Is porn cheating?

Heather Hill, a comedy writer and author, has addressed the difficult and often unspoken subject of the effect on relationships where one partner uses porn. Here she examines the question of whether porn is cheating and how we can respond if our partner uses it.

“Is porn cheating?“

Learning that the man you love chooses the cheap thrill of fantasy over you is, for many women, utterly devastating.  In order to write my novel The New Mrs D, I hung out in forums where women have posted about discovering their husband or partner’s secret porn habits. The responses from women made my heart sink.

• “Every man does it; it’s just looking.“
• “Get out and get a life. Lose some weight.“
• “It’s normal. Get over it.“
• “Have you thought that some women are secure enough not to see porn as cheating?“
• And my absolute favourite one: “It’s not about you.“

Women, telling women: “It’s not him. It’s your insecurities.“

We need to talk about our feelings about porn

Sadly, there are lots of women out there letting their self-confidence erode without telling anyone what is happening inside of their relationship because they think it makes them look bad for not being able to cope with what is fast becoming acceptable in modern society: the sexualisation and objectification of women in everyday media outlets.

Miriam-Webster’s dictionary defines an ‘enabler’ as: “One who enables another to persist in self-destructive behaviour by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behaviour.“

Are some women enabling porn addiction?

Are women that tell other women, “It’s not him, it’s you. Get over it,” enablers too?

Let me be clear, I did not write my book to attack the porn industry. I am well aware that there are people that use it to enhance their relationships with neither of them having a problem. This is not the issue here.

It’s OK to say you don’t like porn

The real issue is about the ridiculous notion that individuals are not allowed to set the boundaries in their relationships from the outset, whatever they may be. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for these.

One divorcee told me, “After discovering the behaviour, I became this mad, obsessive woman I didn’t recognise. I checked his phone and scanned the computer as a regular, housekeeping task. Worse than that, I’d begun to feel threatened by the page three models that smiled silently at me from the inside of his newspaper. What was I now? A naked woman hater? The porn police?“

Sound neurotic to you? Then I would ask you to think about this again.

Do porn addicts think differently?

Norman Doidge of The Guardian wrote a revealing article on the brain scans of porn addicts. It told of how ‘scan images show that watching online “adult” sites can alter our grey matter, which may lead to a change in sexual tastes.’ He concludes with this story:

‘In her book Bunny Tales: Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion, Izabella St James, one of Hugh Hefner’s former “official girlfriends”, described sex with Hef. Hef, in his late 70s, would have sex twice a week, sometimes with four or more of his girlfriends at once, St James among them. He had novelty, variety, multiplicity and women willing to do what he pleased. At the end of the happy orgy, wrote St James, came “the grand finale: he masturbated while watching porn”.

Here, the man who could actually live out the ultimate porn fantasy, with real porn stars, instead turned from their real flesh and touch, to the image on the screen. Now, I ask you, What is wrong with this picture?

We’re asking the wrong question about porn

So let us not question the rights or wrongs of porn use when a woman says she has found her significant other using porn and feels betrayed. Let’s look at this woman’s individual needs, hopes and desires as her partner was supposed to be doing.

What I would say to her is this: If he is turning to something outside of your relationship to fill a need that should be met inside of your relationship, you have a right to say it’s a problem for you. You set the boundaries. Why would any person that claimed to love you then behave in a way that makes you feel hurt, lied to or inadequate?

There are women the world over Googling the term “my husband uses porn,” in a desperate search for answers. What they are finding are links to forums full of people telling them their feelings aren’t valid.

Can we all just start supporting each other as beautiful, individual women now?

The real answer to porn in a relationship

It is about you. If everything you chose to share so intimately with another person isn’t at least partly about you, then what and who is it for?

It’s true, pornography isn’t real, it’s a fantasy. We can all accept this. But to the question, is porn cheating? I would say yes it is, if you say it is.

Heather Hill is a comedy writer, mum of five (not the band), lives in Scotland, UK and is one of a rare kind; the rare kind being one of the 0.5% of females that is ever-so-slightly colour blind. She is known to have been prevented from leaving the house with blue eyebrows on at least one occasion. Her best-selling, inspirational comedy novel, ‘The New Mrs D’ has been downloaded over 31,000 times and has subsequently been picked up for hard copy release by Fledgling Press, Edinburgh. Find Heather’s author page on Amazon.