Does Porn Count As Cheating??

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Recurring automated marketing messages from Pocket Hose. Message and data rates may apply. No purchase required. Terms apply. Available at pocket hose.com/terms. Things make an impression on us in unconscious ways. I drank more old fashions after watching Mad Men than I did beforehand. Porn is no different in that respect. It can influence us. Welcome, everybody, to the Love Life Podcast with me, Matthew Hussey, Jameson Jordan, Stephen Hussey, and Audrey Lestrat. We're all here together on the Love Life Podcast, and we are talking about porn today.

Giggity.

That is such a throwback.

That makes me feel old.

He's finally done it.

He's been waiting. He's been waiting to throw out a gigity since the beginning of the podcast.

Is that from something?

You'Ve just always done it.

Just naturally. That's my syllables.

So we put out on my Instagram at the Matthew Hussey, if you haven't been there yet, a question. And the question, Audrey, was the question.

Was, how do you feel about the person you are dating or your partner watching porn? What?

I'm trying to remember because there was, I feel like there was something. that inspired this episode. What was it?

I think it's just a very interesting conversation. I think it actually was born out of a conversation that you and I had around porn and people's relationships.

What's Matthew doing?

Jameson.

Didn't catch. Didn't catch him with me.

Jameson. You walked in on me naked the other morning. Oh, yeah. Speaking of porn.

When did you walk in on him naked?

Well, you were in bed, and I was walking to the shower, I think, early in the morning. And there's always half a chance that walking through the house naked early in the morning, Jameson will be here.

I like to keep you guessing.

And I saw, I was walking to the shower, and our bedroom door was open, and Jameson had, come to set up something we were filming that day. And he just sort of walked over and I, like some sort of naked feral creature, just looked at him in the doorway and I just gave him like a sort of, I was just standing there naked and I just gave him a sort of knowing nod.

It was like, Audrey, you know those raccoon videos where they're shining a flashlight and they catch a raccoon just kind of standing on its hind legs? I just sort of like scamper enough.

No, but I gave him-.

There's a raccoon pass.

I really just looked at him as with the sort of look you can only give someone you've been friends with for a decade, you know, as if to say, Good morning. This is fine.

That is what it says.

I love how all this happened while I was sleeping.

Yeah.

And then you never told me about it.

Well, that's my point. It wasn't a big deal.

I'd actually forgotten.

Exactly.

But now he's... We've been on tour together.

It wouldn't be the first time he's walked in on me naked.

It would not. It would not.

So, anyway, we asked everyone what they thought about their partner watching porn.

I've just realized, sorry, that you're the only person in this group of people that everybody has seen naked. Yeah.

Fun fact.

That's quite a fact.

Sorry, I just hit the box. And I thought, it's important that everybody, you know, realize that.

Literally a checked box. So, we got a lot of interesting responses, as you would imagine. This is a very charged subject for people. So, I haven't seen any of the responses. I don't know what our audience said, but, Audrey, you do. You've picked out a bunch of responses for us to discuss today. And I think that what's interesting about this is that it's gonna end up being a bigger conversation than just being about porn. I think it speaks to the heart of relationships in general and the kind of issues that we can discover in relationships, but it's also very topical because it's something that is clearly affecting a lot of people out there and people have very different views. so let's get into it. Before we do, I wanted to just read a letter that was sent in from Renee to podcast@matthewhussy.com who said, I listened to your podcast this morning while getting my steps in. Yes, you walk with me weekly. And this morning's words on leaving your narcissist sank deeply within. I am that 52 year old going through a divorce after a seven year relationship with a covert narcissist that left me personally so frustrated depressed, but now a more deeply knowing person who saw an opportunity to leave and grow a better version of me. There was a gift in all of this and I knew if I stayed with him my life would be worthless. As Audrey said, I now begin the opportunity of finding love and I know that starts with all sorts of self-love. And the best part is I get to live my life with purpose. The new me now focuses on boundaries and I look for joy in the little things. When you look for them, joyful things and moments, you will find them. I hope my fellow podcasters remember it's the little things that can help so much. Signed and with love for all of the jams. And that's from Renee.

So nice, isn't it?

That's really nice. And for those of you who want to find our episode on leaving a narcissist or any kind of toxic relationship, that is podcast number 100. 182. And yes, that is a little brag that now we have numbered our podcasts. So they're easier to find.

Enough hints that, you know, eventually we got it done.

I think some would argue I had to drop one too many. Let's get into it. Our main topic for today, porn in relationships or with someone you are dating. So are you okay with the person you're dating or in a relationship with watching porn. What were these comments?

Well, what's really interesting to me is there were 1640 comments on Instagram within a day. I'm not sure about the other social media platforms, but it's just had a very divisive kind of reaction. And we also actually put out a poll because we were just interested to find out whether or not people fell on the side of porn is okay and they have no issue with it, or whether they felt uncomfortable with it. So the results of the poll were actually, to me, quite shocking and I was really surprised by them. Which one do you think got the most responses? We put out a question that said, Are you okay with the person you are dating or in a relationship with watching porn? Yes or no?

I... Ooh, well you've thrown me now. I would have instinctively said most people will say no. But now I'm not sure.

What do you think, Jameson?

I would have said yesterday. Yes. Like people are kind of like, with the way you phrase that, like, okay, they'll have seen it or they like, we'll see it on occasion. 'Cause you didn't phrase it as like they regularly watch it or they watch it every day. But looking at the comments on Instagram, I don't know, maybe people said no. I'm kind of torn.

Jameson cheated. What about you, Stephen?

I know from some experience of when we've talked about this in the past, a lot of people said they do consider it some form of cheating or they don't like it. So I'm gonna guess no, they didn't like it.

Well, you were right before. 58% of people have said that they don't have a problem with it and 42% of people say they're not comfortable with it. So you were right Jameson.

Wow.

Yeah.

I am surprised by that.

I was surprised too.

I was- I guess I'm just more open-minded than you guys and I assume other people are more open-minded too, but I guess we'll get into it.

You're more open-minded about how open-minded you think other people are. Is that the point you're making?

Absolutely, and that takes a big open mind.

That shows it's pretty divisive though.

Yeah, that's very divisive.

For sure. Well, we had some really interesting comments on it. One of the most upvoted comments was.

A woman who wrote... Yeah, that's what I want context for as we go through this. I want to know, like, which were the ones that got the most votes?

Well, this woman wrote, It ruined my marriage. He became sexually violent and desensitized. I personally don't want my future partner binging or willingly lusting after another woman's body. I'll stop there. And somebody wrote underneath that comment saying, It's true. It's ruined so many relationship. Porn kills love. That was one of the most upvoted comments, which I think is, and we're going to get much deeper than this, but I think it's a point that's really important to address, which is, I think, a worry and a fear if you take jealousy and kind of uncomfortability aside, I think the worry for women is, is it going to basically make what women really enjoy during sex becomes so far from what men enjoy doing. Does that make sense? Like, female pleasure is already something that, you know, takes a backseat in a lot of sexual relationships. And I think when you watch porn, it's very much aimed at turning on men, not very much at turning on women. And understanding what turns on women is, is definitely can't be found important. So it's sort of like is that going to be over time? If you have somebody who consumes a lot of porn, is it going to mean that your intimacy is going to be geared in such a way that you're not going to be able to get pleasure out of it? And, you know, what she's saying is it made him sexually violent, which I think is quite common. And she's also saying that it desensitized him, which I think is another point. You know, if you're subjecting to a lot of kind of highly sexual and intense pornography, you know, the real act of sex, real life act of sex might just end up feeling very vanilla.

Yes. Look, there is obviously so much porn trends towards being either aggressive, demeaning, It can be degrading. You know, it trains people to think in a certain way. Look, it's very, this is very complex because on one hand, you can say it trains people to think about sex a certain way. On the other hand, you can say these sites are purely capitalist sites. They just want to make money. and they are just creating what people will watch. And when a category is popular, they spend more money and time creating porn around that category.

Or it's just, yeah, it's the free market. But in the same way that Facebook and Twitter is the free market, which is just getting worse and worse and more, you know, it's a, in the same way that conspiracy theory and stuff that just outrages you is getting the most attention on those other places. As soon as you put an algorithm in charge, the porn algorithm is just going to be upping the game every time the same way those other ones are.

Right, because that's, I suppose in the same way that you see with newspapers, right? I have to be, I have to, as a newspaper, try to become more and more scandalous in order to stand out.

Correct.

And as you say, the same is true of Facebook. You have to keep pushing the boat out, become more and more outrageous or anger people more and more to get those clicks. And porn naturally is, it's gonna, it's like in order to do something different, you have to keep doing something different. That doesn't naturally explain why stuff that's aggressive towards women wins. But there is clearly something in the male psyche that that is speaking to, that that is playing on and does well for that reason. So I think that it's fair to say that if in the same way that if you're watching, if you're on Facebook and getting made to be angry all the time, then you're getting an angry and unnatural amount of the time. If in porn, you're consistently watching things that dominate women, which some women want, some women are into, and a lot aren't. Right. So it's not like that. It's not like I. I don't want to. I want to separate things. Right. Because whatever role play people have within the context of their bedroom is fine with me. if they're both, if they both, if it excites them, I don't care who dominates who. But the, the kind of trend of constantly just barraging, like bombarding people with stuff that is, has no care for the female experience at all, but simultaneously makes it look like the woman is having the best time ever. That is, that creates a very, very on the, on the worse side, aggressive partner, but on the, even on the more kind of, what's the word? Even on the more innocuous side, it just creates a very selfish sexual partner.

Which I think is an interesting point because, and I can only speak to how I'm from what I've seen in the comments and what I know women to feel. And I, I can't speak for every woman, but I think the kind of the issue that people, women take to porn and to their partners watching porn comes from the fact that, you know, the male orgasm is always overvalued in comparison to the female orgasm, meaning you would very imagine having sex with someone and she came and you didn't. That is just, that just wouldn't happen. It just seems like such a strange thing. You'd have to somehow make yourself orgasm. after that happens. So, whereas there are so many times when women don't get to climax during sex, and I think that the frustration to that point particularly, I think for women, is that it ends up, as you say, not taking into consideration at all the female experience, because it's so heavily geared towards what turns men on. And then if you carry that over completely directly, into the bedroom, you end up having, as you say, a very one-sided and selfish experience, which is already something that women have to fight against.

I actually feel like there's a different problem. I mean, that's definitely a problem too, but the most visceral problem that I've just noticed is just unrealistic expectation. And when you say, like, oh, what if she doesn't climax? It's like, well, actually the porn you see now is just like, what if she doesn't have seven orgasms?

Or it's just like, everything after 30 seconds.

It's so performative.

Yeah.

And fake, like, coincidentally, I watched the movie last night, Don Jon, when he was, he's got a, it's Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Scarlett Johansson. It's a good movie. It's a great little movie. I think it's a directorial debut, actually, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But he's got a massive porn addiction. And he admits that he just, you know, Pussy's great. It's just not as good as porn, you know? It's like, to him, it, Because he's just not, he's not having any real connection with the person that he's having sex with. He's just having whatever idea that is in his head that the porn, the unrealistic expectation of porn is taking up. And it just takes him out of reality. And I think that's the part that is really insidious. And I probably come into this a little bit more, I feel like at least more open-minded than a lot of these comments because a lot of these comments are just like, No, it shouldn't. If you ask them, if you ask a lot of these people, they probably think it should be outlawed or something. It's just not really what I think the case is. But I think you have to be really honest with yourself about just what a performance and what a piece of phoniness it all is, really.

I mean, God help people who kind of start off on their sexual journey as teenagers with all of that because the insecurity that must breed and how much harder it is to navigate a woman than porn suggests it is, that you are just going to be able to get someone off that easily. That's not a good thing either. So in that sense, it's not good for anyone's self-esteem.

Well, it's causing massive amounts of sexual anxiety.

It's actually interesting you say that we had a comment from someone who said it depends what they're watching and whether they know the difference between real life and porn. Men my age in brackets in their 30s think that what men and women do during porn is completely normal. Romance is dead.

That's interesting. I feel like that's not giving men in their 30s an awful lot of credit. I thought she was gonna say like men in their 30s know the difference.

Yeah.

I, I mean, we, you know, you fall. Look, I, I kind of want to zoom out a little bit, but I just want to make this point before we do that. When a movie director suggests that it's utterly crazy that their movie could have caused any kind of violence at all and that There is no connection between real life violence and what people see in movies. That, to me, seems willfully intellectually dishonest. Because things do have, things make an impression on us in unconscious ways. I drank more old fashions after watching Mad Men than I did beforehand. Because you saw Don Draper drinking Old Fashioneds all the time. Jameson and I, we ate oysters in New York and drank martinis because of an episode of Mad Men.

It's true. You took me to Waffle House because of an episode of... Parts Unknown.

Matt was a misogynist for three years after Mad Men.

Not true, Jameson. But that's the reality is, if we weren't influenced by things, then Companies wouldn't spend money on advertising. It wouldn't make sense. Companies aren't stupid. They don't flush money down the toilet. So things can have an influence on us and they can build new associations. Porn is no different in that respect. It can influence us. But there's a difference between influence and being like, I don't know the difference. And I think that people who have had long-term relationships generally, I would argue, know the difference. Now, I do think that it gets in someone's. It can take someone trending down a path of being more and more ignorant of someone else's sexual experience, being more and more sexually aggressive. And I also hear what she's saying about desensitization, because I think that's a real thing that is in some ways, I think, even more likely than someone becoming sexually aggressive. That's not me saying, I don't think people don't become more sexually aggressive through porn. I think a lot of people do. But the desensitization within relationships, I think happens to a lot of people because, or even outside of relationships, because they are just, you can drown yourself in this world of extremes that is very disassociated. It's a very disassociated experience watching porn. You're on the outside of it. you're not connected to anything. It's a very disconnected experience, which is why most people, if they are being self-aware and introspective about it, will say that after they've come through porn, they feel kind of slightly... It's not like anyone feels better afterwards. Maybe some people do. But most people will say, It's not like my proudest moment after I've done that. I don't then think, what a great way I just spent the last 20 minutes.

Or... Is that how long it takes? 20 minutes?

That was the funny thing about the movie, where it's like, actually just picking the right video, that takes a long time. But Don Jon, once he finds the right video, but that's how he wasted his whole, you know, life.

In a weird way, that becomes the kind of metaphor. for what it does to people's sex lives. Because the experience of searching on porn is that you're always looking for the perfect thing. You don't even know what the perfect thing is. You're just searching and they know that and it's like, dragging you down this rabbit hole and that rabbit hole and so on. And it, you know, you could be watching a video that you just selected and already searching for a different video. And so there's nothing present about it. It's this, it's like the slot machine as applied to sex. And there's always thinking there's this bigger jackpot, there's this. other experience. And when that carries over into someone's real life, their sex can become disassociated. It can become disconnected. It's hard for someone to have real intimacy in the same way. And it's hard to connect to the real experience of it and be present with it because you're used to playing that slot machine.

It's interesting you compare it to a slot machine. We actually had someone Give a more of a nuance response to it. There is a similarity or a link or even just it's pretty much the same as an addiction, right? For a lot of people. This woman here wrote, It's not black and white. It depends on the frequency, the type of porn, the intimacy. If there is an addiction. And she said that if you have none of those things, it can be a fun thing together, to do together or separately. or if you do suffer from it being too frequent, a wrong type, killing your intimacy, or if you have an addictive relationship to it, she believes it to be very, very destructive, which is kind of what you had said previously. And I just want, I'd love your thoughts on that.

Well, firstly, what this is, I think that that's a really intelligent and kind of open-minded comment.

I.

Despite everything we've said, something in me wants to resist when I hear wrong type. Because that feels like a judgment sexually.

But I know what she means.

I know what she means. I get it. I get it. There's definitely a type of porn that if you found your partner kind of watching that, you'd be like, wait, this seems horrible. That seems horrible.

There's a scene that actually comes up in the, the most recent Sally Rooney book where she, the female character, Nat finds that the man she's dating, who's a nice guy, is watching quite, like, quite violent, you know, quite violent pornography and. They end up having quite an awkward conversation about it where he's like, why are you judging me for what I'm watching? And she's like, well, no, you can watch whatever you want. It's just, you know, it makes I don't like the fact that that's something you enjoy. And they have an awkward conversation where she's like, no, you can do what you want, but I have a right to have an opinion about it. It's very, it's very awkward, right? Because people do have private worlds as well. where they do have fantasies and we don't expect to be able to judge them. But yeah, I guess we all have our like idea of what's the line of acceptable or unacceptable, too weird, too out there. Maybe we think, oh my god, they're that out there in their imagination. I am nowhere near that level or I do not have those fetishes. And so there's also that of just feeling like, are we within each other's boundaries. But there is a school of thought that sees it if you ha- if you do it in a measured way, it can be some kind of act of self-care in a weird way of kind of like an indulgence. It's obviously that's a bit more of a- that's not how most people practice it and do it. Or mostly it's just I'm horny, I'm gonna do that. But there is a school of thought that says maybe it's just Playing in the realm of fantasy, pleasuring yourself, doing something nice for yourself.

Let's, let's, I think that takes us in an interesting direction because there's a comment that I'm seeing here from someone who says it feels like a betrayal. And I, I, the question I was going to ask, which her comment may be the answer to as in far as far as people's perception is, what's the difference? between porn and having a slice of cake because you want to treat yourself. And we know that sugar is bad, but we consume sugar, especially when we're in that mode of like, I'm just having a treat, I'm just doing something for me. We know that having a drink or even a couple too many drinks is another version of that for some people. We... So there are ways that we kind of indulge. There are ways that we treat ourselves that we wouldn't say are a good thing to do every single day of the week, but we kind of say to ourselves, well, screw it, it's Friday night. You know, why is porn different? Do you think that the comment feels like a betrayal is the reason?

Yeah, I think from reading the comments and I can actually understand that psychology. I don't really feel it myself, but I can completely empathize with that way of thinking. I think it's not nice for women to feel like their partner is watching another woman naked and imagining her. And you know, sometimes you can be imagining presumably when you're masturbating, yourself with that person, even though you and I actually disagree with.

I I. We disagree.

But there's a whole category, isn't there, of porn where. Which is the most popular category. I think that's true. Okay, well, it's a very popular category.

Well, it's a category.

Which box agree? I would say.

I can't wait to hear what category this. I think I know what it is.

Point.

You're saying.

You're saying whole POV. Right. But, yeah, that's. I don't know that that's the most popular category. It's one among God knows how many categories. But the, I actually think a lot of porn is not someone watching it imagining themselves in that. I don't think it goes that, I don't think it's that personal.

Well, I think whether or not they do, I think that, you know, for the same reason that you wouldn't want your partner to go to a strip club, and watch a woman strip, why women would have an issue with that and you could understand the psychology. I think it's the same sort of thing. And I don't know, like, how would you feel if I was, like, watching naked guys all the time? Would it not bother you? I can understand it. I really.

Oh, no, no. I'm not saying I can't understand it.

Yeah.

I'm not saying that for it. I'm not suggesting that for a second.

I think that's the Betrayal. I think it's. It's a feeling of. that's a special connection that you and I share, and sex is something that remains between the two of us. But by watching porn, you're kind of, you're not cheating, but you're basically extending that particular part of something that's sacred between the two of us, and you're extending it out and kind of, you know, mutualizing it. I think that's what people feel.

You know, I find this, the whole thing, very fascinating from a number of angles. And we're kind of uncovering them one by one. Is there a world in which porn could be considered a necessary crutch in a relationship where two people's sex drives are very different? If you have one person with a pretty high sex drive and one person with a much lower sex drive, and were the person with the higher sex drive to always put their sexual demands on the other person, it would be a nightmare for both of them. One person would feel constantly just bothered by the other person in times where they just don't feel like it. And the other person would feel constantly rejected. Or let's say they would feel rejected three out of every four times they propose sex. Is there a world where we say porn is relationship saving there? Because the times where, you know, it's a kind of, you know, we don't want to treat our partner like a blow up doll, right? In either direction, where it's just, I want this now and it's your job all the time whenever I feel like it. But at the same time, if you're the partner that doesn't feel like it, do you get to say, I don't feel like it, but you're also not allowed to go and experience this without me. Now, I suppose the person in that situation would say, no, but what I'm arguing is they can go and masturbate, but they can't watch porn. which is an interesting argument. And it forces us to say that the. It forces us to make a distinction that the things you imagine in your head, which may be exactly the same as the porn you're watching, are fine, but represented on a screen, they're not okay.

It's interesting. I mean, I think the way you laid that out makes it a very difficult thought experiment, but I think. There is, I think practically speaking, that it probably makes sense in the real world to do that, like depending on the trimester of pregnancy or something, or whenever there's like some real... Either person's really off their game for some reason, and it could help sort of just normalize the situation. But I do think that your other point is also really good, where it's like, Well, why do you need the porn then? If your sex drive is really naturally that much higher than mine right now, then maybe you don't need the porn. You should just try to do it with your mind.

And look, we know that there are very real world issues with using porn all the time because the men then or people in general, but I only know this in relation to men, struggle to use their imaginations if they use porn all the time. A lot of guys can remember a time where they certainly didn't need to be looking at anything. in order to be able to give themselves an orgasm. And that's changed for so many men, where it's like, oh, I now can't come without porn. Like, I just, you know, that that is the experience of so many people. And. And, you know, I think that that's when, you know, like, ah, that's almost when it should be a bit concerning because you're like, what's going, like, How has this rewired my mind?

Hmm.

How has this made it so that something that is a very natural urge, I now cannot do without the help of this stuff on a screen?

It's just frequency as well, because if you didn't do it often, I think it wouldn't affect people's sex lives so much. But often there's a term they call it porn sick, like when a guy you know, actually gets with a real life woman, but he's just too addicted to porn and using it all the time and maybe masturbating a lot where he now can't get so sexually excited from being with a real woman. And I think that's, that's frequency as much as anything. If you did it once a month, it probably doesn't have such an effect, but it's the fact that it becomes something people do whenever they have anxiety to relieve tension to your stressed. your response, like going to the fridge and getting food is, oh, click up a window of porn and do that, you know? So I, and I think it's the frequency as well that really hinders the relationships.

You know, it's, it's interesting, I think, because I think there's no point, they're very interesting arguments, but there's no point almost saying, like, it's right or wrong to feel X way about it for women. Like, you know, it's right for them, it's wrong for them to care about it or not care about it. But what's really interesting is what you said, you know, if it has become an addiction, a compulsion, something that you don't have control over because you reach for it when you are in a certain state and you use it as a means of stabilizing your nervous system, that means that you're no longer in control of your urges in that way. And that is, I would argue, a point where you should have a look at that situation and really ask yourself whether you should carry on doing it as much as you do. And this is, I think, I do think a lot of people's issue with it is outside of the jealousy and all these different things. It's kind of this feeling of, of it, you know, is it going to ruin my relationship or it has changed my relationship. And the problem with that, which you've talked about before, and I actually really want you to touch on it again here, but the issue that then goes on is women almost or people really just become so kind of against it. And you know, so many of these comments are disgusting. I would never be with someone who would watch porn. So many, so many very, very kind of opinionated and quite sort of aggressive responses towards it. And what that does is for someone who is having that compulsion, it puts them in a place where they feel so much shame around it. and they're not able to talk to their partners about the fact that they are having these compulsions. And then that actually ends up having a really negative effect on the emotional intimacy of the relationship.

Well, I think that porn carries a kind of special shame with it from both sides. There's, you know, we, we don't, unless we are a, you know, an alcoholic and we really are insecure about our drinking. We don't tend to hide social drinking from the people we love. And we. We don't. But we don't say, hey, I'm just going off to watch some porn. I'll be back.

But why not?

Well, that. That's, you know, and that. No, but that's my point, is that it carries. It carries a stigma with it. It carries a lot of shame with it. And I think that we carry that. One, it gets a judgment from other people. And two, we carry shame about it ourselves. Because firstly, it's intensely private. It's like a window into our fantasies, the things our sexual desires. That's a very private place in our mind. And secondly, I think that we are, we're a lot of people are brought up with a sense of sexual shame. You know, there's a, there's a kind of societal sexual shame that a lot of people carry, and then it does get carried into their relationships, too, because the I, you know, we're seeing in these comments what would happen if a lot of people in their relationships brought up the fact that they did watch porn or that, or, or that they have struggled with, you know, they, many people would say they don't want to watch it, but they do and they struggle with that. And so, but try, you know, the, the idea of bringing that up only to be shamed for it and to be seen as you've betrayed me, to be seen as that's disgusting, you know, I can't believe you watch that stuff. You know, that's where all the shame comes in. And the thing that I worry about, I suppose, the most, although, and I know you said you don't think it's worth kind of talking about whether it's right or, you know, whether women are right or wrong for caring, I think it's worth having a wider conversation about kind of just exploring. I don't even mean from the point of view of me decide. It's not for me to decide what anyone should be jealous about, but I think it's worth exploring what our, what we've decided constitutes something worth getting jealous about, because our, our sense of peace and happiness will vary in accordance to how many rules we have about what makes us jealous. If there are a thousand ways you can get jealous, you've just created a thousand ways you can get unhappy. And so I know that in my life, as I've eased up, because I've been a jealous person in my life and. I didn't enjoy being a jealous person. It. It made me very unhappy. There's never a time where being jealous made me happy. There was a time. There are times where jealousy makes you. It can in a. In. In the right doses can be fun. Right. But. But we're not talking about jealousy as a little sprinkling of something fun and an aphrodisiac. We're talking about jealousy that makes people unhappy. and I've been unhappy plenty in my life because of jealousy. And the more I have eased up in that area, the happier and more peaceful I've become. And so I would love to challenge people and invite them to kind of have an open mind about what they choose to get jealous about, because I think that It can actually bring you a better quality of life in your relationship, and it can even bring you closer to each other. But I think the biggest issue, the thing I'm most afraid of, is that people can't talk about this stuff. That the response to this question indicates a difficulty people have with having the honest conversation. Because if your partner feels that they can tell you those things, then you're, you're creating intimacy with that very conversation because they are letting you into that world. And I'm not, I'm not saying that, I'm not saying this from a sexual place. I'm not saying it from a place of, you know, they let you into the world and now you can watch it together and it can be your thing together. That's fine. But I do think that often misses the point. It's not that Like, I think if you can, if your partner likes porn and you can suggest, hey, let's watch it together sometimes or let's use it in sex or whatever, I think that's fun and that's great and awesome. But it's not necessarily addressing what it is to your partner and what need it's meeting and porn, like anything else, like overeating, like drinking, like drugs, like gambling, like obsessively going on social media, like being a workaholic. Porn is just another way to rearrange the chemicals in your brain. It is, I should say, manipulate the chemicals in your brain. we give it some kind of special significance in the same way that we give drugs a special significance. You know, we. Drugs are especially bad, but we don't say that about Workaholics who, you know, ignore their children for most of their growing up or are never on the radar for their relationship and completely neglect their Partners in ways that become incredibly destructive and even malicious or kill themselves, by the way, in the process.

Or get sick, get cancer.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

You know, we don't talk about it with our phones in the same way, right? We say, yeah, we should really use our phones less. We should really reduce our screen time. But we don't talk about them in the way that we talk about, oh, you did drugs. You know, like, that has special, especially bad. And porn sort of falls into that category, and I. I just see it all as addiction. The urges that men have are not by decision. Right? No, no 12 year old boy at school in a swimming lesson in speedos wants to get an erection.

Very specific.

Who hurt you?

It's not the dream, no.

It's not... He doesn't choose in that moment to get an erection, 'cause this will help my status. No, it's only gonna get him made fun of. So, from the age that a boy can get an erection, he's having urges at really inconvenient times. And wishing they would go away. And that doesn't stop because someone becomes an adult. But what does happen is there is a liquor cabinet for it that you can go to to address those urges and relieve those urges. And like any version of a liquor cabinet, it can be highly addictive. And by the way, like social media that has had billions of dollars spent on it to make it addictive, porn is going through the same thing. It has been engineered to be as addictive as possible. They want you to stay on there for as long as possible. They have no interest in you getting off or not coming back.

They have a lot of interest in you getting off as long as you come back. Oh yeah.

Sorry. Which is a category also. And so it's something that should be treated with compassion. And it's so often treated as this disgusting, how dare you, how gross, what's wrong with you thing. that ends up then creating a lot of division in relationships. And by the way, it creates secrets because if you can't talk about it, you know, Mr. Rogers said, if it's mentionable, it's manageable. And porn in so many relationships is unmentionable. And because it's unmentionable, it's unmanageable, and it divides people and it creates secret rooms. and secret habits. And you know me less as a result, or I know you less, or we don't build the intimacy that comes from the compassion of non-judgment and instead understanding each other. How does it make you feel? Here's how it makes me feel. Here's, you know, and by the way, it can even create sexual division because it might. We might learn something about our partner from. the way they are expressing themselves in that world or the way they're the voice that expression is finding in the world of porn. We might also learn something about our partners. I didn't know that was something that excited you. I didn't know that was something and it may seem like, why I could never do that. Like that's, you know, I, and in many cases, you can't or it's not possible or what, you know, it's not like a, it's beyond the boundaries of your relationship. But there may be some version of it that can find its voice within your relationship more than you even realize. That is within the boundaries of the relationship, but allows someone now to feel even more seen sexually and excited sexually. So these are some of the thoughts that come to me when I think of this.

Well, I'm so glad you mentioned the compassion. with it because women are super compassionate and really empathetic, but honestly, I think if women really knew about the true urges that men go through constantly and consistently, there'd probably be less judgment in these comments in this thread. Yeah, and not only are they urges, but think about how lonely we are. Like we're talking about how destructive porn can be in a relationship, but what about all the people that aren't in a relationship? and they're just lonely and they need that piece of cake because, like Steve mentioned, it's just like, it's a bit of self-care for them, or it's there one little distraction that gives them, it makes them feel normal for a minute again.

Yep.

And I would just say in that respect, really pay attention to the master slave relationship you have with it. Like it, who's, who's. me or the porn. Because there's also an element of two where, you know, we talk about people that are like, oh, my sex drive's super high. And so, like, my partner can't keep pace. But there's also an element too of pornography or eroticism where maybe it's a landscape that's gone dormant and you need to reawaken it. Or maybe you want to reawaken it. And in that case, like porn can probably help with that. Like there's a whole landscape to explore there, as long as you're on the right side of the master-slave relationship with it. Are you kind of learning about what you like from that experience of porn? Or are you just, now is it a crutch for you that you have to- yeah.

And are you being told what to like? You know, like that's where it gets tricky.

It's also maybe an opportunity to create more intimacy in your relationship. If you come to your partner and say, you know, I feel like I watch too much porn, I want to cut down, or I want to cut it out, or whatever it is. But, you know, I'm someone who needs to have sex once a day because that is my sex drive. That's what it means for me. So will you help me do that? Will you, you know, if can I basically count on our relationship to almost replace it and you don't have to necessarily say it in such kind of clinical terms, but it's also an invitation for your partner to, you know, step up and go, well, I do actually want to help you do less of that thing that makes you unhappy. And, yeah, of course. And then, you know, just the kind of being on, I'm talking more towards, you know, the women who, I'm talking more to the women who are very much saying they would never be with someone who watches porn and have such an issue with it. If, you know, the person they were with came to them and said, I actually really want to try and wean myself off of this thing, will you help me? It's, I don't know, it feels like it could be a really nice invitation for intimacy for some couples who maybe be having less sex because of it, right?

You know, I, this is where I feel like, I get, I don't think this is controversial, but it's where some people, I can say something that raises some people's hackles, but I think it's also an opportunity and an invitation to stop putting so much weight on sex and to start seeing it more through the lens of there are times where we have really connected sex And there are times where I'm just getting you off. And that can be fun in its own way. And by the way, it can be no different from, like, why is it that if you said to someone, I have, can you rub my back? My back's bothering me right now. Why is it that we say, could you come and get me off? because I just. I can't concentrate right now because I'm really horny. Why is it we see those two things as different in a relationship? I'm not talking about in dating where, like, no one's trying and walks up to you. It's like, soup. No, but I'm not saying, like, I.

Feel really weird about anytime I've rubbed your shoulders now.

I I'm not. I I don't want people to confuse this with a situation where someone is just. kind of using you and they're not giving you anything and you're just seeing them casually. I'm saying in the context of a relationship where the two of you love each other, you're teammates, you're there for each other, you want each other to be happy. Why are those two things so different? Because I think a lot of people do find it really hard to, okay, you don't have to say it as crudely as that, but I don't, people do find it hard to articulate that they have that urge right now. And it doesn't need to be this really connected experience with a ton of foreplay and theater. It's just like, this one's just for you. And it's just. You just want to get off right now, and that's okay. I'm here for it. I don't need to feel super connected to this moment. It's not about me. I don't need to be super connected to this back rub that I'm giving you. It's not. I'm just not about me. Your back hurts. I'm gonna come give you a back rub. like it. You know what I mean? I feel like people, as soon as the, as soon as sex enters the equation, it feels like it's got to have this special. And for a lot of people, it's got to have this extra degree of, of reverence. And, and that, I think, can become a kind of killer, because what a guy knows and what anyone knows is that they can go. to porn and they can, it demands nothing of them. And that's not, that's a less talked about thing. And we've not made the argument in any of this conversation so far. And it's a real thing. You can go and watch porn and it asks nothing of you. You can't hurt porn's feelings. You can't get rejected by porn. Get rejected by porn. You can't. Be accused of being selfish by porn because you got off quickly and then got back to work.

That is a new category on Pornhub though. You just get rejected.

No, I actually think that is a category.

Probably.

I think there's something like that. That is almost like for some people, it's a way of not bothering their partner. I don't want to bother you. That's what a lot of people feel. and this is a way of not bothering you. And I think if you can, part of having that conversation with your partner is asking yourself, to what extent do I want to, to be a teammate sexually and saying, sometimes I'm okay with it not being about me at all. Sometimes I'm okay with just getting you off because you. That's where you're at right now. And you have this urge. I'm not saying you have to be that person every hour of the day. I'm just saying that to me is a way of. I don't know. I. I suppose it is a way of creating intimacy in the relationship, just not in the way that you think. It's not intimacy through super connected sex. It's intimacy through. Wow. I can really be honest with you about my needs. and you care about me enough to want to meet those needs. And that shouldn't be a one-sided thing that has to go both ways in a relationship. And, you know, if you were asking the same, if, you know, if the woman were asking the same thing, then the same should be true the other way around. But that, to me, is, is another crucial reason why people end up doing it.

Yeah, it's really interesting. It's an act of generosity towards your partner, I think. And I think that I actually had this conversation with a friend of mine fairly recently, and they just didn't, they can understand the concept of having sex without the possibility of coming themselves. So she was like, what? Why would I do that? Like, I would only do it if I knew that I was gonna get off too. Like, you know, why should he get off and not me kind of thing. And it's interesting because I think that logic makes sense and in a way, why should he if you, you know, like you could see it as unfair. But, you know, I think understanding your partner's needs and understanding that, you know, maybe they do in that moment feel horny and, you know, basically want to come. And it's whether or not you want to be a part of that or don't want to be a part of that. And just seeing it as an act of generosity in that moment and not seeing it as something that you're doing kind of with any agenda, you're just doing it as a, you know, like you say, like the way you would a massage or the way you would anything else. I think that's almost the way to frame it is looking at the relationship as a whole and how much somebody brings you, how happy they make you, and is it really that unfair and outrageous in that moment to do something that doesn't in any way serve you if it's going to drastically change the way they feel?

And vice versa.

And vice versa.

I really don't want this to sound like this is male dominated. I mean this in both directions. It's whatever it means to you. Whatever is the thing that you need in your relationship that may do nothing for your partner, but means something to you. Those are the things that we should pay attention to in a relationship. And this to me is just another one of those things. But it's once again, to me, it's removing, in the same way we talked about removing porn from the special category of bad and shameful when it comes to addictions. It's removing the sexual need within a relationship from the special category of reverence and ceremony that it's so that so often accompanies it, that makes it feel like a big fucking deal all the time to a lot of people. Like, I have to really do the thing. If I want to have sex, I have to really do the thing. I have to go through all the motions. and, and sometimes, yeah, you, yeah, you do. You absolutely need to do that because you can't be that. You can't only be the other thing in your relationship. Then you're, you're a selfish, you know, boar because you're never setting the mood. You're never creating the moments. You're never doing the romance. You're never, you know, creating the atmosphere. Then you're not serving their needs. But the, and, and by the way, I don't want to suggest for one second that it's always this way around because there are plenty of women who have higher sex drives than the guys they're with. And there are plenty of women who would love if their guy just had a quickie with them and, and just, you know, jumped into doing something sexual for five minutes or 10 minutes or whatever. There are plenty of women like that who are with guys who, who are not. But, you know, I, I, if, if this conversation can do anything, I hope it starts to take away some of the Some of the relationship censorship that goes on around this issue and it actually allows people to talk about it.

It's hard though, isn't it? Because, you know, the comment about betrayal, it's so much of our egos are wrapped up in it. And not only are egos wrapped up in it, like we're supposed to just sort of be able to satisfy, like, what do you mean they have urges that are outside of me and our sexuality together? But so much of sexuality is, you know, in other parts of life, oh, check your ego or Here it's like ego is such a big part of it. Ego is fun in the bedroom, you know? It's like it's all wrapped up in it. And so it's a very, it's probably worth lingering on just how complicated this is. And I hope people listen to this and they don't think that we're becoming preachy or whatever about it because it is just, it's worth talking about it more and it's worth trying to understand your sexuality a bit more. It's worth talking about it with your partner, too, but I also want to hedge a little bit and say, you don't have to have this radical honesty thing with your partner. I don't think. I think when Esther Perel says, you can have your own secret garden or whatever, I think there's a lot to that, too. You don't need to just put all of your sexual stuff on your partner. You can have your little separate garden. I remember there was a moment, Matt, when you were talking to your friend Aubrey Marcus, I think it was on Instagram Live or something, And he was giving you a little thought experiment about like, what if your partner could just read your thoughts? Wouldn't that be great? Like the intimacy that would create.

He said, what if everything that you thought you said, right? Like if every thought that came to your mind you were just honest about and you said to your partner, what do you think? -Absolutely disaster.

-Yeah, and I just- yeah, that's what I said. And Aubrey is like, is amazing and he's all about radical honesty and he's got a beautiful way to describe it. But I was just thinking like, doesn't that just become masturbation at some point? Like, isn't aren't you just the same person at that point? And isn't there something great about the separateness of a human that you're never going to crack the code completely? Maybe you shouldn't try to even crack the code completely. But yeah.

It's really interesting you've some kind of saying that what that idea of sort of complete unification with another person is being akin to masturbation. I really like that. That's really good.

Yeah, there's just this is our human experience, it's consciousness and it's separate and it's very mysterious and it's complicated.

I think the thing that has helped me and certainly in our relationship, the thing that's made a big difference to me is really, really feeling safe.

And.

I think safety is a safety is the in a safety is like the antidote to jealousy. If you really feel safe, I think that you feel jealous about less things and you don't, you don't agonize over the same things you used to agonize about when you didn't feel safe. Let us know what your thoughts are on this episode. Email podcast@matthewhussie.com we would love to hear from you. We always like being able to check in with the feedback from previous episodes and occasionally in episodes we'll actually read some of that feedback. So do send us an email, let us know that you're out there and listening to this. And if you haven't already, go over to our website. If you want help in your dating life right now that is tailored to you, you can go to yourdatingsolution.com you can input your dating challenge right now from a list and it will recommend you the best solution from everything I've created for your particular dilemma or the stage of your love life you're in right now. So go check that out at YourDatingSolution.com and we will see you in the next episode of Love Life.