cheating with porn is IMPOSSIBLE

[Arabess]

There has got to be VERY few men who would prefer beating off to porn than getting live sex from anything that's breathing.

 

Or maybe I just happen to know all the 'normal' guys.....the rest must live somewhere else.

 

I've known plenty of guys who are out on deployment for months with nothing BUT porn....and they are STILL counting the days to get back home to the McBeefer they left behind. They want the REAL THING.

 

I guess I can't speak for every man.....but I can speak for a whole lot of them. .......and they would be highly upset with me if I didn't defend their 'sexual' honor...... LOL!

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by jester

So free will determines whether cheating is established.

Interesting jump you made there, the strategy of quoting a single line and using it to defeat an entire thought is quite effective. Cheating is just semantics, but when you do cheat, it's not something that you aren't a participant in.

 

On the other hand, assume I have a sex addiction, which compels me to f**k any woman who makes herself available to me. Since I have a sexual compulsion--one that negates my free will--I'm not cheating even though I'm f**king the daylights out of some woman in a hotel room.

You are cheating. You're just cheating as a symptom of sexual compulsivity, that's not any more excusable.

 

The hallmark of cheating is not "free will," dyer, it's disloyalty. When hubby in my hypothetical elected to masturbate to Jena's image, rather than make love to his wife, he was cheating.

I'm really not going to argue semantics with you, it doesn't matter what it is. But you claim that he has an emotional relationship with porn, and you're 100% mistaken. He's got an actual, diagnosable, treatable disorder.

So I stand with those women on LoveShack, many of whom have been shouted down, who have dared to link porn with cheating.

AprilFool's husband is not sexually compulsive, he suffers from lack of intimacy in the marriage. If you think that marriage is only about sex, I wouldn't be surprised if one day you find yourself astray from your own, if you are married, I don't know your situation.

Sometimes, my friend, context, experience and intuition do matter.

Once again, I think it's rather arrogant to assert that my advice is only "wise beyond its years" when it agrees with yours. You are equally capable of being wrong, and in this case you definitely are, by associating a small sexual SYMPTOM, with a SEPERATE intimate defficiency. April's husband uses porn to cope with the lack of intimacy, not to hurt his spouse.

 

I ask that if you quote me, please address everything I say, not just one small piece, because I see right through that.

[jester]

There has got to be VERY few men who would prefer beating off to porn than getting live sex from anything that's breathing.

 

 

So true, Arabess. But in my hypo I constructed a plausible scenario where one is cheating through porn. I was responding to the notion that cheating with porn is an impossibility. Guess what? It's not.

 

Since people are getting sensitive it's time for me to go to bed --and watch some great porn.

 

Good night, lady.

[tphillip]

Originally posted by jester

I was responding to the notion that cheating with porn is an impossibility. Guess what? It's not.

I disagree. You can't have a sexual affair or an emotional affair with an inanimate object. It's not possible.

 

I don't own a copy of DSM IV (THE bible when it comes to mental disorders) but I do recall what you describe to be a psychosis. If I ever get over this damn fever I'll drag my butt down to the library and look through the multiple thousand page tome and come up with references.

 

IMO it's not an affair if you can be committed to a mental institution for psychological or pharmacological treatment.

[moimeme]

M'dear, the world is at your fingertips. You don't need no damn books LOL

 

http://www.pathwayscounseling.com/compulsive_sexual_disorder.htm

 

http://www.med.umn.edu/fp/phs/sht/shtv1n01.htm

[jester]

The other side:

 

Pornography is destructive not only because it is insulting to one's wife, but because it takes one's erotic focus away from one's spouse. In this respect, the principal harm it inflicts is not radically different from adultery. When infidelity occurs, it destroys the marriage not only by causing hurt and humiliation, but by starving the marriage of attention, affection, and effort. The hurt that a husband causes his wife by being unfaithful is not, in itself, the deal-breaker in their marriage. The wives whom I have counseled through a husband's infidelity are prepared to forgive him if they love him. The real deal-breaker is the fact that the wife is no longer the focal point of his sexual and romantic energies. When husbands and wives are not wholly focused on one another as the means of finding erotic excitement, they begin to drift apart. Initially, men believe that a little peek at another woman's nudity is a harmless means of generating some excitement and certainly nothing as significant as an actual act of infidelity. But these "harmless" leers are the first symptoms of neglect.

 

http://www.affairsltd.co.uk/extramarital-affairs-news/infidelity-news/19th-nov-2003/Should%20wives%20be%20porn%20police.htm

 

Perhaps these "controlling" women are on to something.

[tphillip]

Originally posted by jester

The real deal-breaker is the fact that the wife is no longer the focal point of his sexual and romantic energies. When husbands and wives are not wholly focused on one another as the means of finding erotic excitement, they begin to drift apart. Initially, men believe that a little peek at another woman's nudity is a harmless means of generating some excitement and certainly nothing as significant as an actual act of infidelity. But these "harmless" leers are the first symptoms of neglect.

So, by your own quote, you agree that pornography is not the cause, but the symptom. It's not the viewing of pornography, but the inattention the person gives their spouse. By that vague definition one can cheat with almost anything. Thanks for supporting me.

 

BTW, you did not comment on the links that moimeme provided or disagree with my (Currently unsupported) assertion that the situations you described earlier are psychoses and not cheating. I assume then that you agree with me.

[tphillip]

Originally posted by moimeme

M'dear, the world is at your fingertips. You don't need no damn books LOL

Yeah you do. The DSM will give you the complete breakdown of the disorder that the medical and legal professions use in their day to day "business". While I feel that the whole psychologial branch of medicine has less hard science behind it than voodoo, they do have some standards. The DSM, right or wrong, is the standard.

 

Your links are ok, but in the end the DSM is the final word. I don't like quoting secondary sources if possible. Cuts out a lot of misinterpretation and outright misquoting.

[Arabess]

HAHA tphillip....I have this pic in my mind of you dragging your sick self down to the local library, wearing your bathrobe, weathering the snow.......demanding a book on the psychology of porn!

 

ps: I DO hope you are feeling better!!!

[jester]

tphillip, porn, like sex, is better experienced than discussed. In fact, porn threads bore me.

 

My purpose in entering this discussion was in defense of women who, rightly or wrongly, believe, experience and feel that their husbands are being unfaithful (ie, disloyal) when these men choose to masturbate to porn rather than make love to them.

 

Some posters, not you, have arrogantly derided these jilted women as controlling, incapable of intimacy or prudish about porn. Their legitimate anxieties, concerns and bruised feelings have been minimized, if not mocked, by some. I don't like that--so I came up with my counter-factual.

 

Sometimes a pen is just a pen. So when these neglected wives told us they experienced their husbands' porn consumption as "cheating," I accepted the emotional truth of that perception. I wasn't going to join the chorus invalidating their jilted feelings. Some truths are emotional.

 

Better here to be wrong in Science than false in matters of the heart.

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by jester

My purpose in entering this discussion was in defense of women who, rightly or wrongly, believe, experience and feel that their husbands are being unfaithful (ie, disloyal) when these men choose to masturbate to porn rather than make love to them.

 

This is a response to a lack of intimacy in the marriage, it's a mere SYMPTOM of a greater problem, and it's not just one person's fault.

[meanon]

The standard response seems to be "don't worry about that - worry about what's REALLY wrong with your marriage." Well actually you need to focus on the symptom to get to the underlying attitudes and begin to reconcile them and change behaviour (whether that takes the form of giving up porn, sharing it or being happier abut it's use depends entirely on the two people concerned). To deny that someone's attitude may be justified denies that there is any context in which such a reaction is appropriate. We do not know the dynamics of these relationships.

 

This is a response to a lack of intimacy in the marriage, it's a mere SYMPTOM of a greater problem, and it's not just one person's fault.

 

I disagree - this is only one of the reasons people may object to porn. Did the entire feminist movement comprise of people in relationships with no intimacy? There are other attitudinal/social factors at play here.

[Papillon]

Originally posted by dyermaker

I'm sick of porn threads, don't we have enough?

 

Can never have enough porn (j/k)

[jester]

To deny that someone's attitude may be justified denies that there is any context in which such a reaction is appropriate. We do not know the dynamics of these relationships.

 

 

As usual, meanon, you say it better than I.

[moimeme]

Your links are ok, but in the end the DSM is the final word. I don't like quoting secondary sources if possible. Cuts out a lot of misinterpretation and outright misquoting.

 

Fussbudget LOL. The DSM is under revision, anyway, because it has once again fallen behind the times.

 

Some posters, not you, have arrogantly derided these jilted women as controlling

 

The fact of the matter is that some 'insecurities' are masks for controlling behaviours. Women demanding that their spouses not masturbate or ever look at a naked woman are controlling. We are not talking about women married to/involved with porn addicts here, and those of us who say porn should not be an issue are all crystal clear about that. There is a difference between occasional use and compulsive use. You seem to take the position that every single aggrieved woman is faultless (because they are someone's aggrieved mother?). This is not the case. Marital problems are the product of the interaction between the two.

 

To deny that someone's attitude may be justified denies that there is any context in which such a reaction is appropriate

 

No. That's a fallacy. To deny that someone's attitude may be justified in one situation means that in that context, that reaction seems inappropriate although it may be appropriate in another context and another situation.

[jenny]

hmm, interesting thread. i tend to be among those women who approach fear of porn with a touch of defensive irony. let me try and explain why:

 

i'm threatened by the idea that i should care about this. i don't know many women who are cool about porn, and i'm protective of a modern identity that sees the genders so equally that both are allowed to have their own thoughts and fantasies. i'm protective of being a woman who has enough private fantasies of her own that she does not have the mental space to fret over her SO's.

 

i think i will cool it on the gentle mockery, though. i usually just want to make the thread a little less angry and desperate - it scares the bejesus out of me that people get that mad about pictures.

[cdn]

[To deny that someone's attitude may be justified denies that there is any context in which such a reaction is appropriate. We do not know the dynamics of these relationships.

 

Well said, Meanon.

 

 

Some posters, not you, have arrogantly derided these jilted women as controlling, incapable of intimacy or prudish about porn.

 

This is an ongoing issue at LS and a common technique for shaming people whose beliefs run contrary to one's own into submission. If the only supposedly valid reason for being opposed to porn is that one is insecure or controlling, you won't find many people wanting to own up to those characteristics. So people who hold this view are either shamed into silence or forced to think of themselves as insecure and controlling. In fact, there are many reasons both for being in favor of and opposed to porn. Almost as many reasons as their are unique situations in which porn use occurs. (Just wondering: What is the verdict on men who are opposed to porn, i.e., opposed to men viewing porn? Are they also insecure and controlling?)

 

It seems that women who complain about porn are relegated to the same status as OW -- non-people of a sort.

[cdn]

porn, like sex, is better experienced than discussed.

 

ROFL! I agree with half of this!

[moimeme]

If the only supposedly valid reason for being opposed to porn is that one is insecure or controlling, you won't find many people wanting to own up to those characteristics. So people who hold this view are either shamed into silence or forced to think of themselves as insecure and controlling.

 

And people who are opposed to infidelity and think porn is not the greatest tragedy to hit mankind (odd that the two positions are reversed on both sides!) are called 'arrogant', 'moralistic', and other names. So to take the position that a person dictating what another person ought to think is bad is, according to some, 'arrogant'. People taking the opposing viewpoint are every bit as vilified and attacked. So let's not haul out our kleenexes while we weep for the terrified supporters of the anti-porn side since the not-anti-porn 'side' suffers exactly the same fate.

[jenny]

wow. this:

 

(Just wondering: What is the verdict on men who are opposed to porn, i.e., opposed to men viewing porn? Are they also insecure and controlling?)

 

is a great point.

 

i'm sorry. i will definitely watch my irony from here on out.

[moimeme]

It isn't the point. It was never the point. Nobody ever said that ALL women who feel that way are insecure and controlling. Cripes, Jenny - you've got a mittfull of fallacies that apply. Or shall we all build straw men - because that will really inform the issue.

[DerangedAngel]

Main Entry: in·fi·del·i·ty

Pronunciation: "in-f&-'de-l&-tE, -(")fI-

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural -ties

1 : lack of belief in a religion

2 a : unfaithfulness to a [color=red]moral[/color] [color=blue]obligation[/color] : DISLOYALTY b : marital unfaithfulness or an instance of it

__________________________________

 

[color=red]Main Entry: mor·al

Pronunciation: 'mor-&l, 'mär-

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin moralis, from mor-, mos custom

1 a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ETHICAL <moral judgments> b : expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior <a moral poem> c : conforming to a standard of right behavior d : sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment <a moral obligation> e : capable of right and wrong action <a moral agent>

2 : probable though not proved : VIRTUAL <a moral certainty>

3 : having the effects of such on the mind, confidence, or will <a moral victory> <moral support> [/color]

*****************

[color=blue]Main Entry: ob·li·ga·tion

Pronunciation: "ä-bl&-'gA-sh&n

Function: noun

1 : the action of obligating oneself to a course of action (as by a promise or vow)

2 a : something (as a formal contract, a promise, or the demands of conscience or custom) that obligates one to a course of action b : a debt security (as a mortgage or corporate bond) c : a commitment (as by a government) to pay a particular sum of money; also : an amount owed under such an obligation <unable to meet its obligations, the company went into bankruptcy>

3 a : a condition or feeling of being obligated b : a debt of gratitude

4 : something one is bound to do : DUTY, RESPONSIBILITY [/color]

 

__________________________________________

 

If in your relationship with your SO porn has been discussed and the two of you have come to an agreement that you will not view it, then doing so is an act of infidelity (my opinion, maybe not yours. Tried to explain my line of thinking with the above). It has been discussed in the relationship I am currently in, and if I were to look at porn, I would feel like I was cheating on my boyfriend.

 

If it has not been discussed in such a way, then I don't think it's the same thing. If you are dating a guy/gal who doesn't agree with your views on porn, and you choose to stay with them, you must accept it - or not talk about it. Any negative feelings you have about it are your choice from that point.

 

Cheating with porn is not IMPOSSIBLE.

 

-Deranged

[jester]

It seems that women who complain about porn are relegated to the same status as OW -- non-people of a sort.

 

 

 

As always, cdn, you express my points better than I do. That's exactly why I jumped into this thread.

[cdn]

And people who are opposed to infidelity and think porn is not the greatest tragedy to hit mankind (odd that the two positions are reversed on both sides!) are called 'arrogant', 'moralistic', and other names.

 

I don't think anyone has been called a name on the basis of his or her beliefs, but rather how those beliefs are expressed. Some people do take a very shrill and demeaning tone when their opinions are not accepted as fact. This is evident in both the various infidelity and porn threads.

 

So to take the position that a person dictating what another person ought to think is bad is, according to some, 'arrogant'.

 

I feel this way. I think "dictating what another person ought to think" is quite arrogant. In matters of fact, there are better ways to accomplish the same end result. And in matters of opinion -- which is what threads about porn are about -- it's inappropriate.

 

I think it is fine - welcome, even - to disagree. But what happens in certain threads, no doubt because the issues are sensitive to those posting, is that opinion morphs into judgement. So it is no longer a matter of one person opining that she or he believes porn is a healthy pursuit that does not harm a relationship but one of a person asserting that anyone opposed to porn is insecure or controlling, etc., etc. There is a WORLD of difference between these positions. They are not merely semantical differences of expression. In the first example, a person with the opposing view would feel comfortable sharing a differing position. In the second example, a person with an opposing view knows that he/she is about to be judged and labeled. I don't see that as being helpful to any cause.

 

People taking the opposing viewpoint are every bit as vilified and attacked. So let's not haul out our kleenexes while we weep for the terrified supporters of the anti-porn side since the not-anti-porn 'side' suffers exactly the same fate.

 

If you can show me where the "pro-porn" group has had as many negative characteristics ascribed to them as the "anti-porn" group has, I would be better able to follow this reasoning. But, for the record, I would say again that it is neither appropriate nor helpful for anyone to denigrate or ridicule another person's pov and that the way to right a wrong is not to even the score but to stop the game.

[jenny]

i think what i have ignored is womens' feelings on the issue. cdn's point took me by surprise when i asked myself it rigourously - i don't think i would be as quick to say a man was insecure or controlling; which sucks and gives me pause.

 

you've often noted that logic can't encompass experience, and this is a case where i think you are right.

 

it interests me that i find the insecurities actually threatening because of the emotive nature of them. how could one even have a cognizant argument about it if the partners can't agree what constitutes cheating? how can this ever be resolved? i can point out how this approach is irrational, not strategic in terms of power or in terms of self-development, probably invading on some basic privacy expectations, but i'm just missing something. i don't get how they feel; i can't empathize; so i'm not being helpful or productive.

 

and it would kill me to think that my irony, which is only a result of my own defense mechanisms and vulnerabilities, would cause anyone to hesitate posting.