You also should talk to your partner and communicate you’re uncomfortable and see if they are willing to accommodate this, they might have assumed you were okay with it and didn’t know it bothered you.
It’s okay to not like porn, not everyone enjoys it. Just be open and honest with yourself and your partner.
Why does it upset you that your partner watches? While it obviously isn’t for you if it makes you cringe/be repulsed, that isn’t true for a lot of people, but it’s fine for people to enjoy different things. Is it that you don’t understand what other people find interesting in it, is it specifically that it’s your partner?
Understanding why it’s upsetting you is key to being able to deal with it. It could just be that because it’s not for you you can’t relate to why anyone else would, so it’s hard to grasp why your partner would be interested. If it doesn’t matter that other people do watch porn, but it’s specific to it being your partner than it could be a question of it being a barrier to understanding them or triggering insecurity about how they see/relate to you?
Whatever the reason, you need to be able identify it. Some reasons you might be able to shrug off as ‘I don’t get it myself, but it’s fine’ (like my attitude to cricket!), but other reasons might require a lot of discussion with your partner, or taking time to process and adjust to.
No, keep hating on porn. It destroys relationships.
What exactly is upsetting to you about this? You have your own view of porn, are you projecting it onto him expecting him to feel the same way? Porn is a tool, it can be abused, but it can be useful for getting a quick nut. If you’re not getting enough sex, then it can be a problem, but otherwise what’s the actual issue?
I think it’s ok that you hate it, but remind yourself that’s just you, your partner is not doing anything wrong (unless he watches unethical porn, like revenge porn)
There are videos labelled as ‘porn for women’. It generally focuses more on touch and teasing as opposed to immediate penetration. Dig deep inside yourself and find your own fantasies, then google them. Trust me, there is nothing that some other person hasn’t fantasized about before.
For men it’s easy to separate sex from love, for women it’s often a bit different.
When it comes to sex, there is NEVER anything to be ashamed of. We live in the 21st century and every fetish is fine. People don’t choose their fantasies.
I’m not saying you are wrong, not at all. But maybe try to give porn a chance. There are highly erotic clips (not just boy-girl, also girl-girl and even boy-boy) that don’t just focus on thrusting a cock into a hole. Find your own fantasy and in a quiet moment, look for it on the internet.
First, you don’t have to stop hating anything. There is no law you have to like porn.
I don’t understand how you hate what you do not know though. How do you know you hate all types of porn? My husband and I watch it together and there are some that are HARD CRINGE and others that are of zero interest to us and some that we love.
FrolicMe and Kate Marley are easily some of the most sensual and realistic versions.
Getting over revulsion at the naked human form might be helpful for you, but don’t feel like acceptance of porn is needed.
Best way to stop hating porn is to try to learn more about human sexuality and yourself. Likely as long as caveman has been scribbling on walls, porn has existed. It’s not going to stop.
Perhaps understanding why it occurs and how it occurs and how you might look at it as a neutral thing in life vs the big bad evil thing might help.
maybe your views on sex or past traumas(?) or the state of your relationship are the reason you don’t like porn? maybe porn isn’t the problem but something deeper inside you or the relationship is making you dislike porn. maybe your partner makes you feel inadequate. just throwing it out there as a theory! plus traditional porn is inherently fake and written/designed for men, i don’t blame you for hating it. what about amateur or homemade porn that incorporates your personal kinks and interests? for example i’d be disgusted watching traditional porn but if i watched amateur dominatrix porn i’d be into it
You shouldn’t be the only one that has to change your outlook on porn!
So personally, I used to love porn; I’d watch it a bit too much if I’m being completely honest. After a while I started disliking the feelings I’d get after, and kind of started resenting the way that it desensitized me to sex.
I ended up doing some research and found that it’s very damaging, and decided to cut way way back on it.
Fast forward to when I started dating my boyfriend, who I’ve just passed the 1 year mark with. In the beginning he was a bit dishonest about how much he watched it – he implied it was maybe a couple times a week when it was in reality it was daily – but I was okay with him watching it when we started dating.
Time kinda passed and I started getting uncomfortable with it – the idea of him finding some random video, with someone that likely looked nothing like me, and getting off on the way their body moved and looked. It didn’t sit right with me at all, but I felt that I couldn’t ask him to stop, though I did ask him to watch less of it as we’d started making a few of our own videos.
Eventually the topic came up again, and I was still very upset at the idea of him jacking off to someone else. I myself am curvier; I lift and eat well, and I am a bit heavyset, and because of that I know that the women he’d be getting turned onto didn’t look like me. He’d click on those videos with the tiny girls that I could never live up to – the ones that made me feel obsolete.
I ended up asking again how much he watched it, and though it had definitely decreased, it was still enough to make me uncomfortable. I told him my thoughts, and that I knew he wasn’t type searching to find someone that looked like me, and that having that pressure to compare myself to the twigs he got off to made me feel unwanted and undesirable, especially when he had many videos he and I had made at that point.
He understood where I was coming from, and cut out porn altogether. We are very sex positive and we’re always down to try new things, and we have. He watches the videos we made together and we’re vocal about what we want to try or see now, and it’s helped us a lot.
Maybe home videos is something you could try with your partner (if you trust them with that, and if you don’t then that’s a whole other topic to broach), and then there’d be a happy middle ground for you guys.
Sexologist here, what you’re describing is really common and it’s ok.
Get curious and compassionate with yourself. What is it specifically about porn and visual depictions of sex that freaks you out? Is it the kind of porn? Particular depictions?
What thoughts and feelings come up? What are you making it mean about you? About your partner?
Just be curious about it, because it’s information about something deeper.
If you come from a religious or conservative background or culture, and/or if you have a trauma history, this could be a big factor behind it.
Have you ever read or listened to erotica? How do you feel about naked bodies in a non sexual context? It might be worth exploring this too. It’s frustrating that in many cultures, all nudity is immediately associated with sex which makes people weird around nudity in general.
Hope this helps.
You hate it because mainstream porn is generally toxic.
Check out my 2 posts here about HEALTHY PORN. Healthy porn DOES EXIST.
I am a huge fan of Else Cinema myself. You can check out a movie for FREE.
[https://thedisorderlyhouse.com/beautiful-porn/](https://thedisorderlyhouse.com/beautiful-porn/)
[https://thedisorderlyhouse.com/sensual-porn/](https://thedisorderlyhouse.com/sensual-porn/)
It is also possible that porn does absolutely nothing for you whether it’s healthy porn or not. And that is OK. I’m not sure why you think your disinterest in porn makes you weird or abnormal. It’s ok to not like porn at all.
Im not a jesus nut, but audiovisual porn is bad for your soul. Buy him Venus in Furs by Anais Nin. It expanded my sexual horizon by a couple of decades when I was 15. I never suffered from a diminished libido and most importantly i never run out of ideas of what to do in bed.
>I probably won’t bring this into it at first because I have more important issues I’d like to tackle first
Maybe it’s all connected. Working on yourself will surely bring you further, you just have to be patient and reflect yourself.
“I realize this is not normal, and honestly it doesn’t even make sense.”
I don’t think there is anything wrong with you for not liking porn.
I don’t see much of an issue here. If you don’t like it then don’t like it. Share that with your SO. Ive had gfs where it’s a deal breaker and honestly that’s fine. If I feel like I want to choose porn over being with someone there was either something wrong with me or something wrong with the relationship. Personally I went thru a point where I felt like it had become an addiction and needed to stop or now where I’ve been single for so long that it’s the only stimulation I get but I know it’s still not healthy. In the end hating porn just doesn’t seem like that much of a bad thing. I hate it myself and how easy it is to access and embedded into the fabric of our culture
I think maybe it’s a mental block and is a matter of becoming more comfortable with sex in general. Knowing and understanding it as a basic need we all have, as an act that we all do, and it’s our natural state to be naked might help.. it’s all mental imo. Don’t be afraid to explore sex but realize instead that it’s a whole world for you to venture.
Why do you have to stop? If porn isn’t your thing then it’s not your thing and that’s okay! But if you still want to get into it, start small with erotica. Maybe once you read enough smut you might want to see it instead lol
>Needless to say, it makes me very upset
It’s not “Needless to say”, a lot of folks would have no problem with this.
You can get comfortable yourself, or easier alternative, or first step, let this be his private thing, without being exposed to it and something that doesn’t affect his feelings towards you at all. Even in intimacy, it’s important to leave some personal space.
What’s with the therapist culture. I get there good for mental health, and in situations they can help. But not everyone has a therapist on tap.. there are definitely steps that can be taken before therapy.. People are judging based on a few words without a real onsite to how this couple are day to day.. wow the judgement is unreal in this thread . It’s exhausting
How do you know you hate it if you have never watched it?
Porn has a really wide spectrum some porn is terrible but it can also be very positive with people who are just having fun. If you just don’t like nudity in general then there are probably some deeper issues there. The best way to deal with them is to talk about them but probably with your partner rather than strangers on reddit
So it sounds like you understand you have these feelings about porn and your partner’s use of it, and what I get from this post is that you would like to stop having those feelings. I say this as someone who has a lot of feelings they’d like to stop having, and who has had to realize that it’s ok and necessary to feel those feelings: it may be a better first step to allow yourself to understand and get to know those feelings. And in my opinion that’s better done with a therapist than with your significant other.
Just my two cents – I think you will grow out of this. I (35F) used to hardly ever watch porn. Found out some years back my husband did every now and then. Got pretty upset about it. My initial approach was to even the playing field and see what all the fuss was about. Jokes on me. I now enjoy it. And watch more than he does 😂
I think it’s ok to not like porn but you shouldn’t feel rejected or insecure because he watches porn. Sometimes I just wanna jerk off. Me time. I like sex but sometimes just jerking off and then watching YouTube is all want to do. Sometimes I just want to be selfish and please myself and that’s ok. Now if porn replaces sex then that is a problem. But the occasional wank I don’t think is bad
I think it’s okay to have boundaries. The fact that we have normalized watching other people have sex. Is wild to me personally
If it makes you upset. You can communicate that with your partner
…you’re allowed to love sex and dislike porn. I don’t know if it makes sense to force yourself into it unless you think it’s going to crash your relationship.
Porn is awful for everyone involved so it’s justifiable you hate it
Maybe you should tell your partner that you’re unhappy with them watching porn? That could solve a lot of issues