Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Rebecca Traister writes:
Look, I know a lot of men and women who enjoy porn, who feel like it enhances their relationships, who love watching it together and are more than OK with the idea of watching it separately. And I'm sure that there are lots of couples who start out uneasy about it and eventually find a healthy, fun place for it in their lives. But if you're in a relationship in which it's enough of a problem that one person is offended, threatened or made unhappy by her partner's viewing, and the person would rather come up with stupid tricks ("Don't let her know about the balloon fetish!" "Tell her it's only your fantasy to sleep with a mute submissive!" "Try to get it up for her so she feels better enough about herself that she'll let you keep watching!") than just have an honest conversation about how you both feel and what compromises you can make, maybe you should stick to the porn and get out of the relationship.
(I've underlined two uses of the word person which at first seem to refer to the same person -- but then again don't. But that's a horse of another feather.)
The underlying reasoning of the quoted (last) paragraph of this Broadsheet item seems to be that if one member of a couple feels offended, threatened, or "made" unhappy by the actions of the other, then anyone other than Traister's suggestions abou resolving things are automatically nonsense. ( In no way does anything suggest that the writer of the men's magazine article discouraged the reader from talking with his partner about feelings. On the contrary, it's clear that she was assuming this had happened and would happen some more.)
Of course the Traister is right when she suggests having an honest conversation about feelings. She may or may not be right about investigating what "compromises" can be made; sometimes a person's objection to their partner's behavior can be ill-founded, naive, and controlling.
(Suppose for example that a guy is uncomfortable with his woman friend's occasionally getting together with a male platonic friend of hers. Does this mean she must "compromise" ? I'd say, not necessarily. It may be better to (gently) enlighten the guy that opposite-sex platonic friends are OK, nothing to feel threatened by, and objecting to them is, well, Neanderthal.
If there is valid reason to think that a person's behavior is a symptom or cause of an existing problem in the relationship, that's one thing. But if there's no reason for anyone to think it is either of these, if it's just something their partner objects to because it "makes" them unhappy, maybe something other than "compromise" is the best solution.
In my own experience, one usually wonderful woman friend felt she needed to wake up at five a.m. and to immediately throw open the bedroom curtains (no other room would do). All this was fine with me, until I soon learned that she simply would not accept my using a sleep mask or earplugs to enable me to sleep a couple of hours later. I honestly thought (and think) the idea of my needing to "compromise" on efforts to be able to sleep until 7 was utterly ludicrous.
I'd like to speak out against the outdated belief that because someone was paid for something (fresh lemons, housecleaning services, an appearance in a porn movie) that it is evil. This was the specious argument originally put forth by Aristotle ("species (currency) has no intrinsic value because it cannot create") that was repeated in Western Civilization by St. Thomas Aquinas and ended up resulting in the belief that Jews were evil because they dealt in money (arguably; Chaim Potok would take issue with this theory).
Sex is beautiful. Viewing people having sex can be enjoyable. Paying for things is not immoral. Watching beautiful (in the eye of the beholder) sex that someone was paid to have is not intrinsically immoral. But, there is a slippery slope to deciding that "money is the root of all evil," a slippery slope that leads to intellectual laziness and laying the blame for humanity's faults at the door of a simple tool.
Hi,
I am ok with pornography, for my husband and for myself - to a degree. What I am not ok with is that it does seem to have taken over [his] our lives- He spends a certain amount of time viewing porn every day, then wants me to take up the slack when other things are not done, or attended to. I am reduced to the leftover crumbs that he chooses when/or if to share with me. This is frustrating to me as I would like sex on a much more frequent basis. He gets upset if I were to do the same behavior. (I tested this)
There is another problem for me about his viewing porn. He has increasingly become obsessed and turned on with viewing gay men,from one extreme to the other, including reading erotic literature that is exclusivly gay -men on men. He insists this is 'fantasy'. This has been going on for quite some time - 4 years at least. It has had an affect on how I feel, and our relationship. I am most definately cut out.
I always take the initiative for intimacy between us. I complain, try to talk, write, do things, act out, you name it, to get out of this routine and rut. He will say and agree with me - but never acts on it. I am tired of standing on my head to get back to a happier sexual relationship and feel like I am working at it alone. I am not ready to just quit the relationship, but this is making me pretty unhappy. Your suggestions will be very much appreciated as to what is going on and what I should or could do.
Not A Prude...
Cary Tennis, Dan Savage, Emily Yoffee or perhaps a marriage counselor are in order.
The Porn actor/coal miner analogy is invalid. The point about porn work is that it's considered immoral. That's why you don't want your daughter doing it. Coal mining is brutal work, and you might not want to do it for a number of reasons, but it's not because coal mining (or flipping hamburgers,...) is considered immoral. Geez, isn't that obvious enough? Do we need to pass out smart pills?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
