This is the question. I have always been highly aroused by images of women being spanked by men, for instance. Films like 'Forsaking All Others' 'Flying Down to Rio''Blue Hawaii' 'Doctor at large' and 'The Iron Maiden' are not normally considered to be porn, but the affect that the spanking scenes in these films has on me is definitely arousing.

And when ten years ago I purchased a copy of Edward Anthony's book 'Thy Rod and Staff' about spanking, I found a lot of stuff in there that might as well have been pornography for the effect it had on me. As did the books of spanking stories that I discovered in the 'adult' section in W.H. Smiths.

Likewise, after I discovered the Internet and began to discover websites that features spanking stories I found those arousing too, until I discovered Taken In Hand and learnt how much more thrilling it was to read about people's real-life experiences. there's a lot of stuff on this site that has a pornographic affect on me. Does my husband object to me reading stuff like this, knowing that I find it a turn-on? No, he doesn't. I remember when he came from America bringing me the DVD of 'Secretary', before it had been released over here. He knew I'd find it a turn-on, that's why he bought it.

You can say that Taken In Hand isn't porn, but it is definitely classified by my husband like that. Whenever we go away and he takes his company laptop with him he'll let me check my emails on it, but always admonishes me to never, ever look at this site or any emails from the Taken In Hand Yahoo group because "we're not allowed to look at mucky websites" as he observes. So should I give up reading this site because it is, as far as my husband is concerned, porn? Is he going to give up looking at women's beach volleyball players when he gets the chance? I don't think so.

Being devoted to my husband does not mean I can't get turned on reading the stuff on this site, or that I don't get an erotic thrill from seeing Clark Gable or Dirk Bogard or Elvis Presly spanking some wayward woman in one of those 'S' rated movies. I'm married, but I'm not blind. Neither is he. Being devoted to your spouse does not preclude getting a mild sexual titillation from looking at others outside the relationship,or reading about others experiences. There may be couples who are so wrapped up in each other that they are genuinely blind to any hint of sexuality in the outside world, but we don't come into that category.

Let me start by agreeing in principle with most of what you had to say. I also think you are seeing the true nature of pornography; a trap, a loss of intimacy, and unrealistic.

Fantasy is always more powerful than reality. Pornography creates perceptions that can only lead to a negative outcome in real life relationships.

What has happened in our culture today is that pornography has moved into the mainstream, and has become the norm. No longer restricted to back alley shops, or theaters. It has become so accepted, that it's hard to see the whole thing at one time, and it's effects.

I've been married for almost twenty-two years, and looked at my share of porn. I've gone to more than a few strip clubs. I've "admired" the beautiful woman on the street, and I must admit at times still do. However, that "innocent" glance, so often stings inside.

I see pornography as a gateway to dissatisfaction in one's relationship, consciously or not. When fantasy becomes our perception, how can we maintain happiness for long?

I'm sure I'm in the minority with you John, but I think your vision is clear. As for this site being pornographic, maybe some elements are, but now days we can make anything we want in to whatever we desire, can't we?

I remember they laughed at Jimmy Carter when he said he had been unfaithful in his heart. Today's culture it seems for the most part does not understand that fidelity starts in the heart.

The definition of pornography is not the question. The question is whether the focus of your fantasies will hurt your relationship.

As your comment also shows, pornography is in the eye of the beholder, so deciding what should be classified as porn will be an endless debate. But that is not the issue here.

And becoming aroused is not the problem. But actively fantasizing about someone else could be a problem. If you are aroused by a Taken In Hand post and then imagine yourself with your husband in a similar situation, you are enhancing your connection with your husband, in a sense. But if you fantasize about being spanked by Clark Gable rather than your husband, while watching your “S” rated movie, it could feel like an infidelity, to some.

The type of material is relevant, too. If you are reading a description, it is more likely that you are thinking about being in whatever situation it is with your husband, rather than fantasizing about the writer of the piece or the person being described. But if you are masturbating over a picture of a naked man, your focus is on the man in the picture, and not on your husband. The focus of your fantasies is what makes the difference.

How you should act depends on the nature of your relationship. Relationships exist on a continuum. The type of relationship that I prefer is at one end. An open relationship is at the other.

You and your husband have found that a certain type of pornography enhances your relationship. Obviously, you should not stop doing what you both find desirable and acceptable. But suppose that your preferences diverge. Would you indulge his feelings even if you could not understand them, or would you stand on your rights? Would he indulge you? How would you characterize the types and intensities of the connections within your relationship?

And it is not a matter of “… couples [being] so wrapped up in each other that they are genuinely blind to any hint of sexuality in the outside world …”

Achieving an essentially absolute level of trust and vulnerability within a relationship can require, among other things, keeping intimacy and sexuality strictly within the relationship, even though it is obviously omnipresent in the outside world.

All relationships have tradeoffs, even when they are not explicitly acknowledged.

The way I see this is that anything that moves the focus of one's sexual attention and attraction from one's spouse is potentially damaging. I do not mean that everything of that kind is pornography. Pornography is merely one of a number of things that can have that effect.

It does depend on the individuals concerned. Some seem to have no problem whatever with their spouse not just masturbating over Hustler but having sexual relations with others too. They are immune from fearing loss and sexually-transmitted diseases. They feel not the slightest pang of jealousy when their spouse is aroused by others, and when they themselves watch pornographic videos, they never become sexually attuned to the larger-than-life bodies on the videos at the expense of their attraction to their spouse. Nor do they ever start feeling a bit inadequate in comparison to the models. They do not have hearts of glass, and don't mind in the slightest if they are not the focus of their spouse's sexual attention and attraction.

If you are such a person, great! I am happy for you! But for many ordinary people, it is simply not possible to juggle all these balls and not drop any. When they concentrate their focus on their spouse, they increase their attraction to their spouse, and when they widen their focus, their attraction to their spouse decreases, damaging their sexual connection and putting their relationship at risk.

What I mean by widened focus is not just fantasising about having sex with a Hustler model or a women's beach volleyball team. Anything at all that widens one's focus is potentially damaging. Those who read the last paragraph of my comment here will know that yes, I include reading Taken In Hand in that, if, as in that case, reading Taken In Hand amounts to focusing on something other than your spouse. For most people here, reading Taken In Hand does not amount to this, but for those whose spouses are just not interested in Taken In Hand and will never be, I absolutely do think that it is a mistake to read Taken In Hand, and said so in that comment. Anything that makes you less happy with and attracted to your spouse is a risk to your relationahip. Anything. Including Taken In Hand in some cases.

In a sexual relationship, you can choose to concentrate your focus on one person, magnifying your attraction to that person and attuning yourself sexually ever more to that particular person, or you can focus your attention and arousal more widely, actively looking at, thinking about and fantasising about others. For most people, when you do the latter, sexual exclusivity is more likely to feel like a suffocating prison, and when you do the former, you get more and more sexually-connected with your spouse.

If what you want is an exciting sexual relationship with one person, that may well entail concentrating your focus on that person. But the most important thing is to develop and maintain an intense sexual connection with that person. The two of you might well fantasise together. Anything that deepens your connection and engagement with each other is good for the relationship. If you are engaging and fantasising together, that is completely different from doing so separately. What tends to diminish sexual connection is not fantasising per se, but having a wide focus, a lack of engagement, each being off in his or her own little world while the two of you are together, and getting yourself sexually-attuned to people other than your spouse.

I can certainly agree that when viewed or used in such a way as to take one's sexual focus outside of the marriage or relationship, pornography can be damaging, even fatal to the intimacy that is such an integral part of a succesful relationship.

I'm confused, however, about how anyone would consider Taken in Hand to be porn. Maybe I just haven't read enough yet. ::laugh::

But seriously, I consider myself to be a fairly conservative, old fashioned girl when it comes to love and marriage. Been married for 20 years to the only man I've ever had a serious physical relationship with. I was never into porn. Never saw a stripper, male or female. I can count on one hand, make that two fingers, the number of lite porn flicks I've seen, both in the company of my husband. Once when we were first married and discovered the Playboy Channel on cable and once when we inadvertantly keyed in the wrong numbers on our hotel's remote and got a bit more than we'd bargained for. We decided to be adventurous and watch a bit and found it did absolutely nothing for us. It was contrived and phony. We turned it off and .....well, enjoyed the real thing! In our early years together, he would occasionally bring home Penthouse or Playboy. He didn't try to hide it and when I told him that it bothered me, he stopped. He honestly had never considered that it might.

Of course, the advent of the internet and the popularity of stores like Victoria's Secret and the advertising there of during prime time hours has pretty much brought porn into the main stream and left us all a little immune to the effects, or at least desensitized. Not that I consider the modeling of women's lingerie to be pornographic, nor am I offended by it in the least. I just understand that some are. My husband receives pornographic material in the form of e-mail jokes, etc. at his office from other men on an almost daily basis. Some of it HE even finds offensive. We've both questioned the amount of time some of these guys must spend finding the stuff and he's gone as far as to request to be removed from certain associate's mailing lists.

When I introduced myself here, I mentioned that it felt like home. It is the absence of (what I consider to be) pornography that allows me to feel comfortable reading and posting here. When I went looking for answers to some of the thoughts and feelings I had about sexuality, intimacy and keeping things fresh and exciting, what I found was a lot of ...... well, a lot! A lot of stuff that may have helped me find some answers, but that could just have easily led me astray from what my original, main objective had been; to improve my relationship, not destroy it.

When I stumbled into Taken in Hand, it was like a breath of fresh air. Articles and responses about adult sexuality written in an informative, intelligent manner by people who were looking for the same things I was. More intimacy, more romance, more excitiment, within a committed relationship. I may be old fashioned but not to the point where I think that mature adults shouldn't be able to discuss sexual topics with other mature adults.

This site was the catalyst that gave me the courage to discuss my needs more fully with my spouse. I've printed articles for him to read and we've enjoyed discussing the topics together. I'm sure there are articles, practices and opinions shared here that wouldn't be our cup of tea, but that's fine. Peoples needs, wants and desires are varied. In order for a site like this to be successful, it has to appeal to a diverse audience.

I had the same problem in my first go around with marriage. After ten years, it got worse instead of better. That marriage was not a Taken in Hand one, but more BDSM, and I couldn't live like that. My former husband's idea of a good time was to go to a strip club and either take me in with him or have me wait in the car while he went in, and either way, he would say, "If you looked like her, I'd be attracted to you", his whole purpose being to degrade and humiliate me.

But it began simply enough...a few Playboys, a subscription to Penthouse, then they got more and more extreme, and more and more often, and I was frigid for most of my twenties because I couldn't get the images and the comments out of my head, or my heart. It was, according to him, just a "man thing". My opinion is that it made him less of a man, not more of one.

Taken in Hand is not about humiliation and degradation or loss of self esteem. If you feel badly, and he is choosing not to respect your feelings, he's being emotionally abusive. Get out while you can, it took me over ten years...and in that time, it takes a toll on your judgment (believe me) as to what "good for yourself" feels like.

Best Wishes,
Kal

While experimenting with nitrous oxide, Alduous Huxley experienced a moment of illumination in which he understood the meaning of life. His epiphany :

Higamous Hogamus,
Women are monogomous.
Hogamus Higamous,
Men are polygamous.

Refined abstractions aside, men are, if you will, "wired" to regard a sexual conquest about the same way that a woman regards an indulgeance in chocolate. It is simply not the big deal to a man that it is to a woman.

Previous to artificial insemenation, dairymen well knew that a herd bull would cover a new cow with gusto but with little enthusiasm thereafter. Novelty, to the male psyche (on whatever reptilian level it operates) is the stuff of delight.

The hidden danger which pornography involves, in my view, is that it caters to precisely this masculine predisposition to novelty and variety. It keys a pre-programmed response which, whether acted-on or not, maintains a degree of interior seperation and dissatisfaction with the familiar, howsoever good it is.

This is not the whole story, of course. But it is one aspect of it that seems to escape notice and comment.

Last night my husband rang me from work to check that we were all right etc like he always does, and suddenly broke off in our conversation to remark "Cor, I'm just watching two scantily-clad young women getting out of a hot tub" (they were apparently advertising something). "Not that I'm interested" he added. "Of course not, dear, you're naturally thinking about being in a hot tub with me" I replied. "Of course, dear" he said.

Now, I'm not worried by the fact that my husband is clearly enjoying looking at two young women getting out of a hot tub. If I'd been there, and they'd been young men instead of young women, I'd probably have enjoyed watching them too. Heterosexual men are always going to be interested in looking at scantily clad young women when they get the chance. Being married doesn't mean you can't enjoy having a look now and again. So long as it is just looking.

I appreciate that there is a big difference between noticing someone attractive and actively seeking out looking at porn. Obviously, what your husband does is very distressing to you, and I don't think I'd like it if I thought my husband needed to look at porn in order to want to make love to me. The trouble for me is defining what is 'porn'. The definition of pornography is, so I've always understood, material that is sexually arousing. Well, I find a lot of stuff arousing that is not normally defined as 'porn', like those otherwise innocuous films that contain spanking scenes ('s' rated, as my husband refers to them). Well, if a film is coming on that I know contains a spanking scene then I will watch it even if it is a film I don't otherwise particularly care for, like 'The iron Maiden' for instance, which I otherwise find quite dull (my husband likes it because it's about a traction engine). So does that make it porn? Should I stop watching films like that because I get a frisson of excitement watching those spanking scenes?

and what about this site? I mean, there's stuff I read on here that definitely has an affect on me that can only be described as arousing. For instance, when i read KrosRogue's post about him spanking his girlfriend and her not liking it my initial reaction was "Lucky girl, what a pity she didn't enjoy it " Deplorable I know, but that was how I felt about it. should I stop reading this site because I sometimes read stuff on here that has an arousing effect on me?

The impression I got from this article is that the author feels that having any kind of interest, however mild, in anyone or anything apart from your partner is a bad thing. "I only have eyes for him" is not something I could say with absolute honesty. I wouldn't DO anything with anyone other than my husband, but I can't honestly say that I am entirely without feelings of interest in attractive men whether in real life or on the screen or in books. I have eyes for them, but nothing else.

Now, I'm not worried by the fact that my husband is clearly enjoying looking at two young women getting out of a hot tub. If I'd been there, and they'd been young men instead of young women, I'd probably have enjoyed watching them too. Heterosexual men are always going to be interested in looking at scantily clad young women when they get the chance. Being married doesn't mean you can't enjoy having a look now and again. So long as it is just looking.

Noticing and admiring is qualitatively different from actively engaging or intentionally seeking arousal.

It is quite unusual to become actually aroused by appreciatively noticing a nice body on the street. It is a fleeting thing, it is not intentional and you do not engage with it actively to any significant degree.

However, when you deliberately watch a porn film or go to a strip club, you are actively fantasizing and intentionally setting out to arouse yourself with someone other than your partner.

These two situations are significantly different from each other.

In the former, you are not engaging with a fleeting thought and building it up into a big fantasy that is not focused on your partner. It is limited to appreciating a nice body and doesn't involve much thought. It isn't significant because it doesn’t result in much shift of or widening of focus.

In the latter, there is significant mental and psychological engagement and widening of focus. And, in many cases, the man is doing this despite the fact that he knows that his woman can't handle it. He does it anyway, and the woman's distress is discounted as control and little sympathy is forthcoming. A decent man would care that his actions are actually causing distress, instead of engaging in debates about why his actions shouldn’t be causing pain.

The trouble for me is defining what is 'porn'.

The definition of porn is not the issue. The issue is whether the focus of your fantasies, however they are inspired, will hurt your relationship. And that depends on the focus of your fantasies and the nature of your relationship. But I have already addressed this in my reply to your previous comment “What is pornography?”

Should I stop reading this site because I sometimes read stuff on here that has an arousing effect on me?

Arousal itself is not the issue. The issue is whether you are actively fantasizing and intentionally setting out to arouse yourself with someone other than your partner. If you are reading a description, it is more likely that you are thinking about being in whatever situation it is with your husband, rather than fantasizing about the writer of the piece or the person being described.

The impression I got from this article is that the author feels that having any kind of interest, however mild, in anyone or anything apart from your partner is a bad thing.

I wouldn't DO anything with anyone other than my husband, but I can't honestly say that I am entirely without feelings of interest in attractive men whether in real life or on the screen or in books.

There is a difference between noticing and interest. “Feelings of interest” implies an active and intentional mental and emotional engagement that is well beyond superficial admiration.

Actively indulging feelings of interest in attractive men diminishes the position of your husband in your mind, in some sense. And the realization that you are doing this could diminish your position in your husband’s mind. These would be subtle and, in some types of relationships, unnoticeable and even irrelevant changes. But in my preferred type of relationship, they would be glaringly obvious and highly significant.

And, “do” is defined by different people in different ways. To some, anything short of a specific form of intercourse is not considered to be “doing anything.”

But, I have been careful to not make value judgments. Whether any particular behavior is a “bad” thing depends on the nature of your relationship and whether you are causing distress to your partner.

I must say that your post led to some very healthy discussion between my husband and me. We had a rare day off yesterday together all by ourselves. I read your reply to me, and then shared it with Mike. We both found it rather amusing actually. We talked about it all day long. We could not understand how you could be so sure about the connection we have as a couple. We understood you speaking for yourself but you do not even know us at all.

Your comment that he is somehow replacing me with his fantasies is an interesting one. What happens when you are actively engaged in sexual intercourse with your woman or masturbating and horrors of horrors the image of another attractive woman pops into your head? Even if you immediately suppress that image, if that is possible, you have for a brief moment "replaced" your loved one with someone else. How can you ever unthink what was there? Once a thought is in your brain, you cannot unthink it. You will have always been unfaithful to your beloved if for only a brief moment. What about fantasies where you imagine your partner doing things that they have never done, or would never do. Is that somehow being unfaithful? You would be replacing their natural sexuality with a sexuality that comes from somewhere else. What about fantasising about your partner when they were younger? Is that wishing that they were not how they truly are? What about fantasising about your partner with a different hair colour, or sexual attribute than they now have? How do you know which are the “good” connecting fantasies and which are the “bad” disconnecting ones? I suppose that is only a question you can answer for yourself.

Mike and I do not see sexual fantasies as somehow replacing of the other in our relationship. We see sexual fantasies as a perfectly healthy and natural part of our sexuality. For us fantasising is something to be enjoyed. Our relationship is the kind where Mike cannot be so easily replaced. I do not wish to try to control Mike's thoughts. I would be concerned if he felt that he could/should control mine somehow. For me it is normal to play the "what if" game of sexuality in my brain. I wonder what it would be like to be with a much older man, a much younger man, a man from a different culture, a famous man. I have fantasised about being married to a man from the 1850's. Heck I have even fantasised about being kidnapped and made to be part of a harem somewhere. None of these things would I ever really want to come true. None of these fantasies could ever even approach Mike's place in my heart. It may be true for you that fantasising somehow displaces your partner in your heart and diminishes your ability to have a strong connection with your partner, but this is not the case for me or Mike.

Our big joke yesterday was that we did whatever because we were not really strongly connected as a couple. We did not squish into one side of a booth made for two because we were not really powerfully connected as a couple. Mike would tease me and I would tell him that he would not have said that to me if we were really connected powerfully as a couple.

I asked Mike at one point the questions you posed to me. Where does he draw the line, when would he consider my actions to be sexually inappropriate or cheating? Sleeping with someone else was definitely out. I said what about just kissing someone and that was right out. I asked him what about an intimate dinner? He gave me a sideways glance and told me so long as the other guy was paying, he did not want to be paying for anyone else’s intimate dinner. Of course I do not need to ask Mike to understand his limits, or mine in these cases. The thing is that we CAN talk about these things and neither of us feels threatened by it.

Our conversation went right down hill from there. Mike and I were talking about how we would know if the power of our connection was diminished somehow. Mike laughed and said there was maybe a way to measure it. He figured we could get a bathroom scale and put it between us and we could measure the connection that way. I said that did not make any sense at all because we would have nothing to compare it with. So I suggested that we first take the reading while we fantasised about each other, then take the reading again while fantasising about someone else. During peels of laughter Mike made a comment to the effect that it might be very disturbing if we later discussed it and found out that we had both been fantasising about Brad Pitt.

We figured the bathroom scale was not really a great way to measure the power of our connectivity. Mike suggested that "power" might have something to do with electricity. He suggested we could try the above experiment taking various measurements with a multi-metre connected to both of us. Then Mike got it into his head that this would not really work either. He said that "power" really had to be measured as a rate of change, so the multi-metre idea was not a good one. We then got into an argument about the meaning of "power" and its standard usage as meaning strong. Things were starting to get a bit out of hand and Mike said that we could solve this problem with a spanking. I then said that maybe we should first ask if the spanking is going to increase our power of connection or decrease it.....

At this he got an incredulous look on his face and yanked me over his knee. As he did so he said, "Just pretend I'm Harrison Ford!" By now I am laughing so hard I am chocking to death and he is singing the tune to Indiana Jones. I told him he would not make a very good Harrison Ford because he did not have the hat. He said he was not being Indiana Jones, but Harrison Ford and he doubted very much that Harrison would wear the hat. I was still giggling away and the spanks got stingier. I complained that I was not able to keep the vision of Harrison Ford in my head if he was going to make the spanks so stingy. He said, "Aha! So the harder I spank you the less you can think about other men" and applied a whole string of rather stingy spanks. Again I am laughing so hard I am unable to breathe. He is laughing too. We ended that with passionate sex.

As I was lying dreamily in his arms he told me how glad he was that we could laugh so much together and how much I mean to him. He told me that marrying me was the best decision he ever made in his life. I told him that he was not ever allowed to die. He pointed out that one of us would have to die first, eventually. I told him that if he died first he would break my heart. He said that unfortunately one of our hearts was going to get broken, but that we should work on living as long as possible. He then said it was time to go to sleep. I fell asleep wrapped in his arms knowing that I was safe and that things were right in the world. We slept the night, as we do every night, curled up like cats together.

You may be right that we are not as powerfully connected as people who surpress any and all fantasies that are not solely about their partners. But what I have is incredible. Mike and I have a level of honestly and intimacy that few others that I know have. We can talk about absolutely anything and know we will not be judged. We have a more than healthy sex life. Best of all we can laugh together. We are blessed with a wonderful family. So even if we do fantasise about other people sometimes or even if we occasionally do enjoy looking at porn we are extremely satisfied with our life together. We are so in tuned with one another that I can say one word and Mike will burst out into fits of laughter. We have been through a lot and I know he would walk through hot coals for me. The fact that if something ever happened to Mike my heart would break says a lot to me. I love him and powerfully connected or not I do not want to change him, or us.

Take care,
Tevemer

John,

I think your ideas on connection are just far too limited. They may define your ultimate connection, but the kind of connection where you only fantasise about your partner, actively or not, is just one kind connection. I think you are mistaken when you say that the power of connectivity can only be inversely related to the amount of exclusivity to the other person.

My definition of exclusivity is far different from yours as well. For me exclusivity ends where the physical world starts. I am no longer exclusive to Mike the moment I enter in a sexual relationship with another person. I do not include the realm of my fantasies in my definition of exclusivity. It is fine if you do, but I do not think that is what most people mean when they use the term sexually exclusive.

Connection, like love, is very difficult to define. For me connection is "being in sync" with Mike. When we are connecting well we are communicating with complete honesty. We are passionate about each other, and our relationship. We listen to the each other and take each others needs seriously. We are happy spending time together. We do not feel the need to fake who we are. We love each other, no matter what. It is some other quality that I cannot put into words. It is that feeling of "rightness" between us. I know when it slips away from us, but I cannot quite put my finger on what it is. Like I said connected for me cannot be as easily defined as simply the lack of anyone else.

In your reply to me you make statements such as this:

The fantasies that are good for connecting with your partner are the ones that focus on your partner. If you are not focusing on your partner, then you are connecting with someone else.

I do not connect with anyone in my fantasies. How could I? They are not real. I cannot have a connection with someone who is not real. Even my fantasies about Mike are not real. They are what my mind imagines about Mike. That is what makes fantasies fantasies. It implies a lack of reality, at least for me. I cannot connect with something that does not exist. I connect with my children, with my friends, with my co-workers, with my parents and with Mike. These are real people and the connection I have has to do with a real relationship that I have with those people. Dreams I have for and about my children for instance are not real. They are my hopes and aspirations that my mind wants for my kids. Imagining what it would be like to be the mother of 10 instead of the mother of 2 does not for a minute diminish the connection I have with my kids. So why should dreams I have about anything else diminish my connection with anyone?

For me connection necessarily implies reality. It must be a real relationship with a real person. Because fantasies are not real, I cannot be connecting with anyone in them. Even if I am actively fantasising about Mike it cannot improve my connection with him. I cannot have a relationship with a fantasy person. Connection to me defines a part of a relationship. So you see the power of my connection to real people cannot be affected at all by my fantasies.

Take care,
Tevemer

I am in the same boat as you are my significant other is on the internet any chance he gets when I am away. For hours. I can't deal with this anymore and have given it one month to change and then I am going to end it. I don't think they change. I view this as an addiction and he denies it. So, in order to stop he needs help, which I know he won't get.

I feel inadequate, ugly, etc. I just can't compete with all of this, but one thing I do know, is that all he will ever see in that is a body with nothing inside, with nothing to offer him. One day he will see what he has lost in me. His betrayal is destroying my self-esteem, confidence and everything I have worked so hard to accomplish. I was married 26 years and never had to worry about my husband. I was all he needed and I was the one who gave that all up. I was stupid, but can never go back unless God will it.

Dawn

Exploring sex materials on internet helped me with my husband communicate our erotic orientation. For me it was even enlightening. Without this we probably did not get so happy connected as we are.

If something is scary maybe something or somebody could help you to cope with it. It would never come to my mind even to speak about my fantasies.

Hali

But it is your place to tell your partner if something he is doing is making you unhappy. Having to hide your distress could tear you apart just as easily as him having to hide his interest. If he knows that you really hate something, then maybe he can do something about it. it is being honest and open to tell someone if something they do is causing you unhappiness. It isn't being 'judgemental' (the dread J word again!) to say "you doing this is making me very unhappy. It makes me feel inadequate" etc.

How on earth can you be 'open and honest' with your partner if you can't tell him when something is making you as wretched as it seems to be making some of the posters in these comments?

Louise

I must say I disagree. I am not saying that the way I feel about this (as explained below) is the same for everyone, but neither is the original article - what was written does not apply to every relationship and insisting that it does is a giant (and incorrect) assumption.

My OH and I watch pornography together sometimes and we both enjoy acting out the scenes and even laughing at the hilarious lame story lines together! I will admit that there are two types of pornography that do make me uncomfortable - photos of individual women including the face and videos of women masturbating on their own. These types of pornography seem more 'personal' to me - they are centered around that one other woman. I have clearly told my OH this and he completely understood my discomfort.

However, I see nothing wrong with erotica or other types of pornography. We watch it both separately and with each other and I am happy that he can satisfy himself when I am not there, and vice versa. We also enjoy acting out the various interesting and fun things we might see in pornography that we have not considered before.

Porn ruins marriages. While a few couples enjoy porn together (and indeed, partner swapping etc), for most wives, porn kills their spirit and their self confidence. In many cases I think women go along with these things and try to be into it, but they aren't in reality. I met a couple that claimed they had a very happy open relationship, but no one but a blind fool would fail to see the anxiety and fear and jealousy on the face of the wife when her husband was flirting with another woman. Sometimes I think we're our own worst enemies thinking we have to act cool with everything or we're "insecure", "immature", ect.

I hate my husband looking at naked women on the internet. How can I, a 36 year old mother of 4, ever measure up to the glamor models and teenaged co-eds getting it on in the porn movies and girls gone wild internet sites?

Why wouldn't it be I that he was thinking about when he's satisfying himself when I'm not there? Why does he want to look at 18 year old girls and surgically improved glamor models? Is he picturing those other women when he's with me too? Does he stay late at work to look at these internet sites so he can get it up when he gets home to me? I don't feel wanted sexually by him. There's something missing. I don't get that sense that he wants me. He doesn't look at me the way he looks at the girls on the beach or a waitress with a low-cut blouse and short skirt. It makes me feel so hurt, so inadequate and so miserable that sometimes I feel like ending the marriage, but I married for life. Can anyone give me any advise?

My husband believes all men look at porn but they don't. I know a couple men that don't like it. My husband gets angry with me when I cry about him looking at this material. He accuses me of attacking him when I tell him it hurts me deeply that he does this. He says it's no big deal but if it's no big deal why does he do it when he knows how much its destroying me?

I asked my husband if he has any suggestions for how I can feel better about his looking at pictures and movies of other women on the internet and he said I need to remind myself that his looking at that doesn't mean he doesn't love me and find me attractive - and that I need to grow up. But if it's me he wants why isn't it me he thinks about when satisfying himself when I'm not there?

I wish I was in a Taken In Hand relationship like I read about on here. I believe you grow more attracted to what you focus on, and in Taken In Hand marriages the men appear to focus on their wife. But I dont believe in divorce. Please help me if you have any advise for me.

Your husband is being extremely selfish in disregarding your feelings about this. You shouldn't have to make yourself feel better about what he is doing, because he shouldn't be doing it.

HE is the one who needs to grow up, not you. He shouldn't put his selfish and immature desire to look at porn ahead of your happiness. Ask him why he cares so little for your feelings that he is prepared to go on doing this even though he knows how miserable it is making you.

My husband doesn't look at porn, but then he despises the Internet anyway. Once when I was commenting to him about the number of men there seem to be who neglect their wives to look at porn, he shook his head pityingly and said "They should be taking their wives upstairs and giving them a good seeing-to, not looking at that rubbish"

Try telling your husband that.

Louise