2/4/13
Your Call: Why Does He Watch Porn When My Sex Drive Is Higher?

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We get a lot of advice questions coming in at EMandLO.com, but sadly, we just can’t answer them all. Which is why, once a week, we turn to you to decide how best to advise a reader. Make your call on the letter below by leaving your advice in the comments section. 

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Dear Em & Lo,

My boyfriend watches porn and I am ok with it. However, my concern is that I am a very active sex partner and he is the who isn’t (not as often as I would like), so what would be his need for porn????

— Left Hanging

What should Left Hanging do? Let her know in the comments section below.

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11 Comments

  1. Left Hanging, VARIETY is the key to an exciting sex life, especially for men. You have to look at how often he is watching porn. Is it daily, weekly, etc? What type of porn is it? Is it gay porn, S&M porn, etc?

    I don’t care if a man is having sex daily with a woman, he still is going to want to watch porn, go to a strip club, or call a phone sex line.

    Keep in mind that you don’t have to be left out. Watch COUPLES porn together. Once again, VARIETY is the key.

  2. I say go buy porn that u like and the two of u watch it together. Hopefully it’ll get the mood right. Make a sexy game of it and be willing to be a pornstar for him in that moment.

  3. I’m having the exact same problem too. My bf and I only have sex once or twice a month and it’s killing me. I’ve asked him about it but he only says it’s because he’s tired from work and that I should stop pressuring him. He has a fetish that he refuses to include me in, and now I’m too shy/ have such low self-esteem that I don’t even have the heart to try turning him on anymore. Sorry to jump on another person’s thread but this situation is so baffling for me 🙁

  4. Sex involves two partners while masturbation involves one. There is no pressure on yourself when you are masturbating, not to imply that you are putting pressure on him. It just occurs, especially if he is aware that you want sex more often than him.

    Could just be a way for him to get what he needs minus some of the stress or anxiety of having sex.

  5. I’m having the same issue. Basically, I’m down for sex whenever. I have a pretty high drive. But my guy’s drive is low. But he manages to have enough of a drive that he jerks it to porn every time I go to work and sometimes when I’m off showering. I told him I’m ok with him looking at it as long as he isn’t passing me up for porn and he says he’s not. But I don’t understand why he is jerking it 5 or 6 days a week and but only giving me time once a week. All it does it make me feel bad about myself. I don’t know how to approach him about it either. I don’t want to guilt him away from porn/masturbating. I’m all for having your own private sexy time. I just want more together sexy time too.

  6. I totally feel your frustration and have experienced it many a time. Maybe one question is, could he do a little more work on building up some sexual frustration and energy for sex with you? This doesn’t have to mean not watching porn, but it could mean not giving himself orgasms for a while when watching porn.

    But if he is really tired or stressed and is using porn as a comfort blanket, you will have to look at the root cause. If he’s stressed out/exhausted, he may not want sex with you because he has to perform, he has to tire himself more. Is there anything you can do to reassure him that sex with you can be low-energy for him?

    Either way, having a non-antagonistic conversation seems to be the only way forward.

  7. I agree with most of what’s been said before – but I’ve got another thought. Does *he* have to be part of all of *your* sexual activity? Is there a reason that *you* don’t also watch porn, masturbate, etc.?

  8. This is going to sound silly but when you say he watches porn do you mean he just watches it or that he watches it as a masturbation aid?

    I mean do you think him watching porn is responsible for his being relatively less interested than you are?

    If the problem is he seems to prefer masturbation to live sex with you it could mean a heck of a lot of things. Some of them are obvious (anger, “not that into you,” emotional or physical or even time-of-day incompatibility, or even something like the old 1950s standby “latent homosexuality.”) Others maybe less so: he might be a little bit asexual or “oriented” to self-stimulation.

    He might have anxiety about the “responsibility” or “risk” of interpersonal sex. Those include but aren’t limited to pregnancy, “she comes first,” STIs, concern about “premature ejaculation.” It could be driven by a negative assessment of his penis or other parts of his body, or similarly that weird Groucho Marx thing where anyone who would have him for a boyfriend must have something wrong with her. Similar to that it could be religious or “abstinence-only” indoctrination where he doesn’t feel comfortable getting his “lint” on your lollypop. He could even feel “unmanned” by your higher libido (silly as that sounds it could still have him outside his comfort zone and/or gender indoctrination.)

    It could also be something as simple as he’s on antidepressants. Those rascals make it extremely difficult to have orgasms, with the result that it can be almost impossible to have them with partner sex and only barely possible with really concentrated, targeted, high-stimulation/low-distraction masturbation. (The latter happened to me in the early 2000s.)

    He could even just be a callow, shallow… well… jerkoff!

    Like J and others I think the only way to find out is to ask if he knows you’re feeling sexually frustrated and if he’d like to talk about why. (Note: “ask” isn’t the same as “confronting.”) But keep in mind that there really could one or more of any of those or other reasons, and that any one of them might be enough.

    The big key to the conversation will be approaching it to find understanding. Him understanding that you’re feeling left out, you understanding what’s going on with him. After that you can see if you can work out a solution. But if you try to get to the solution first it not only might not solve the problem it could make it more difficult to resolve.

    Good luck!

    fl

  9. I think it’s worth considering what type of porn he’s watching. Is there some fetish that he wants that you aren’t into? If so, it could be why he is turning to porn. Or, he could want sex more at a time when you don’t or are unavailable. Or,maybe there is some tension in your relationship which is causing him to not want to sleep with you as much. The bottom line is, there could be a thousand reasons he’s watching porn instead of sleeping with you. You’ll never know for sure unless you have a straight up conversation with him. If he gets defensive or refuses to talk, then he may have some issues that are more serious.

  10. It slakes his thirst for variety. Unfortunately I haven’t found that it works like sports, where it gets stronger the more you exercise it. It’s more like binging of any sort, which leaves you bloated and listless.

    As a young guy I could have my cake and eat it too – jerk off all I wanted and still perform for my partner. I’ve now reached an age where it’s one or the other. It took some discipline, but I’ve massively reduced my porn intake in favor of the real thing. If your guy isn’t satisfying you, he should probably consider the same.

  11. Well, maybe he’s trying to get his libido up using porn?
    A bit like sports, sex drive is getting higher if you get enough ‘exercise’. My collection of dirty novels certainly grew farthest when my libido was lowest. And it worked.

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