So I found out the girl I just started dating used to do porn

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Fuck my life.

This is all kinds of emotionally exhausting.

So, if you followed my last thread, I just started seeing a woman. She’s 32, has 2 kids, and we’ve been on 2 dates. Both ended really well; a great kiss. And in the interim, she’s been texting me regularly.

I did notice that she wore no makeup, and her glasses, both times. Not a big deal - she’s quite gorgeous - but I had seen pictures of her on social media wearing makeup and contacts. Hmm.

Due to her shared custody of the kids, the fact that she currently lives a little bit away (she’s moving closer soon), and a pre-planned getaway weekend with some female friends, our next date isn’t scheduled until tomorrow.

That weekend was last weekend. Even though she was out of town, she sent me regular texts. These included occasional pictures - the beach she was at, some food she ordered, that sort of thing.

Then, she sent me a bikini picture.

Wowza! I had seen pics on her social media from when she was 21, and she had an incredible figure. It’s clear that a decade, and 2 kids, hasn’t done much to change her.

I also noticed her tattoo. It’s a rose - not in color - on her lower front right hip. Kinda big, and laying on its side, with the stem curling up behind. It kind of looks like a whale with its tail behind. Her bikini bottom obscured a portion.

Now here’s where things start to get embarrassing.

Her picture had a, uh, visceral effect on me. And I’m a man, and one often single, so I have ways of resolving those issues.

Cue up my favorite porn site, and, inspired by my muse, I punch in my search terms: “perfect natural body.”

I start scrolling down and I find a still from a video of a woman with the same sort of long straight brown hair as my girl.

I cue it up. It’s a first person view from the perspective of a guy sitting in a chair (I presume he’s wearing glasses with a camera). The woman is on the bed, at the other end of the room.

She has on makeup, but she kinda looks like my girl. And, although I haven’t been with my girl long enough to know her voice completely, she kinda sounds like her too.

The camera then cuts to a close up of the woman, as she’s next to the guy, and I can’t see her face. Sure does have the same body shape, though.

So now it’s not an erotic thing for me. I’m fast forwarding through the video for clips to see her face.

And then I see the tattoo. The same fucking tattoo.

Now this porn video is like the Zapruder film. I’m zooming in, pausing it.

My girl has a freckle about a few centimeters north of the rose.

Porn girl has the same freckle!

Freckle near her belly button? Check. Check.

And then tonight we’re texting

So now my heart is racing.

On one hand, I consider myself a proud feminist. A woman has a right to do what she will with her body. On the video, she appears to be working as an escort; she tells the guy she’s been doing it about 2 years, and really enjoys it.

But, on the other hand, my ex-wife had been a very promiscuous woman (we had sex on our first date) who told me when we were dating that she had no idea how many men she has slept with, and I had to deal with the emotional baggage of hearing way too many details about her exploits (she picked up the habit after we separated, even once sending me a video). So I don’t think I want to deal with more uncomfortable feelings.

Then again, she certainly looked good on the video.

But, seriously?! I feel like I’m living in a Larry David sitcom.

What. The. Fuck.

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I’m sorry this happened to you. I would have no problem discovering a woman I was dating was naked on the internet, or in a sexually explicit video. I would have a HUGE problem with her doing that just for the money and an equally huge problem with her having been an ‘escort’. IMO sexual intimacy is very special. I see something irresistable in a woman. She, shockingly, sees something irresistable in me. When mutual consent is clear, we celebrate each other through sexual intimacy. I have had that experience with strangers. But, they legitimately saw something in me.

An ‘escort’ is offering a physically intimate experience. Even sex with a stranger is more emotionally intimate. To take such a wonderful and special thing and change it into a financial transaction is (again IMO) horrible- even when the ‘escort’ is working in that profession of their own free will.

This doesn’t even touch on other issues- If she spent any length of time faking sexual desire, sexual pleasure and orgasms how would you know any of her responses were genuine?

If you found out about her past, others can as well. How would you feel about that and deal with it?

Why did she stop doing it? Or is she still working in those films or as an ‘escort’?

If she did stop, would she ever start again?

That is how I feel. But the only feelings that matter are yours and hers.

Good luck.

4

To be clear, I’m inferring that from the beginning of the video when they are talking. The guy asks her how long she’s known some guy, and she says 6 years. Then he asks her how long she’s been “doing this” and she says 2 years. He then tells her that when he’s in town the guy always gets him the best girls.

Officially, at least as shown on social media, she was a bartender during those years. Currently, she works at a dentist’s office. For what it’s worth.

5

Oh, thanks for clarifying. It is possible that anything she said in the video was part of a scenario for that video. OTTOMH there are plenty of videos based on step brother and step sister finally giving in to their urges. Obviously, these are just performers who are in no way related or living together.

I would still have a problem with her having sex, even for the purposes of making a porn video, for money.

The only way to know the truth is to ask her. If you feel you cannot trust her to be honest, there is no foundation for a relationship anyway.

6

She already dealt with it, and it was her body and her life, directly, and not yours. Look at what she values now, know your place in her world, and be accepting of her whole life. If you cannot do this, then if there are any problems they belong to you.

7

Pretty much what @Czarcasm said, although I’d be a little less judgy in the last few words: “if there are any problems they belong to you.” Is it always a “problem” if a person is only comfortable within certain types of romantic partners? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what those parameters are.

Anyway, what matters here is what the OP is comfortable with. As a woman, my only advice is: if you can’t deal with it, you be you. Lots of guys have problems with stuff like that. I might personally think they are being shortsighted, but that’s me being me. We don’t all have to agree on these fraught issues.

If you are one of those guys who have trouble dealing with something like this, let her go now. Under NO circumstances should you act like you are understanding, don’t mind, etc. etc., and then later start showing signs of resentment, jealousy, or other negative feelings. If you are indeed unable to accept who she is, admit it before you both get hurt.

8

Buddy, if you’re a 40-something proud feminist who dates women over 18 please stop referring to the person you are dating as a girl.

I get the “my girl” stuff, that’s kind of cute. But the f’n title of your post is about “the girl” you just started dating :nauseated_face:

Just, like, work on it. Ok?

And I second what @CairoCarol says. It’s ok to be turned off by it but don’t be judgy about it and don’t lie to yourself about it.

9

My apologies. It won’t happen again.

I mean that sincerely.

ETA: In my mind, girl is the opposite of guy. And if I was talking about a man, I might say “The guy I just met.” I definitely meant no offense, but I appreciate the importance of calling her a woman here. She has agency.

10

Problems don’t “belong to you” in a relationship and, if you feel uncomfortable with her past especially after the actions of your ex, then it’d be a pretty poor choice to force yourself into a relationship you’re emotionally uncomfortable with just to show how open minded and accepting you are. It’s not a question of judging her or making moral decisions about her past, it’s a question of taking care of yourself emotionally now. Especially when you aren’t too deeply involved yet.

Agreed with this. I’d basically say to go with your gut on this. If you feel bad about it now, trying to talk yourself into not feeling bad is probably 80% likely to result in a blowout later when you realize that, yeah, you did feel bad about it and now you’re resentful as well. If your reaction now is more “Weird stuff but okay” then maybe move ahead. Given your mention of your ex and how this is making you feel uncomfortable, I’d recommend taking a step back for both your sakes.

This, of course, doesn’t mean delete her off your phone tonight. Obviously talk to her and, if she wants to be open about it and it changes things then take it from there. But it certainly feels like good reason to pump the brakes for now.

11

I’m sorry you find yourself in this situation.

(Bolding mine)

That’s what it boils down to : who she is, and how she acts now.

I’m sure you could take any member of this site and discover that we all did something at one point that would give other the creeps, one way or another. Some of my exes were sometimes put off by some of the things I did when I was younger. They still stayed with me because, I suppose, they understood that it was the past and I was taking our relationship seriously.

To be frank, knowing that my partner was in porn at some point would give me pause. But it wouldn’t be an immediate deal-breaker, especially not if we got along wonderfully as you two seem to.

In the end, it’s up to you. I agree with the posters who wrote that you shouldn’t go any further if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Don’t fake being cool with it. But again, her past is her past. What matters is who she is now.

12

Compared to the 80s when it was almost all “professionals” in porn, to now when it’s is more like 80% amateur, a rather high percentage of people will have been involved in porn than you might expect.

Having been involved in an adult website for many years back in the early days of the internet, a lot of perfectly sweet, ordinary, regular people did one-off shoots involving sometimes very tame, sometimes quite a bit more daring, activities. To them it was a bit of fun to earn a bit of useful cash, and though I can’t speak for them, they seemed to move on with no regrets, and maybe even some pride.

(Many years have passed since I worked there, so most of those particular models will be in their 40s now. That’s wild.)

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Another vote that @CairoCarol nailed it. You decide for you what you think about her now. The past is the past.

Like @GuanoLad I spent a few years in the porn-adjacent sex industry. There I learned first hand about many of the participants. IMO/IME there are some bad habits that have a statistically higher prevalence in sex workers than in “ordinary folks”. It’s not for me to say which is cause and which is effect. But there is a correlation with relationship problems, recreational drug use, etc. If your GF isn’t having those issues now, then hooray for you.

If I had to choose between a woman with sex hang-ups versus one with a very open matter-of-fact attitude I sure know which I’d choose. Having done both, Door #2 is a far happier choice. For me. YMMV.


As to your text exchange while she was at the beach w her pals, ISTM that was her handing you the necessary info for you to find her past. Which opens the door to talking about it in a grown-up manner after you recover from the surprise. Rather than her saying to you bolt from the blue over an afternoon cocktail: “So, I used to do porn. My stage name was Busty McBustyface. Whaddayathink?”


ETA: I’ve told the story before, but I had exactly the J Geils centerfold experience for real. HS girl I had major crush for. And no hope of nerdly me talking with glorious her, much less having a relationship. Fast forward and I’m 24-ish, out of college, and there she is gracing the pages of some 3rd rate smut rag. Surprise!

It did trigger some interesting mixed feelings at the time, and my “relationship” to her was 0.01% what the OP has with his new woman. So I can see how this discovery shook him up a little. But IMO that’s temporary, unless he (OP) chooses to carefully nurture it like a grudge.

14

I’m a believer in “Know your agenda and stick with it (and not everything needs to be on your agenda).”

Methinks you have some soul-searching to do.

Matters not what ‘others’ think on this one. Matters a great deal what you think … at your core.

15

lots of good advice up there …

and IIWY (which I aint) … … if it’s a thing of the past, I’d be (probably) ok with it … if she is still doing it - not so much.

My personal disconfort is more along the LSL mentioned porn-adjacent lifestyle … sex&drugs&parties … that’s not the wold I want to dive into … and you def. don’t want a partygirl as your S.O. [trust me on that one ]

If she really and credibly is out of that era (for a reasonable time, not just “starting last weekend” :wink: ) … I’d mostly be ok with it - as in: NOT a dealbreaker per se …

read into this as much as you must: I probably scan more for other red flags in this situation than in a regular situation (which as such is probably not good) … but if she passes the regular (implicit and intrinsic) sniff-tests in a new relationship, I think I could let go of her past and have this become just a - hopefully - great relationship.

So in a sense I’d be more worried about her bringing in some emotional luggage than the act per sé - BEST O’ LUCK

unrelated:
great post - reminds me of the heydays of SDMB of yore - where lots of interesting relationship stuff came up, before we collectively got old and end up talking about colonoscopies, senior residences and 401k’s ;o)

edit to add: (and that might be controversial here) … getting to know the kids (which age?) … should give you a good feeling of what you can expect … lifestylewise … (regular well-loved kids well cared for emotionally vs. kids you get the feeling are unwanted and parked in front of a playstation b/c they burden HER life)- trope

16

You’re gonna have to decide how you feel about it, and from what you said, it doesn’t sound like you’ll be able to handle it.

Not everyone can handle everything, and people can’t just shut off their feelings, so I don’t think you should be judged for feeling weird about it. But if you can’t deal with it, make it clear to both yourself and her that this is no shortcoming of hers in any way, it’s 100% your insecurity.

But I would also suggest, if you’re a regular consumer of porn, and you consider porn actors as somehow essentially tainted, this is a different kind of problem, right? Like, you feel that the person doing the acting is tainted and questionable, yet not the guy who’s cranking the hog while watching?

I mean, at least the actor is putting herself through dental tech school or whatever. You as the porn viewer are just someone who is getting plenty of use-value out of the art she produces, viewing her without consent whenever you feel like it, you should be paying her, but probably aren’t. I’d suggest checking the math on your moral calculations a second time.

17

I absolutely agree with Cairo Carol here. Sort this out in your head NOW. If you aren’t able to live with this move on. It is not fair to her for you to continue to build the relationship with reservations that will surface later.

18

Well, there’s part of your problem right there. Most women don’t do that. My wife had a lot more sexual experience than I did when we started out - I lost my virginity at 22, a few months before we met - and other than a handful of anecdotes that mostly put me in a good light, she’s never discussed any of her past paramours. If talking about something makes you uncomfortable, and your partner still does it, then that’s your issue , not who fucked whom and how often.

19

Welp, just figured out her porn name.

It wasn’t one video. She’s got a page.

(I’ve even watched her before).

Lots of thoughts. I’ll respond later to you people when I have more time.

20

I have a number of friends who’ve worked/are working in various wings of the sex industry. Camgirls, massage parlour attendants, a few dominatrices. I’ve been surprised but not “knock me over with a feather” at how many of my pals have OnlyFans pages. One good friend of mine makes hundreds of dollars a month selling pictures of her feet to guys online.

I don’t ask out my friends, but I wouldn’t turn any of these women down, were I single at the moment and they asked. Full-on porn? Was it done safely? Okay, why not?

It really shouldn’t matter, but you’ve kind of stumbled upon a unicorn. Deep breath and don’t judge and enjoy the ride.