How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
Dear How to Do It,
Last summer, I caught my husband masturbating to porn on the Blink cameras in our living room. The first time I caught him, I thought, “Ok boo, do you!” But then I started catching him way more than I should. I’m very pro-sexual health, but our shared sex life had been basically nonexistent due to his failure to perform, and that’s been an ongoing issue since we first got together.
I finally got the nerve to say something to him when I saw all the screenshots of the porn he’d been watching on his phone. He lied about having a problem and then eventually admitted that he was addicted to porn and masturbating and has been since he was young. I felt so betrayed and lied to. I can’t believe I married this man and we’ve been together for years and I didn’t know. I couldn’t help but think about all the times I internalized him not being able to perform as something I did wrong when really, he just got off four times that morning looking at other women.
I’ve been working really hard the last year in counseling to learn how to forgive him and let go of the pain, which for me is still very fresh. Last week he asked me for something that blew my mind.
He wanted to know if I’d be open to him wearing women’s underwear and that I should start pegging him. He said he’s been trying to figure out “how to describe his sexuality.” How do I tell him it’s all too much for me without sounding judgmental? I’m worried that if I say no, he’ll start doing it behind my back.
—Lonely Bride
Dear Lonely Bride,
We sometimes hear from people who believe they or their partner is experiencing “porn addiction,” and so far, periodic refuting of that concept has yet to eradicate it from our inbox. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying. This time, I’d like to point you to an episode of Justin Lehmiller’s Sex and Psychology podcast from last year about porn addiction. Lehmiller’s guest was psychologist and researcher Nicole Prause, who has studied porn’s capacity to be addictive. (Both Lehmiller and Prause, as it happens, have been sources for past questions in this column.) Not only is porn addiction not listed in the DSM or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) as a diagnosis, but porn fails the addiction model’s strict requirements, according to Prause. As she explained during the podcast, to qualify as addiction, we’d have to see frequent pornography viewing going from an initially pleasurable response to a compulsive pattern “where the consumption is just to reduce negative affect.” Also, you’d expect to see withdrawal symptoms in its absence. Prause said that in these areas the data fail repeatedly.
Additionally, Prause described research she conducted that showed no tolerance effect. The team showed sexual pictures to people who thought they had a problem with porn, with the expectation that if they had built tolerance, their brains would be less reactive. On the contrary, Prause explained, “People who had had more problems or actually had a lot of sexual experience or more partners seem to be more sexually sensitive. That is, it didn’t take much to get their engine started, so to speak. Their brain was like, ‘Oh, something sexual, I like that. Let’s go see what that’s about.’ Instead of the tolerance expectation.“
I point this out mostly to clear the semantic air. That’s not to say that problematic porn use doesn’t exist, and certainly, if your husband is masturbating four times a day, that’s likely to sap him of his libido and make performing with you more challenging. But! It sounds like he has some kinks—pegging and lingerie among them—that he has finally opened up to you about. Could his habitual porn use somehow have vicariously scratched his itches? I think that’s very possible and that, in fact, telling you about them may mark the turning of a corner. Perhaps he is now ready to call you into his sexuality.
You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do. That is the supreme law. But, if you don’t meet your husband where he is, I don’t know that your sex life is going to see much improvement. Perhaps there is some negotiating to be done. Maybe if you scratch his back (by indulging his kinks), he’ll scratch yours (with more vanilla sex). Maybe you can meet him halfway—if pegging him/entertaining his lingerie request is off the table, you could try verbally fantasizing with him, talking dirty while he masturbates, or otherwise stay engaged with his fantasies by discussing them with him. Try to be curious about his desires—even if you’re not into them, appearing interested in his fantasies, while maintaining your own boundaries, could really help. You could also give him your blessing for him to watch porn, perhaps with some requests, like that he doesn’t jerk off so many times it makes sex impossible.
You turning him down may result in him cheating, yes, but I think more certain is that somewhere down the line, he’s going to be unsatisfied and something will give as a result. That could mean the dissolution of your relationship should he decide that you’re fundamentally incompatible. If you’re not willing to explore this stuff with him, perhaps that’s precisely what you are. Again, you don’t have to do anything you aren’t comfortable with, but trying might give your sex life a second wind.
—Rich
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