Why does my husband watch incest porn?
I’m very much at a loss, and this blog seems to have thoughtful people participating, so… maybe some of you have some insight? Please?
My husband and I were married only two months ago, but have been together for more than four years. We have a two-year-old daughter. Let me say upfront that my husband is an incredible person, someone I really respect and am very thankful for in general.
However. Bit of a porn/sex problem. Majorly. Majorly.
The backstory is that my husband comes from a quite disturbed family. His dad was a complete narcissist nut, a compulsive womanizer, whose sexual issues apparently dominated family life in an ugly way: The whole family, including three kids, knew all about his affairs when they were growing up, and knew about the devastating effect it had on the mother, etc. My husband was a total social hermit and a virgin until he was 29 (and, mind you, he’s not just a very accomplished and charming man, he’s as handsome as Paul Newman or something, seriously) and never had any sort of romantic relationship until that age. My husband’s older sister has had a history of avoiding intimacy and lives with a much older man in a sexless marriage. So. Okay. Over the years, there has been much speculation in the family about whether or not the Bad Dad molested the sister or not. The consensus was “Not,” because she can’t remember anything like that.
I’m quite adventurous sexually, and over the past few years have tried to encourage my husband to open up about his sexual interests and desires — generally to little avail. I’ve gotten him to watch porn with me a few times, but he didn’t seem into it. I’ve gotten books, toys, gone to adult stores, etc etc. But my husband always seemed kind of turned off by all this, and — at least until super turned on by tons of physical stimulation — remained quite inhibited. He would never admit to having any desires or predilections at all… beyond thinking it might be nice to have sex out doors. (Which, of course, I was very glad to do!) He claimed to be just super-vanilla-y. So while when we do have sex, it’s sometimes been fantastic, more often, we have a real “disconnect” between us in bed. I knew there was real passion in there, inside him, but I couldn’t seem to access it. It was like he was distant sexually.
So, I’ve known for a long time that he enjoys porn on the internet. And I’ve always said it was fine and dandy with me. I’ve tried many many times to get him to tell me what he was into when he watched porn, but I never got much answer beyond “I like real people really enjoying themselves.”
Which brings us to Saturday night. I had to go to a volunteer thing Saturday night, and my husband was alone all evening. When I came home, he was watching the computer with the lights off in his office, and I knew he was watching porn videos.
So, Sunday? Sunday I went on his computer and looked into the history, to see what kinda porn it was.
Imagine my… my…. shock? Disappointment? Sadness? Confusion? when I discovered he’d done maybe 20 porn-site searches for videos tagged with the terms “incest” and “sister” and “rape” and “family” and even one tagged “daughter”. Yup.
Yup. (“DAUGHTER”??????????????)
To be honest, his true sex life — his only true experience of pleasure and desire — does seem to be relegated to the fantasy/porn realm. He doesn’t seem to have cross-over between his fantasies and desires and his real life and real, actual actions. So I’m not concerned that he’s secretly a molester. (Tho maybe I’m being very wrong in thinking that. I just don’t know.)
So yesterday we talked at length about this.
His first response was to tell me that this is purely in the realm of fantasy. That he’s a porn addict. And that he just wants to find “more interesting” sex videos, and therefore likes stuff that’s “a bit taboo.” (A BIT???) He claimed he views lots of “a bit taboo” stuff, and that lots of men might look at videos labelled “incest” (I don’t believe that. Do you?)
I could only tell him that — in the absence of any real-world, in-the-bed-with-me expressions of what he desires — I could only feel like I’d uncovered what, you know, his actual desires actually are.
Finally, I pressed him to finally open up to me about what his fantasies and porn-watching tastes are.
His reply? He’s into: 1) bondage porn. 2) group sex porn. 3) gay male porn. 4) “shemale” porn. 5) the taboo incest-tagged porn (which he claims are just regular, non-related people playing games, that it “isn’t real.”)
What am I supposed to do with this information??
As I mentioned above, I’ve always thought of myself as quite open-minded. Hey, yeah, I’d try some bondage! Happily. I’d watch group-sex videos. Happily.
But…. but….. gay porn? I know this isn’t all about me, me, me, but it shakes my sexual self-confidence already that he sometimes didn’t seem into me sexually. And now the knowledge that he’s also into penises? It makes me feel bad, ya know?
My husband says he’s not gay. He reveals he “tried that” in his twenties and that it was a total disaster. He wasn’t into it in real life. (But, you know, NONE of his real-life sex has ever apparently been very connected or pleasurable. So….So I don’t know.)
And the shemale thing?? That actually couldn’t be less sexy to me. Huge turn-off. My confidence that he was attracted to me, desired me, was shaken already over the years. And now — if we ever manage to have sex again, joking but not joking — I am going to be imagining “oh, he’d rather have a shemale up in here”? Damn.
And what about the (hair-raising and scary) “incest” porn thing?? Seriously, WTF? Given his unusual and unhappy personal history, I had already been suspicious that he’d been the victim of something bad. And now it comes out that this turns him on? Is it even possible that this is a turn-on for someone who doesn’t have that history?
Okay, so, I’ve gone on and on and on at too much length. I’m sorry for taking up so much air space. I just hope I might find some insight or opinions.
I don’t know what’s real.
THANK YOU!!
Thank you D for sharing your situation here. I’ll try to answer as many of your questions as I can:
Should you be worried that he’s a molester? Without further evidence, not unduly. We are in the realms of his fantasies here. We might find them pretty icky, but rest assured that he most probably has no intention of actually doing these things.
Do a lot of men look at this stuff? Yes, I’m inclined to agree with him. Porn websites are market-driven, after all.
So everything is OK then? No. His penchant for “more interesting” porn has turned up the anxiety levels for you both. You already had insecurities about the disconnected, emotionally distant sex. Now these revelations have come to light, it’s inevitable that your confidence will take even more of a battering. And I’ve no doubt that he’s feeling pretty screwed up about all of this too.
Is his family background a factor in all this? Generally speaking, porn addiction is often an avoidance mechanism. So for someone who picked up inhibiting and confusing messages about sex during their early years, porn enables them to explore fantasies whilst avoiding any real intimacy or connection. This might not be problematic in itself, but it often means that unhelpful early learning doesn’t get challenged; it may even become validated by the unrealistic and absurd sexual depictions of porn. In order to meet sexual needs, an obsessive or compulsive attachment to porn could also develop.
But it’s not just people with difficult histories who are getting turned on by the furthest extremes of pornography. Many ‘regular upbringing’ folk find it immensely appealing too. For those that struggle compulsively with it, they might be using porn to avoid other issues in their lives, such as stress or lack of confidence. They watch the ‘taboo’ stuff because vanilla porn just doesn’t provide enough buzz or escapism for them any more. But they might never have been the victims of any form of abuse.
So we can’t jump to conclusions about your husband’s attachment to porn, but these are some of the possibilities. And whatever the underlying reasons may be, a compulsive porn habit doesn’t make for intimate sexual connection with a partner. The relationship will always fundamentally suffer.
Where to go from here? Painful as it undoubtedly was, the frank discussion between you both can be viewed as a positive step forward. But for both of you, there are too many grey areas right now. I would recommend some counselling for you both, ideally together. That really would be the best option.
This experience is a horrible devastation of the confidence and security that you have worked so hard to attain. If your husband has the motivation to work on the issue now, he really can continue to be the incredible individual that you love and value in your life. It’s a sad fact that for some couples, the motivation just isn’t there or doesn’t last; he clings to denial and she is better off out of the relationship. But there is also a very real opportunity here for you both to recover for the long term, and even benefit in terms of intimacy and long term trust.
I wish you both every success.
Dear D
I read about your problem with a lot of recognition because my husband also had a thing for “shemale” websites and videos. He was very prim and restrained in the bedroom (like he was having sex with me just for my benefit, as if it was a duty) yet watched all kinds of weird stuff when alone.
Before I knew about any of this I tried getting him interested in watching porn with me, hoping it would spice up our sex life and get him fired up. I have since been advised that this gave his porn habit a green light. He even quoted it back at me when we were arguing about porn – “but you wanted to watch it too”. He just didn’t get it.
To have a daughter with your man and then see him getting off on “daughter” porn is downright scary. Like Jason said, I can only think that professional help is called for. I took counselling for my experiences and it did help a lot.
Hello,
Having read carefully through your story I can completely understand your sense of utter confusion. What does become very clear from what you’ve written is how your partner’s desires (sexual wiring if you will?) have been shaped by his up bringing & the family environment & the families history. This will certainly without much doubt have shaped his ability to be intimate, to connect with you sexually on the same wavelength that you would like. Or might make that sense of being connected more difficult.
**What is worth bearing in mind is that sexual fantasy is one thing, even fantasies driven by viewing porn but its something completely different for those fantasies to be acted out in real life. Fantasy only becomes sexual abuse when a very definite boundary is crossed or broken through. Most people have internal sexual /moral boundaries within their psyche’s which prohibit to crossing of such boundaries i.e. these boundaries are held by taboo’s of one form or another. It is taboo that prevents abuse much of the time.
**Of course these subjects (incest, rape, etc) are very very highly emotive so I can completely understand your concerns but as I said before fantasy is one thing, & of course whilst such fantasies remain just that fantasies that’s OK. The only real concern should be the acting out of those fantasies because the person crosses the taboo/boundary and wishes to live these fantasies out in real life, which obviously wouldn’t be acceptable or would cause dreadful suffering as a consequence. Therefore I guess the next question would be what is the actual risk of your partner wanting to act out his interests or fantasies?? That’s a very difficult question to answer I suspect.
“Therefore I guess the next question would be what is the actual risk of your partner wanting to act out his interests or fantasies??”
This question of Alex’s is a huge one for us partners, and one that I struggled with when I was still living with my porn addict husband. My husband wasn’t into incest porn, but he did watch teenager porn, which made me question whether or not I wanted to have children with this man and potentially expose a daughter to his addiction down the line. I do agree with Alex that not all porn addicts will cross those boundaries from fantasy to acting out in real life, but there *are* porn addicts who do, and how is one to know if you’re dealing with a porn addict who will or a porn addict who won’t?
The more my husband spiralled into his addiction, the more I saw him cross boundaries he previously wouldn’t have. By the time I left, he was showing signs of getting ready to act out in real life, if he wasn’t already (he was going to bars and flirting with other women). Who’s to say that give him a few more years and he wouldn’t be preying on teenagers? But most importantly, I’d argue that watching porn over having sex with one’s spouse is already crossing a serious boundary.
For me, it wasn’t so much what my husband could do in the future that influenced my decision to leave, but what he was already doing–and refused to stop–in the present. He was *already* demonstrating a lack of respect for my boundaries by masturbating to other women, so there was no need to stick around and see if he’d continue to knock down those boundaries and try to predict in what ways he would do it.
Sadly, one of the most powerfully negative things about porn is that it seems to erode or corrode or damage the boundaries which we would otherwise normally have. Porn has a bad effect or bad influence on what would otherwise be healthy boundaries. Porn has the power to damage ones healthy inner relationship with oneself i.e. creates a divided self were there wasn’t such a division before. That’s on the negative side of things but the good news is that I believe this can be healed if the person stays away from using porn for a sustained period of time.
If a person already has certain specific sexual fantasies (all sexual fantasies have a theme no matter if your male or female) then porn only just highlights those sexual themes, the porn they watch or are specifically interested in only points to those pre-exsisting interest’s.
Its almost a male cliche to have fantasies about school girls or pre-teens but that doesn’t mean such fantasies “are bad” or wrong. And it doesn’t mean most men are obsessed by this too the point they want or need to act out having sex with a school girl far from it. This just points to the fact that school girls in such fantasies point psychologically to specific Archie types & the school girl points to the nymph, virgin, maid Archie type and for most men these Archie types do hold a powerful pull. It doesn’t mean those issues “will be” acted out, most fantasies are harmless but remain fantasies & the themes underlying those fantasies don’t ever get to be acted out (normally). In fact I believe that watching & using porn for most people actually has a deadening effect and so makes acting out fantasies less rather than more likely. Only when a person cannot make a clear distinguish between reality as it is with others (including sexually) and their own inner sexual fantasies does the situation become a serious problem. But I think for the vast majority of porn consumers these risks are low.
We ALL have sexual fantasies, I’d suggest that the problem is NOT the fantasies the problem is the desire to turn fantasies into realities. Even here fantasies can be explored by some people but usually within the context of a loving intimacy & this exploration can be a part of a rich & enjoyable sex life. But this requires a very high level of trust in relationships, or fantasies are explored by mutual consenting adults in role play games or power play scenarios.
However, but when it comes to exploring sexual fantasies “context is everything” because beyond appropriate context if safe boundaries are not firmly in place then the fantasies turn into something very darker & very different. In other words the fantasies get acted out in a way that could be potentially harmful to other people, especially if there is no mutual consent i.e. were force or coercion is involved. Especially when boundaries are over ridden or boundaries ignored or broken, the this acting out has the potential to become abusive.
So to sum this up, fantasies are fine & completely normal. Exploring your fantasies is fine but context IS everything otherwise abuse is always a possibility.
Its ALL ABOUT BOUNDARIES!! knowing were they are and realizing when boundaries have been reached or breached. And in some situations respecting when a partner says no! they mean no because they have reached some kind of limit. We need to respect our own limits & the limitations of others. Knowing our boundaries is vital.
**Also its worth bearing in mind that people who have been sexually abused have had their own inner boundaries smashed by someone else. This is why sexual abuse is so massively traumatic and so horribly damaging.
Thought for today!
Trying to understand the reasons for someone using pornography can be quite difficult,indeed trying to get the whole porn thing into a wider perspective is also difficult. Pornography mainly exists as an aspect of our capitalistic culture which is driven by the motive of making money & profits. It does this through a process of exploitation, exploitation to varying degrees i.e. from swimwear & bikini to soft-core like playboy to hardcore & explicit movies.
Secondly, porn should be kept in context. Porn is created by us (humans for better or worse) and is sadly a highly corrosive & negative thing in our society. In my opinion it is something to be strongly avoided as much as possible, in the same sense that Binge drinking & getting smashed with Alcohol should be avoided, or getting stoned using illegal drugs or smoking cannabis, or loosing your entire months wages at the casino or on gambling on horses should be avoided, or over eating or being a spendaholic should be avoided. All these things which are highly compulsive & carry the risk of becoming habit forming or becoming the focus for our obsessions. These are all available to us as forms of temporary escapism from the sheer boredom or utter drudgery or unglamorous reality of our lives. I’d rather face & feel my emotions than numb them out. You cannot escape yourself ultimately though, quick fixes always wear off.
Alex, I wanted to respond to what you said about fantasies about teenagers, because, while I think that might be a pretty standard fantasy for many men, it can go a lot deeper for some people. In my husband’s case, that fantasy was particularly disturbing to me because he had been molested (raped, actually) by a teenage girl when he was 9 years old. In his case, I felt that the porn he was watching was a way of acting out his sexual abuse.
I wonder, too, if part of the allure of teenager porn for many of the men who watch it is precisely that that type of porn does have a “barely legal” child aspect. Considering how many porn addicts have been sexually abused (more than 85 percent, according to research by Patrick Carnes) and how many porn addicts seem to report having started looking at porn in their preteen/teen years, teenager porn does seem like the perfect way to (subconsciously) try to resolve wounds from early sexuality.
One other thing: When you look at pop culture and what the whole of society publicly seems to deem the archetypical “sexy woman,” it is a *woman.* Our sex symbols are women like Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Halle Berry, Bond girls, etc.–women in their 20s and 30s with fully developed, womanly bodies. The teenager fantasy seems to be a fantasy precisely because it *does* deviate from the norm and from what’s socially sanctioned, which hints at an element of shame, and shame drives addiction. I’m all for people finding what they truly find attractive rather than letting society dictate that, but how much of many fantasies are a rebellion against what’s deemed socially acceptable as opposed to what one truly finds attractive? When a person is rebelling, their choices are still being controlled.
Hi Margaux and Alex,
Some great points raised – thank you!
I agree that abuse, and the unresolved emotional turmoil, can be a factor in all of this. Compulsive porn use can appear to numb, justify, perpetuate and even validate early, harmful experiences.
From my experience of working with people who struggle with porn, I would question that this applies to as many as 85% of them. Maybe a lot depends on the definition of abuse. It’s not the first time I’ve wondered whether Patrick Carnes over-eggs the issue.
In my opinion, the vast majority of compulsive porn users have never experienced sexual abuse. Their behaviour has completely different emotional foundations.
I’d certainly agree that the behaviour most commonly begins in early teenage years. Wendy Maltz does a good job of summing up the different reasons for this:
1 – Learning about sex
2 – Belonging to a group
3 – Sexual permission and pleasure
4 – Coping with emotional stress
Sexual abuse might firmly fall within the 4th category, but there are clearly many more factors at play. I guess it’s good news that most are much more benign than childhood abuse.