Does Watching Porn Count As Cheating?

Women are put on the spot and are urged to “loosen up” when they profess they don’t agree with men’s porn use. They are met with what I call “porn scorn”: “It’s 2024, every guy watches porn! You’ll never find a dude who doesn’t watch it, ladies! You must accept all manner of men’s internet sex voyeurism and their accompanying masturbation as part of the deal (that they will go out of their way to keep secret from you)!” 

I’ve witnessed on many occasions the above discourse on Reddit as well as other internet forums. Men are threatening women with a dismal and dreary cat lady future knitting pompoms for old Betsy the Calico if they don’t loosen their standards and just let the men watch porn, for God’s sake. 

Nearly 10 years ago, science.org confirmed that divorce rates double when people start watching porn in marriage. This shouldn’t be groundbreaking news to the general public. It should be common sense that sullying a relationship in welcoming internet voyeurism à la strange naked women into what should be a sacred bond between two people has proven to be disastrous. 

The more important question remains – does watching porn count as cheating? Should it? Where can women draw the line? 

First, How Should Porn Use Be Addressed in a Relationship? 

I scoured the web but spectacularly failed to locate any resource that would actually help women begin to appropriately address the men in their relationships concerning pornography use.

The narrative seems to be the same across all internet publications: Women must handle a man’s porn use with kid gloves, have lots of compassion and acceptance, and never make men feel as if what they’re doing is wrong, unwelcome, or abnormal.

For example, Psychology Today warns women that “emotional outbursts” won’t help solve your issues in addressing a man’s porn use: “An emotional outburst certainly won’t resolve the issue and will likely make things worse. A better approach is to wait for a time when you and your partner can talk calmly. Likewise, you’re likely to have a more successful outcome to the discussion if you try to understand your partner’s perspective beforehand. Showing a willingness at least to listen to your partner’s point of view will go a long way toward helping them open up about a very sensitive, personal issue.”

Again, you need kid gloves, ladies. You must tiptoe around him sneaking off to dank, dark corners of the living quarters you share together to let him look at naked women who aren’t you. Also, be careful not to offend him by telling him that yanking his penis with his trousers around his ankles in secret seems like it could be a threat to your relationship.

If you care about the integrity of the bond you share with the man in your life, you won’t allow porn use to worm its way in and wreak havoc on your relationship.

Get it, ladies? Learn to be more compassionate. Any man who has a regular porn habit he’s trying very hard to conceal from you is really struggling. Hiding his porn use and playing with his weenie behind your back is very mentally taxing and exhausting! Show him kindness and empathy before you jump to any conclusions about just how detrimental this is to your relationship.

What Women Can Do About Their Partner’s Porn Use 

Sarcasm aside, women need to view porn use as a potentially very dire predicament unfolding before their eyes in their relationships. They need to make it crystal clear to the men in their lives that porn use is not okay and won’t be tolerated.

If he won’t openly view these on-screen naked women and pleasure himself while leering at them right in front of you, how is that not cheating? If what he’s doing isn’t questionable or damaging to your relationship, why does he have to do it in secret?

A few weeks back on my Instagram page, I discussed how I would address porn use in my own relationship were it applicable (which it isn’t because my husband doesn’t watch it). People were shocked, while a few men were outraged.

My solutions aren’t kid glove-friendly. I expressed I wouldn’t be tiptoeing around porn use while feeling deeply insulted and violated had I suffered the misfortune of confronting it in my own loving relationship.

I then had several women eagerly chime in and say they have kept porn use out of their marriages. Through fighting back hard, diligently and early on (similar to the way I described I would address it in my stories on Instagram), they remain committed to ending porn use in their relationships. 

These women went a few steps further. One confessed that, for a period of time, she stopped having sex with her husband altogether and ceased offering emotional support. She was so scarred and troubled by her husband’s porn use that she refused to be merciful and open-hearted as women are instructed on sites like Psychology Today. Instead, she fought fire with fire. She used screensavers of handsome, famous movie stars and flaunted “pleasing herself” to half-nude images of these fantasy men.

The men started being more physically and emotionally attentive when they stopped consuming porn.

Another woman just wanted reassurance from me that she did the right thing in fighting back to keep porn use out of her marriage. I said to her, “If you care about your marriage, you will fight back,” and she has. She also told me they’ve since returned to enjoying satisfying sex together as a couple three or four times a week.  

For these women, the retaliation and unwillingness to compromise on their values worked wonders. The men started being more physically and emotionally attentive when they stopped consuming porn. These men were forced to reexamine their priorities or risk losing the women they love. 

Don’t Be Ashamed To Call Out Porn Use for What It Is – a Dangerous Threat to Any Healthy, Functioning Relationship

Every other resource on the web may paint a rosy rainbow picture that porn use for men and couples is no big deal. They’ll even go so far as to victim-blame women for not being more permissive and forgiving about it. 

They gaslight and lambaste women that it’s because of them their husbands are watching porn in the first place. They claim men watch porn because they are lonely and women aren’t affectionate enough: “Overall, the results supported the hypothesis that people in committed relationships use porn as a substitute for affection. In particular, the respondents indicated that they view porn in conjunction with masturbation as a means of releasing sexual tension, escaping loneliness, and creating parasocial relationships. Porn consumption can serve as a coping mechanism when people aren’t getting the affection they need in their relationships.”

As I mentioned, we women will not find supportive resources to help us address porn use in our relationships in a more straightforward and healthy manner that will keep our marriages intact.

We are encouraged to be enablers. We mustn’t question porn use no matter how serious, intrusive, and damaging to our relationship or we risk sounding like nags. We simply have to pretend it’s no big deal. And we must never call it cheating because it’s just pixels on a screen. 

But it is cheating. If a man is looking at another woman, lasciviously lusting after her, he’s being unfaithful. He has actively diverted his attention and care away from the intimacy of his own relationship. 

If it weren’t infidelity, men wouldn’t have to lie and sneak around to get their obsessive fix in leering at naked women. 

The woman may not be there spread eagle on the desk in front of him, but as he’s watching her perform sex acts on a screen, it’s safe to assume he wishes she were. What else are men possibly thinking when they look at these naked women? And why are women being told to calm the hell down when men jerk off to them? 

If it weren’t cheating, there wouldn’t need to be any justification or any gaslighting to allow men to continue watching porn, no holds barred. 

Closing Thoughts

Watching porn counts as being unfaithful. Don’t let the absurd mental gymnastics fool you. If porn use weren’t cheating, women wouldn’t be heartbroken. If it weren’t infidelity, men wouldn’t have to lie and sneak around to get their obsessive fix in leering at naked women. 

And you, as a woman, need not pretend it isn’t cheating. If you care about the integrity of the bond you share with the man in your life, you won’t allow porn use to worm its way in and wreak havoc on your relationship.

Women have to start taking this issue a lot more seriously because there’s no arguing it’s not a very serious issue. Porn use is largely contributing to the rise in divorce. 

Just because a man doesn’t have physical access to the women on the screen doesn’t mean he’s being faithful. It’s high time we call porn use in relationships what it is – infidelity. If men have to hope and pray that what they do in the darkness will never come to light, then they are cheating.

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