I’m fully aware that it probably seems as though I have zero privacy boundaries at this point, so I’d like to make a quick disclaimer that I got full permission from my significant other to write this. Would you believe me if I told you this topic was his idea? Well it was. Scout’s honor.
So porn. This has been the hot topic in Casa de Penis this past week. (We literally have penis graffiti mere steps from our driveway in case you missed that riveting blog post.) We hadn’t talked about this subject in months, until I recently started to have this weird feeling/intuition/paranoia/whatever and then my evil mind got the best of me. I’ve always dreaded this topic more than anything, but for me, it’s super important. More to come on that.
Brian and I talk about pretty much everything, and we both agree that porn has been the center of our most uncomfortable conversations (by a landslide). However, somehow we miraculously became adults the other day and were able to have dialogue surrounding it that didn’t involve tears, panic attacks and hot sweats.
So earlier this week, completely and utterly randomly with no apparent reason at all, I decided to broach the topic. (That is a total lie—I was using his laptop and saw that his browsing history had been erased two days prior, so I stormed into his place of work and dragged him out by his dirty-ass, porn-loving Wiener Schnitzel demanding an explanation. Only the first part of that sentence is actually true, but that would be a damn good story.) So I took some deep breaths, got centered in my heart space, and approached him like a real adult—via text. (For the record, I have never once claimed to be an adult!)
Hold up—I should probably rewind a bit before I go on.
When Brian and I first got together our “honeymoon stage” was super hot. We’re talkin’ HOT. I was sure it was never going to end and that we wouldn’t be able to keep our hands off each other for the next 50 years. Whomp whooooomp. I’m not saying that we are a sad, boring, passionless couple or anything, but we definitely came back down to earth after a few months of “Oh, Brian and I don’t fight” and “Hey, quickie in the parking lot?!” But once the drama-free, hot and sexy dust settled, things got a little...awkward.
I started to notice that he was grabbing me a lot. He would touch me sexually nonstop, grope me at times that felt inappropriate, and it almost felt like I should be on a stripper pole the way he would look at me. I’m not sure if our epic honeymoon phase had me blinded, but this definitely didn’t feel right. There was nothing loving or tender or sweet to me about my boyfriend undressing me with his eyes—like a lot of the time—or showing his affection toward me with a boob jiggle or butt smack. I felt cheap. But we were in love. LIKE SUPER IN LOVE. So it was really confusing.
This was more than two and a half years ago, so I can’t tell you exactly why that led me to start thinking about porn, but it did. I had remembered asking him about it in the past, and he said that it went hand-in-hand with his drug addiction. As we met after he had gotten sober, I didn’t think much of it until I started to become acutely aware of his highly sexual behavior. I started to feel uncomfortable with my own boyfriend. Were we in love, or was I on the menu for dinner?
So I brought it up. And we talked about it. I remember us both being a little uncomfortable, but it wasn’t anything super tense at that point. He shared with me more about his history and where he was with it at that time. Let’s just say that on a scale of 1 – 10, if 10 is too much porn, I wanna say he was probably at a 12. In my opinion. And I say that with love. Trust me, I am no expert when it comes to porn habits and I have never been one to watch it myself, but me no likey his answer.
We had a long conversation about it and my feelings surrounding it. Women as objects. Lack of intimacy. Addiction. Unrealistic body image. SEX TRAFFICKING. (Just to name a few.) The conversation got gnarly. I cried a lot. Like A LOT a lot. Having spent much of my life feeling like my worth depended on how I looked in a bikini and battling various eating disorders to feel worthy of being loved, this was super gnarly for me. Here I was, with someone I was completely in love with, feeling the exact same way as I had with every other guy. How f*cked is that? And don’t get me wrong—I didn’t blame porn for my body image issues, but it truly was the perfect storm.
What was so interesting to me was that Brian was almost in shock, not only because of the impact it had on me, but in hearing all my thoughts about the porn industry in general and why I am so against it. (Yes, I’ll say it. I AM AGAINST IT. *she says with care, concern and love for humanity, not judgment*) According to Brian, he had never really thought about it before. To him, it had been such a normal part of his life that he had never considered how it could be affecting him (or us) in a much deeper way. We didn’t come to any conclusion or anything, but I just asked him to think about it.
Sure enough, and completely unbeknownst to me, Brian started doing some research on his own. If you know him at all, you know that he researches practically everything. He literally spent four hours (self-admitted) researching the best quality, highest-rated Tupperware for his weekly meal prep. I mean, I have to admit that it’s some damn-good Tupperware, but still. Come on, dude. Yet in this case, I was incredibly grateful for his time and attention.
He started emailing me articles and sharing with me what he was learning. It affects brain function. Triggers addiction. Promotes violence. And hostile sexism. Objectifies women. Lowers the quality of sex in relationships. Encourages sex without intimacy. Increases the likeliness of affairs. Etc. Etc. ETCETERA. Google it. I dare you. (Not-so-fun fact: Pornography comes from the Greek word porne, meaning “prostituted woman” or "idolatrous community")
Right around that time Brian started seeing my life coach (whom I reference often), and the subject came up. She had invited him to take a 90-day sabbatical from watching porn just as an experiment to see how he felt afterward and if it would have an impact in some way on his life. He accepted. As this was his personal decision and I was just along for the ride, we didn’t talk about it much after that. It was his journey and I wanted to give him the time and space to explore it on his own. But what happened over the next few months was pretty remarkable.
He would touch my arm instead of my ass. He would look into my eyes instead of down my shirt. He would say “I love you” a lot more often than “Let’s get naked.” He was softer. Gentler. More loving. Our sex life changed as well. It started to become more about the journey and not the destination. Our entire relationship transformed, and I’m not even exaggerating.
Brian didn’t start watching porn again after the 90 days was up. He said he thought about it sometimes, but that it wasn’t important to him anymore. The thoughts were more fleeting than consuming, and he just hadn’t wanted to act on them. I think we talked about it once more after that some time later, and he had done it once or twice but that was it. It kind of became a non-issue.
Until I became a Mac-stalker and decided it was an issue again. Doh!
We’ve been talking a lot about intimacy lately; Brian and I tend to be either best friends or lovers, with not much of a bridge between the two. We are suuuuper playful and sarcastic and wrestle like brothers most of the time, so we often forget to weave intimacy into our daily life together. We go from wet willies to, well, wet willies (too far?) in a matter of seconds. So as we’ve been dialoging about how we can regularly practice intimacy outside of the bedroom, the thought of porn creeping back into our lives was scaring the hell out of me.
Back to my text ever-so-gently requesting an update on his recent porn activity. Needless to say it didn’t go over so well. He actually handled it pretty well, while I maintained the grace of a drunken sailor. So we tabled the convo until we could talk about it in person. Turns out he’d watched porn a handful of times over the past few months (yes, I made him count them on his fingers because I am a crazy person), but that it still wasn’t a big deal to him. He didn’t think much about it, but had started to act on it occasionally when he did.
He asked if it had started to affect his treatment of me again, and I hesitantly said that it hadn’t. Because it hasn’t. He asked if it feels like he is cheating on me. I was honest and said that it does, even though I don’t believe that it is. But to me, it’s like cheating without actually cheating. I asked if it was so bad to want my naked body to be the only one that he sees. I also asked if it’s not important to him, but so hurtful to me, then why? I shared that it felt hypocritical to spend as much time as we do creating and maintaining our spirit room and sacred meditation space, talking about raising our vibration and moving together toward love and intimacy, and then there is pornography in the next room when I’m not home. What vibration is that?
We both talked a lot and listened a lot. We talked about porn being considered “normal” these days. We talked about what his friends do. What my friends do. What our mentors do. What he used to do. What he wants. What I want. We talked about it all. And we got places. Good places.
We decided that it doesn’t matter if porn is normal or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong. Healthy or unhealthy. It doesn’t matter if it’s OK with this couple or that couple. It doesn’t matter if it does or doesn’t affect our lives. The only thing that matters is that we decide TOGETHER the role that it will play in our relationship. And we did.
I guess I’m sharing this in case you’ve been wanting to have this very conversation. And I am proof that you will live through it. Maybe you’ve focused on “normal” or “wrong” or what someone else says is OK, and haven’t given yourself the freedom—the permission—to create your own normal.
I have a friend who likes her husband to watch porn so she can have some nights “off.” I have another friend who watches porn with her partner, and they love it. And I have friends who have never talked about it with their significant others because the topic is too scary. And that makes me sad. Because the topic is scary. But it’s kind of a big deal—I mean, if it is to you like it is to me. Then it’s worth talking about. And it’s worth the discomfort.
Because pretty soon it won’t be uncomfortable anymore. Pretty soon you’ll be working on your laptop in the other room when you hear your boyfriend in the kitchen shouting over the sound of the running water, “Hunny! I have a blog idea for you.”
