# Online Porn and Significant Others **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 3, 2009, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846 "2009-12-03T14:17:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/21 "2009-12-03T23:38:18Z")
I don’t care about porn. My husband hates it and does not look at it. I however, kinda like it. I think as long as it isn’t affecting your ability to function or be intimate there’s no big deal. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/22 "2009-12-03T23:44:19Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > That’s a real possibility for me. My partner did some porn years ago, when he was in college and needed the money. I know it’s out there, and it kind of bothers me, but not too much. Heh, that’s a bit different - in that you already know about it. In a way, it’s sorta flattering: ‘my SO is hot enough to have been a porn star’. Much more bizzare would be finding out about it if you didn’t already know. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/23 "2009-12-03T23:52:16Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > In a way, it’s sorta flattering: ‘my SO is hot enough to have been a porn star’. Once upon a time, maybe. But have you _seen_ the porn that’s out there? _I_ could be a porn star. ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/24 "2009-12-04T02:49:26Z")
My boyfriend watches it. I care not. Sometimes he shows me what kind of stuff he watches, and he’ll be all “I think you should wear [item of sexy clothing] sometime.” My response is usually “oh, ok.” I think he has good taste, so I usually take his suggestions to heart. Unless the item of clothing in question is ridiculously expensive or otherwise impractical. ---
**Author:** ![Sanity\_Challenged](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Sanity\_Challenged](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sanity_Challenged)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/25 "2009-12-04T03:09:50Z")
Online porn _ **is** _ my significant other. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/26 "2009-12-04T03:14:11Z")
My ex, while doing a vanity search on Google, stumbled onto the fact that his older brother had once starred in a gay porn movie. He was … startled. My boyfriend and I both watch porn, but not together. Sometimes we’ll tease each other by describing the stuff we watched earlier that day. For me, watching porn is a thing I enjoy more when I’m by myself. ---
**Author:** ![dhkendall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9adbd/32.png) [@dhkendall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dhkendall)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/27 "2009-12-04T04:15:01Z")
I’m pretty much in **3:20:59 or bust** \*'s camp on this, not only am I usually more in the mood than her (which she sometimes teases me about, but she seems to be sick an awful lot lately ☹ ) but there’s also things that I know I’d enjoy sexually but she doesn’t want to try. In both situations, porn fills the gap. (Example of the latter - somehow a good friend of my wife’s (who was the maid of honour at our wedding), who, let’s say, “enjoys sex”, found out that my wife was averse to oral sex. She lent us one of her porn DVDs that featured oral sex, explicitly telling both of us that we should watch it. Aside from one time that we watched together (during which my wife seemed very uncomfortable) I don’t think she ever watched it again. (She may have, but she’s the type to wait until I’m out of the house to do so). I did a few times, but, again, waited for her to be out of the house. I don’t know if my wife knows that I do view porn for reasons stated in the first paragraph (some part of me thinks she does knwo, some part of me thinks she doesn’t) but I really don’t care; she hasn’t said anything to me about it. \*Now _there_’s a user name I’d like to know more about! Perhaps if you could share in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=540702) … ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/28 "2009-12-04T07:49:09Z")
I have tried to watch porn movies - but I couldn’t. I kept thinking about the women in them - what brought her to where she is? Does she have a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a husband? How do they handle her job? What will she do when she’s too old to do porn anymore, will she have money saved up, or be prepared to get another career going? When you start thinking about the star of “Dirty Cum-Sluts 3” and picturing her as a first grader with a missing tooth, playing on the playground with her friends, and wondering how she got from there to here…it just isn’t erotic anymore. Anyway, yeah. Visual porn featuring real people = not my thing. Oni no Husband does watch/look at it, but only on his laptop and only when I’m not around. A don’t ask-don’t tell thing, really. I don’t have as much of an issue with written/drawn porn, but I would still honestly prefer it if he didn’t indulge. Mostly because my sex drive is a _lot_ stronger than his, and if he’s in the mood I REALLY REALLY want to be involved!!! ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/29 "2009-12-04T08:06:57Z")
My wife doesn’t mind, probably because it’s boring to me (after the first few gigs, it all looks the same.) I suppose if it was more interesting to me than her, she would mind (like say, football.) ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/30 "2009-12-04T08:56:27Z")
Well I will be the first then - my wife HATES it. If she caught me looking I would be in for serious cold shoulder shoulder treatment. If she caught me talking to Mrs Palmer worse still… ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/31 "2009-12-04T12:23:21Z")
I look at it, and my wife knows. I have redtube and youporn as bookmarks. She doesn’t care, but I don’t do it when she’s home. I highly doubt that she uses online porn, but if she does, it’s stories, not videos or images. Once in a great while, like every few years, she’ll rent a PPV porno from our cable. I’ve told her to just use the free porn sites, but it’s not the same for her. Joe ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/32 "2009-12-04T12:41:58Z")
Married female and I don’t care. If I had the desire, like I do upon occasion, I’d look too. Besides, it’s on his computer and I wouldn’t be caught dead snooping anyway. However, if we’re talking _presents_ to search for… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/33 "2009-12-04T16:50:45Z")
> [@Sanity\_Challenged](#): > > Online porn _ **is** _ my significant other. OK that is seriously funny 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TheFaerie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TheFaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFaerie)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/34 "2009-12-04T18:34:27Z")
I have a few online sites bookmarked that I visit a couple times a week. I watch/read it alone for the most part. My husband has and still does occasionally, but not on the internet (OMG we could get a virus and someone could steal our identity! He doesn’t really have a full grasp on how to peruse safely.). We haven’t watched together for a long time because our tastes are wildly divergent in that regard. He’s pretty vanilla w/ generic girl-on-girl thrown in for good measure and I’m into BDSM/power exchange type stuff. I think he and his girlfriend indulge once in awhile. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/35 "2009-12-04T19:08:57Z")
I think Doper Women are a lot more open to porn than most women. My girlfriend is very wild in most ways, she basically likes all normal and a few not-normal activities. 😉 But she does have a hangup about porn. Due to distance we only see each other during weekends but she was weirded out that I would occasionally look at porn and spank the monkey during the week. It was really a serious issue for her, the “If I’m good enough then why do you need to look” viewpoint. I really couldn’t sympathize, if it didn’t interfere with our sex life and it didn’t involve any other person mentally or physically, what is the problem? I think she was afraid I’d fall in love with the porn girls or something. But I did see how much it was hurting her, so I at least agreed not to spank my monkey to it, but I could still look at porn and I can spank my monkey to webcam with her and any material we’ve made together. I don’t like that compromise really, but I’ll try to live with it. She did volonteer to watch a porn movie with me and we had wild sex afterwards, so I think there’s hope she will come to understand that porn is not a substitute but just an enhancement and a mental stimulation thing. ---
**Author:** ![TheFaerie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TheFaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFaerie)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/36 "2009-12-04T19:19:11Z")
A friend’s wife is of the “You must want me to be like that porn girl therefore you don’t love me for me” persuasion. I don’t fully understand her reasoning, but it’s probably a self-esteem issue. Meh. Watch/read what you want. It doesn’t bother me in the least. ---
**Author:** ![melodyharmonius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melodyharmonius/32/21310_2.png) [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/37 "2009-12-04T19:25:46Z")
Since **bengangmo** was so brave, I’ll admit it too. When I was married, I made my husband throw all his porn tapes away. I personally took them to the dumpster myself and got rid of them. And then I found the ones he stashed out of sight and tossed those too. And I banned it off our computer. Of course, this was when I was married and my ex thought sex ever few years was often enough. And I was jealous of Jenna Jameson, Mrs. Palmer and all the rest. Because when I would try to watch with him, it freaked him out. And when I would look at it without him (to get a taste for what he liked so I could please him better) that freaked him out too. Then I dumped his ass and got freaky. Now my SO and I watch porn when we are together and when we are apart and I have my preferences and he has his. But I’ll admit totally that what turns me on in porn is not necessarily what turns me on IRL. Like others have said, online it’s more the power/exchange thing for me and also the zomg - how did they do that? Fortunately, my SO likes to have sex with me all the time - I think that’s the difference between how I feel about it. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/38 "2009-12-04T19:31:13Z")
> [@melodyharmonius](#): > > Fortunately, my SO likes to have sex with me all the time - I think that’s the difference between how I feel about it. I think that’s best compromise. As long as the porn is not interfering with your sex life and as long as there is no contact (real or virtual) with the porn subjects, what’s the harm? Furthermore I’d say men are somewhat programmed to want to cheat, but I really think that some occasional porn can sort of satisfy that need, as well as keeping the imagination greased. ---
**Author:** ![melodyharmonius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melodyharmonius/32/21310_2.png) [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/39 "2009-12-04T19:49:48Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > Furthermore I’d say men are somewhat programmed to want to cheat, but I really think that some occasional porn can sort of satisfy that need, as well as keeping the imagination greased. I think most men are not programmed for total monogamy, and I guess I will get in to semantics and say that I don’t necessarily consider this “cheating” unless they and their SO has deemed it so. Since there are several other threads currently ongoing relating to the theme of cheating, i won’t hijack any further. But I agree that we can all use with some outside stimulus to keep our imagination flowing. I think the sad thing is when a someone “forbids” porn or outside stimulus but doesn’t offer any alternatives. I was more than willing to try anything if it meant I got sex out of the deal - but my SO said that it was just “easier to masturbate by himself” than have sex with a RL person. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846/40 "2009-12-04T19:54:11Z")
> [@melodyharmonius](#): > > I think the sad thing is when a someone “forbids” porn or outside stimulus but doesn’t offer any alternatives. I was more than willing to try anything if it meant I got sex out of the deal - but my SO said that it was just “easier to masturbate by himself” than have sex with a RL person. I’ve actually been in a situation like that. I guess there were underlying issues and resentments in the relationship and it really felt like I was lowering myself having sex with the girl, which was a sad state of affairs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-porn-and-significant-others/519846.md?page=3)