Emerald Blue
Well-Known Member
I apologise in advance as I did not want to be drawn into a spat on another partner's very raw experience. I felt I had to defend myself against Malando's criticism of me so I'll say what I have to say and no more.
I take exception to these comments based on your erroneous assumptions.
Really? How did you come to that conclusion? My partner has lived without porn for the past 16 months. Of course I take him seriously. He admits he is a porn addict. He acknowledges that it's a long term or even a lifelong commitment to staying that way. He's done a lot of looking back at his early life and the roots of his addiction, much of it off the scale when it comes to childhood trauma. And you think I don't take all of that seriously?
Breeze back in? Excuse me? This is actually a forum for partners of porn addicts, and I am a partner of a porn addict.
I'm not aware that I have labelled or categorised anyone.
If you feel you can support the partners of porn addicts then go ahead. Nobody is stopping you. If you've helped partners to deal with their situations, fine.
Nobody is disputing anybody's "right" to be here as far as I'm aware. And if I remember correctly, I have never said anything about whether porn addicts "should" be able to post here or "have the right" etc etc etc. I've actually invited some porn addicts to post here when I have read about their difficulties about whether to tell their partners especially when they are in long term committed relationships, where we can actually offer the benefit of our collective experience. I have benefited enormously from the input of those men.
Some of the input of porn addicts, although well meaning, can sometimes be of very little value. Let me elaborate.
-The Dopamine 101 class. Because we often find this info before our partners do, and we pretty much have a thorough understanding of porn addiction theory. Most of us have one or two go-to books that we find useful. For me, it's Paula Hall's book for partners of porn/sex addicts.
-We know what porn is. Most of us have seen it. Many of us first saw porn at a young age. It's not something we accidentally discovered for the first time at the age of 40 or whatever and ran away screaming. We are not naive. We all know what a vagina looks like.
-We know what sex is. We've all done it. We all know what an orgasm is. We all have a sexual history. We all have sexual preferences.
-We give a lot to our partners in their journey towards recovery. We have all read extensively about why our partners were particularly vulnerable. We seek to understand them. We do most of the work of healing the relationship, certainly within the first year. It's pretty much always the partner of the addict who has to initiate a lot of the groundwork. It is very, very demanding. Our interests end up being put to one side at least for several months because we have to put so much into building the relationship. We didn't do anything to create the situation. It was all our partner's making. Fine. We do what we must to get the job done. But it's so fucking draining, and our men aren't the best equipped to support us because they don't have the necessary skills. At least not yet. We don't come here to learn about porn addiction, we need a place where we can let it all out because we don't want to to be all Mother Teresa and singing Kumbaya. We're pretty fucking drained with it all.
-The good old fashioned sexual stereotypes and assumptions. Let's start off with the old cliche of "men are visual creatures". I went to art school. I'm trained to be visually literate. Take it from me. When a man views porn, it's not about what's going on in front of their eyes, it's what's going on in their minds.
The other thing is this thing about women and weight. Jesus fucking Christ, not all women spend their lives on diets trying to lose weight. I read something about a porn relapse being compared with a woman eating a cookie. Like, OMG she's broken her diet! All hell has broken loose! No, we're not all on diets, or fat, or trying to lose weight. It's this cultural crap that we have to wade through. Men are "allowed" to look at women in this culture, women accept it as their lot that they need to fix themselves constantly in order to be looked at.
So that's an aggregate of the various 'addict' contributions that I don't consider helpful. What is helpful is hearing what addicts say to "why don't you tell your wife?" and "what led you from internet porn to webcamming?" or even "if you are attracted to your wife why don't you want to make love?" All these are questions which porn addicts have answered or tried to. It's a long way from Dopamine 101. These are the advanced relationship issues that to me are far more worthwhile than some single guy spouting off about visual blah blah and dopamine.
Anyway, that's plenty. That's all I have to say. Take it or leave it. I'm not stopping anyone, porn addict, whoever, from saying anything. If someone is truly out of order and is acting to the detriment of partners I will refer them to the moderators. Other than that, there are plenty of opinions on this site that are way off but I live and let live.
I take exception to these comments based on your erroneous assumptions.
I don't think you're able to take a man who claims to be quitting porn seriously. You can't see past the label. It's subtle, but your scorn is evident.
Really? How did you come to that conclusion? My partner has lived without porn for the past 16 months. Of course I take him seriously. He admits he is a porn addict. He acknowledges that it's a long term or even a lifelong commitment to staying that way. He's done a lot of looking back at his early life and the roots of his addiction, much of it off the scale when it comes to childhood trauma. And you think I don't take all of that seriously?
But you seem to think you can breeze back in and basically send me the message that this is not my place to be here, implying that I'm not supportive to partners. I don't believe that is true. I've been supportive here to all members in your absence. I am not somebody you can just label and categorise.
Breeze back in? Excuse me? This is actually a forum for partners of porn addicts, and I am a partner of a porn addict.
I'm not aware that I have labelled or categorised anyone.
If you feel you can support the partners of porn addicts then go ahead. Nobody is stopping you. If you've helped partners to deal with their situations, fine.
I could elaborate on why I have as much right to be here as you do
Nobody is disputing anybody's "right" to be here as far as I'm aware. And if I remember correctly, I have never said anything about whether porn addicts "should" be able to post here or "have the right" etc etc etc. I've actually invited some porn addicts to post here when I have read about their difficulties about whether to tell their partners especially when they are in long term committed relationships, where we can actually offer the benefit of our collective experience. I have benefited enormously from the input of those men.
Some of the input of porn addicts, although well meaning, can sometimes be of very little value. Let me elaborate.
-The Dopamine 101 class. Because we often find this info before our partners do, and we pretty much have a thorough understanding of porn addiction theory. Most of us have one or two go-to books that we find useful. For me, it's Paula Hall's book for partners of porn/sex addicts.
-We know what porn is. Most of us have seen it. Many of us first saw porn at a young age. It's not something we accidentally discovered for the first time at the age of 40 or whatever and ran away screaming. We are not naive. We all know what a vagina looks like.
-We know what sex is. We've all done it. We all know what an orgasm is. We all have a sexual history. We all have sexual preferences.
-We give a lot to our partners in their journey towards recovery. We have all read extensively about why our partners were particularly vulnerable. We seek to understand them. We do most of the work of healing the relationship, certainly within the first year. It's pretty much always the partner of the addict who has to initiate a lot of the groundwork. It is very, very demanding. Our interests end up being put to one side at least for several months because we have to put so much into building the relationship. We didn't do anything to create the situation. It was all our partner's making. Fine. We do what we must to get the job done. But it's so fucking draining, and our men aren't the best equipped to support us because they don't have the necessary skills. At least not yet. We don't come here to learn about porn addiction, we need a place where we can let it all out because we don't want to to be all Mother Teresa and singing Kumbaya. We're pretty fucking drained with it all.
-The good old fashioned sexual stereotypes and assumptions. Let's start off with the old cliche of "men are visual creatures". I went to art school. I'm trained to be visually literate. Take it from me. When a man views porn, it's not about what's going on in front of their eyes, it's what's going on in their minds.
The other thing is this thing about women and weight. Jesus fucking Christ, not all women spend their lives on diets trying to lose weight. I read something about a porn relapse being compared with a woman eating a cookie. Like, OMG she's broken her diet! All hell has broken loose! No, we're not all on diets, or fat, or trying to lose weight. It's this cultural crap that we have to wade through. Men are "allowed" to look at women in this culture, women accept it as their lot that they need to fix themselves constantly in order to be looked at.
So that's an aggregate of the various 'addict' contributions that I don't consider helpful. What is helpful is hearing what addicts say to "why don't you tell your wife?" and "what led you from internet porn to webcamming?" or even "if you are attracted to your wife why don't you want to make love?" All these are questions which porn addicts have answered or tried to. It's a long way from Dopamine 101. These are the advanced relationship issues that to me are far more worthwhile than some single guy spouting off about visual blah blah and dopamine.
Anyway, that's plenty. That's all I have to say. Take it or leave it. I'm not stopping anyone, porn addict, whoever, from saying anything. If someone is truly out of order and is acting to the detriment of partners I will refer them to the moderators. Other than that, there are plenty of opinions on this site that are way off but I live and let live.