It really does take a toll. I am kind of frustrated by this “oh it’s fine and natural” debate Reddit has about it. I’m no prude but I also don’t think it’s healthy to a relationship. Your partner giving attention they should be giving you and I feel like porn can often be degrading and give a false sense of how to treat women in the bedroom. It does promote insecurity and feelings of genuine hurt and when the party who’s upset by it vocalizes it, they are dismissed and told its natural and to deal with it. So the party hurt by it just gets ignored and has to deal with constantly feeling inadequate and not good enough for their mate. Frequent use has no place in a solid, loving, and intimate relationship. I think it also encourages the objectification of women and I think a lot of male viewers, when they really think about it, would be hurt if their own daughters ended up in the industry. I think that should be considered a little more. If this was your daughter, how would you feel about it and if you were the least bit bothered, then I think you should reevaluate what you’re using this for and what value it’s really adding to your life because if it’s a profession you wouldn’t want your own kids or sister or mom in, why are you so ok with viewing it yourself?

This shit isn’t harmless and the Reddit hivemind really downplays and dismisses how the party hurt by it really feels. Because it comes off like jerking off to some hot chick a lot of women cannot compete with (which can causes feelings of insecurity and not being enough) is more important than being an active participant in a relationship that requires you to consider the feelings of someone else.

So not only do you feel insecure about it, you feel depriotized. You feel ugly, you feel fat. You feel old. You feel like you aren’t good enough. You feel you can’t satisfy your partner as well as someone in a fucking screen. Think about that for a minute. You as a person in flesh feels less to you than a video or gif.

That’s the thing. It’s more important to maintain a strong foundation in your relationship and when you seek out sexual gratification from other women, even visually, it causes damage. If it’s not frequent then ok, but it’s becoming normalized for men to follow women posting pix exclusively to gain the attention of men on the IGs, snap chats, etc. Porn subs you sub to pop up everyday. It’s one thing to seek out self relief from time to time and use a visual aid, but this stuff is constant for a lot of people these days, it’s affecting relationships and the person in the relationship who do legitimately hurt by this is dismissed and told to lighten up. The emotional labor is puts on the party hurt by this is completely unfair and it just hurts them and everyone seems completely okay about that. I’m not sure consumption is at a healthy level for a lot of people and I think your partners feelings are more important than viewing that shit so frequently.

That time, energy, and effort should be spent on your partner. They should be getting this attention and frequently and you should be working on intimacy with them. Not seeking self satisfaction through another person and being told that’s ok and your partners feelings don’t matter because they are just “insecure” or “sensitive”. Fuck everything about that. Shit is damaging.