The blurry line from monogamy to non-monogamy via pornography

Shaya

Shaya

New member
Monogamy isn't really monogamy.

  • True monogamy: A truly monogamous person would have one lover for life. Romeo and Juliet fall in this category and they died.
  • Serial monogamy: would be multiple lovers, one at a time. In truth, many serial monogamists have emotional or physical overlap between their lovers, making them cheaters - a truth that can be hard to swallow.
  • Monogamy with porn: is an interesting topic to bring up with monogamists struggling to understand polyamory. Monogamy traditionally demands emotional and sexual fidelity with your one partner, who is supposed to provide you your everything emotional and sexual for life. Using pornography can be seen as breaking the vow of sexual fidelity - after all, you're finding the person in the picture or video to be providing something sexual that your partner is unable to provide. Having an orgasm to such an image or fantasy can be uncomfortable for a partner primarily because it instils insecurity in them (I'm referring to body-image or sexual insecurity). Because everyone knows you will never actually leave your partner for a porn actor, the relationship-insecurity is minimal. Given how common porn is, most people would not consider it in the spectrum of infidelity, though I have seen several couples in affair recovery who list pornography as the main problem.
    In summary, monogamy with porn is generally tolerated due to societal acceptance, the lack of any possibility of your partner's affections for their porn partner being reciprocated, the lack of any real power for porn to steal from the stability of a relationship and a human understanding or acceptance of lust as the driving force behind pornography.​
  • Monogamy with porn in the future: I expect that virtual reality goggles will turn porn into a virtual reality experience.When virtual reality goggles are coupled with tactile receptors, I would imagine porn to be indistinguishable from real sex. I also suspect that in this hypothetical future, you may be able to interact with the AI to have sex that varies based on your instructions. I also suspect you could pay a premium in order to have virtual sex with someone on the opposite end of the world in real time, with the virtual reality goggles and tactile receptors actually giving you the real experience of sex with a real video of them doing things to you in real time just like skype (Incidentally, you could have sex in a long distance relationship this way too). Would this be cheating if you had such sex with an actor in real time? Would it be cheating if you had such sex with an actor that pre-recorded the sex act then streamed it to you like a video? Would this be essentially identical to current-day prostitution? Would it be cheating if you had such sex with an actor that was pre-recorded, but had an AI that allowed you to give instructions and change up the sex each time, including kink sex, BDSM, other sex acts your partner would not want to perform with you, or even cuddle-time if you wanted that? Would some consider this cheating?
    In summary, monogamy with futuristic porn differs from current-day porn in that current-day porn generally does not rock the security of a relationship due to its purely physical nature and lack of reciprocal attention from the porn actor. Futuristic porn has the potential to be both physical and emotional. Futuristic porn also has the potential of a two-way interaction between you and the porn actor, in much the same way that paid sex or prostitution today can. Emotions can develop in such interactions on the internet and offers advantages over current day prostitution due to the reduced chance of being caught, doing this in the convenience of your home, cheaper sex, a larger selection of sexy partners (choose from a whole world of paid sex partners) and with no risk of STIs.
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In final summary:
  • Monogamy is one partner for all your sexual and emotional needs for life.
    Disclaimer: I'm aware people share varying emotional needs with others (namely friends and family). Society has complex rules regarding what people in a monogamous relationship can and can't share emotionally with friends of the same or different genders before it crosses the line, but most would consider their partner to be their number one emotional resource.​
  • Very few people actually practice monogamy. Quite a few practice serial monogamy. Many also practice serial monogamy with short periods of non monogamy (emotional or physical cheating) during the transition period.
  • Most practice serial monogamy with porn permitted. Your one partner does not have to fulfill your every sexual need - a porn partner, or multiple porn partners are permitted as long as the interaction is one-way and there is no chance that the porn actor on the screen can reciprocate your sexual desires. When reciprocation happens, you move into the territory of non monogamy with this cute venn diagram showing you several dozen different forms of it.
  • I feel that porn in the future has the potential to blur the line between "serial monogamy with porn" and "non monogamy". Society will then have to choose whether to call it "monogamy", or to call it what it really is, which is "consensual non monogamy".

So next time you talk to your mono friends about polyamory, point out to them that they're actually quite non-monogamous! ;)
 
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Op this is just my observation not a personal attack.

You keep trying to shove polyamory into neat little categories that fit your narrow view or how you think it should work. That just isn't how it works.

I never once cheated on anyone emotionally or physically when I practiced serial monogamy. I tend to end relationships like ripping of a bandaid. It is quick and over.

You also put porn almost on a level with a relationship. I don't agree it is a fantasy nothing more.

As for placing Romeo and Juliet as the pillars of monogamy. They were 13 or 14 years old and killed themselves. Not a good example of monogamy in my opinion.

My point is we are human beings. We each approach life differently for example we have several women like myself here who have been in our polyandrous relationships for years. Yet my relationship is different from say Bluebirds. She has her husband's under one roof. Where as both my husbands are too Alpha male to tolerate that and so I travel between seperate homes I share with each man. You can't paint us all with the same brush or shove us into neat little categories to make yourself feel better. Sometimes life just is what it is.
 
^^This. I agree with Dagferi. While labels and definitions have their place, trying to apply them to people (in any context), limits our experience of those people to the definitions and labels we've applied to them. People are messy and emotional, as are our relationships with others. We may behave in similar ways, at similar times, but that does not make us similar.
 
Romeo was deeply in (puppy) love with Rosalind until the moment he met Juliet. As a lit geek I just had to say that lol
 
I always took Romeo and Juliet, to not so much be this romantic tale of "star crossed lovers" and more a very snarky statement of the excessive stupid drama of stupid people, especially young people, who have their whole lives ahead of them but think it's all over because they can't get with their crush.

I thought this in high school, when I WAS one of those melodramatic teens, and I think it now that I am raising two of them.

Shakespeare is sometimes taken (I personally believe) more literally than he should be. I think there are usually a lot of layers to what he's trying to get across. But that's just how I enjoy reading him, I'm not sure if any interpretation is strictly right or wrong there.

Oh, so here we go with the porn, you have hit one of my sensitive spots friend.

Here's a question for you. Who gets to decide what is cheating and what isn't? What is a more or less objectively "wrong" form of infidelity?

I think that statistically, more men love porn, than women (though plenty of women do!) and more women are bothered by it than men (though again, sure there are loads of examples contrary)... But we do live in a society where men have been making a lot of the rules about a lot of things, so "porn isn't cheating." How about this...

Say you have a couple, Bob and Jane. Bob enjoys porn, and doesn't think that it's cheating at all. In fact, he could more easily cope with the idea of a "just meaningless sex" affair, than one involving emotions. To Bob, feelings of love are what makes his marriage SPECIAL. You could copulate with anyone, or your hand, or whatever and it does not NEED to be SPECIAL. That is the reality Bob lives in.

In Jane's mind, she has lots of love to give. Infinite love. She loves her family, her kids, her friends, her husband, her pets. She's brimming right over with it. But she only shares sex with Bob. In her world, choosing to only share sex with her husband is part of their bond and their commitment. Jane doesn't like the idea of casual sex at all, she was raised to think of it as "cheap" or "slutty" probably. Jane will give sex to have and keep love. Bob might be more likely to give love in an effort to get sex. Maybe.

They see the world differently.

But Bob gets to tell Jane she is not allowed to be loving or affectionate to another man, even though he's going to enjoy porn, because he is somehow objectively right. It does not matter if her feelings are hurt...but if HIS are, then she's "cheating."

WHO. GETS. TO. DECIDE?

Add to this that women are often socialized to put our needs well below the needs of others, especially the man in our lives...

And yes, this was a facet of my marriage that ended, too. But I didn't care about his porn habit, found it disgusting, because I didn't really want to share sex with him anymore anyways. Not very loving.

What I struggle with now, is that I do not believe that porn is objectively wrong. I also do not believe that sharing love or sex with others outside of a relationship is objectively wrong, unless you have specifically agreed not to and you're being deceptive about it. Renegotiate your damn terms if you need something that is not "allowed." And yet...I'm ok with the idea of my lover actually having sex with another woman, that notion doesn't bother me. But thinking of him enjoying porn, which he does, hurts me deeply and makes me feel extremely insecure. Almost but not quite, to the point where I become convinced that I will never have the value of an entire internet of infinite variety of pure sex and I should just give up and stop trying to have his love. Just turn away and accept solitude.

Because why would a man put up with me, in my imperfection, with my nuisance emotions and my issues and baggage, and problems, and all the STUFF that makes me REAL, when he could simply push a button and get exactly the kind of mental sexual stimulation he wants. Just like that.

I look at it as...these issues are MY issues, and I need to deal with them, and I have NO RIGHT imposing rules on my lover because I have issues. None. So, I've been trying to work on them.

But my fucking god dude, do I ever get mad, when guys talk about "the thing I need and like isn't wrong, no matter how it makes you feel, but the thing you need and like is wrong because I don't like it."

Again, it comes down to people directly involved need to figure out what's ok specifically for them. You talk about "is this cheating?" and "what about this?" and what it boils down to, is whatever you and your partner(s) have decided is cool for you, and what's not. If you can't agree in good faith and honesty, walk away from the negotiating table (end the relationship.)

So the ultimate answer to "is this cheating" as applied to any possible activity under the sun with anybody, is:

Did you agree with your partner to a promise that you would not do the thing?

Did you do it anyways?

Were you honest about it? When? Before? During? After?

Cheating isn't so much about WHAT you're doing or even who is involved. It's about expectations violated, and honesty/trust compromised.
 
Shaya said:
Given how common porn is, most people would not consider it in the spectrum of infidelity....monogamy with porn is generally tolerated due to societal acceptance
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Seems like your theory is that monogamous people can begin to understand poly because they accept porn. Not only do I see no connection at all between poly (which is love) and porn, but I see a flaw in your basic premise that because porn is common, it is now generally accepted. I know oodles of women who equate porn with cheating and many more who consider it extraordinarily hurtful, at the very least. Almost every man I know (except those in open relationships) watches porn in secrecy and shame and goes to great lengths to keep this away from his partner.
 
FallenAngelina said:
Seems like your theory is that monogamous people can begin to understand poly because they accept porn. Not only do I see no connection at all between poly (which is love) and porn, but I see a flaw in your basic premise that because porn is common, it is now generally accepted. I know oodles of women who equate porn with cheating and many more who consider it extraordinarily hurtful, at the very least. Almost every man I know (except those in open relationships) watches porn in secrecy and shame and goes to great lengths to keep this away from his partner.
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Mm hm.

And despite my feelings on the subject, I heard a male coworker say once, "I am not allowed to watch porn. My wife won't let me." and I felt OFFENDED.

Not my relationship, not my place to judge. But I felt offended.

My belief, my conviction, that being controlling of your partner, is wrong... is stronger than my emotional bad feelings about porn.
 
Spork said:
Mm hm.

And despite my feelings on the subject, I heard a male coworker say once, "I am not allowed to watch porn. My wife won't let me." and I felt OFFENDED.

Not my relationship, not my place to judge. But I felt offended.

My belief, my conviction, that being controlling of your partner, is wrong... is stronger than my emotional bad feelings about porn.
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This is a big thing for me too, though admittedly mostly because I've felt so judged by people who have this sort of belief that your partner and everything they do or enjoy should be overseen and approved by you for most of my marriage, even the 17 years we were monogamous. My husband has always been big into D&D and other table top role-playing games. He has a core group of friends that he played with weekly for the better part of the last 20 years, usually on Friday nights. I can't even begin to count the number of times I have been asked "How can you let your husband get together with his friends every week, especially on Fridays?" (Which apparently matters because it's a night a lot of people go on dates.) I always hated that question, he's an adult, I'm not his mommy, and he has the right to do things he enjoys. Just like I have the right to go and spend a day with my friends scrapbooking and not have to spend the whole time fielding calls from my husband because he's so dependant on me that he can't spend a day with our children without me telling him what to do every five minutes (obviously this was when our boys were much younger). I have never understood this type of controlling relationship. And I've never been that bothered by my husband's porn watching, my only complaint was if it interfered with our sex life. I had a friend who was contimplating divorce because her husband masterbated and another one who made her husband go to marital councilling so that they could get past the hurt and betrayal she felt when she found out that he watched porn. It made no sense to me at the time and makes even less sense to me, now that I've left the conservative religion we were all members of.
 
I'm in a monogamous relationship and I sometimes watch porn. My husband hasn't told me he watches porn, but I don't mind if he does. I don't consider our relationship to be any less "monogamous" (not that the semantics really mean anything to me). I CERTAINLY do not consider watching porn to be "cheating."
 
Pretty much no one that I know of who is my age considers pornography any kind of cheating. Admittedly most of my social circle is full of queers, but even among my nonqueer friends, the only issues seem arise around "you're consuming too much porn and not paying attention to me enough." Which seems like a different kind of thing than you're talking about.

Also, what about reading porn instead of watching it? Most ace-spec people don't seem to get much out of visual porn and prefer written porn (I'm going based on self-reported behavior on Twitter polls and AVEN threads, so maybe not the most scientific methods, but still). So how would imagining getting it on with/as nonexistent people fit?

Ultimately, I think porn consumption is different from monogamy/polyamory. Porn is a sexual behavior, and monogamy is a relationship model.
 
I think it could be cheating. Anything could.

But for it to be cheating, in my view of that, it would have to be a situation where (for example) the husband spontaneously said to his wife, "I am choosing not to watch porn ever again. I promise." For whatever reason, but of his own free will and not under duress. And then if he broke his promise, and especially if he tried to deceive her about it, then in my opinion, THAT is when it becomes cheating.

I am in a closed dyad right now, as far as I am concerned, monogamous (more or less) with my Zen.

I promised him specifically that I would not have genital contact with other men. That means my bits or theirs. If I did that anyways, and especially if I tried to hide the fact that I broke our agreement, which he was trusting me to keep, then I have cheated.

I did not ask any such agreement from him. I figured if he wanted to volunteer one, he'd do that. He has told me that he prefers not to seek other women for sex and rather to focus on us, at this time. That's good, it lets me know where I stand. But it isn't a promise. There is nothing to break.

I do expect he would be honest with me if he were forming a connection with another woman that he might have sex with. We have both made clear that we value honesty from one another.

As for me...I did not promise that I would not hug, kiss, flirt, sext, or tell other men that I love them, or even let them touch my boobs or see me naked. I don't make a habit of most of these things (besides hugging and flirting, and the naked part, at kink parties) but if anything of significance occurs, I do let him know. I can do any of these things and it isn't cheating, because I didn't promise I wouldn't do any of those things, and he knows how I operate. You do not get to assume. None of this is "implied." If you have an issue with it, then lets talk about that. Maybe I will decide to sign over a freedom, maybe I won't. Depends on how important it is to me. A man who can't deal with me being friends with other men, flirting with them, or even having affectionate or loving feelings for them, is not going to do so well in my life. I can do all of these things without our genitals getting involved.

Monogamy is tough, because there's this whole package deal of implied rights and expectations, which most people just assume will come into play. I much prefer negotiation.
 
First off, monogamy is not defined as one partner forever. There is literally no difference between monogamy, and "serial monogamy". The latter is just a form of the former. It's like differentiating between salmon, and fish.

That being said, I think that most people don't consider porn cheating because of the anonymity & lack of interaction. Chances are, the viewer is never even going to meet the actor/actress and what their viewing certainly wasn't filmed with him/her in mind. Now, if it was something sent specifically to him/her by someone they know on purpose, then yes, that's absolutely cheating. But that's not exactly porn I suppose.
 
I see the whole "well, there is no interaction" as just a justification of why one person's opinion on it is more valid than another.

I still know plenty of women who have issues with it.

Some of them argue that there is a lot of sex trafficking going on, and much of that is connected to the porn industry. I won't even go there, but I'm saying this because anyone can "logically explain" their position on anything.

Again, it's so much easier to say:
Was there an agreement?
Was it broken?
Did the breaker of it then compound the matter by lying?

Keeps it DAMN simple.
 
Spork said:
I see the whole "well, there is no interaction" as just a justification of why one person's opinion on it is more valid than another.

I still know plenty of women who have issues with it.

Some of them argue that there is a lot of sex trafficking going on, and much of that is connected to the porn industry. I won't even go there, but I'm saying this because anyone can "logically explain" their position on anything.

Again, it's so much easier to say:
Was there an agreement?
Was it broken?
Did the breaker of it then compound the matter by lying?

Keeps it DAMN simple.
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And I completely agree with you on that. I know there are a lot of men and women who take issue with it, and for a variety of very valid reasons. And certainly, if there was an agreement broken, it's cheating in my book too. I'm simply pointing out why some don't consider it cheating among those relationships that don't forbid it. If that makes sense
 
CTF said:
And I completely agree with you on that. I know there are a lot of men and women who take issue with it, and for a variety of very valid reasons. And certainly, if there was an agreement broken, it's cheating in my book too. I'm simply pointing out why some don't consider it cheating among those relationships that don't forbid it. If that makes sense
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It does make sense.

But I have known plenty of relationships where an insecure partner forbade non-sexual friendships with the opposite sex. Interaction was there, but not sex.

Look at the military. A chaplain told a room full of military wives, we probably should avoid interacting with men who are not our husbands, unless chaperoned. Just so we did not give anyone "the wrong idea." If I had asked him or any man, "So, my husband looking at porn gives me insecure feelings, can I ask him to stop doing that?" they would have laughed at me.

Me EVEN TALKING TO another man, was worse, than him looking right up the vaginas of women on the internet and having orgasms, while fantasizing about having sex with them.

Hey. He has needs. His needs are sacred, not to be questioned. My only need, should be to do my duty as a loving, supportive wife, and nurturing Mother. To bring happiness to the people who really matter.

This was presented as arbitrary right and wrong, by a religious figure, who was standing as some sort of authority of what is right and what is wrong, to a bunch of women, with very much the attitude that we were inferior creatures who needed moral guidance.

This is why I reject concepts of arbitrary "this is ok and that isn't."

The only time I accept such, is when someone is clearly being victimized by the actions of another. Harm is being done. But then...I'm kinda libertarian-ish in my ideas about personal freedom. And I don't think that triggering difficult feelings in your partner is harmful enough to be arbitrarily wrong by definition. Might be an opportunity for growth!
 
Spork said:
It does make sense.

But I have known plenty of relationships where an insecure partner forbade non-sexual friendships with the opposite sex. Interaction was there, but not sex.

Look at the military. A chaplain told a room full of military wives, we probably should avoid interacting with men who are not our husbands, unless chaperoned. Just so we did not give anyone "the wrong idea." If I had asked him or any man, "So, my husband looking at porn gives me insecure feelings, can I ask him to stop doing that?" they would have laughed at me.

Me EVEN TALKING TO another man, was worse, than him looking right up the vaginas of women on the internet and having orgasms, while fantasizing about having sex with them.

Hey. He has needs. His needs are sacred, not to be questioned. My only need, should be to do my duty as a loving, supportive wife, and nurturing Mother. To bring happiness to the people who really matter.

This was presented as arbitrary right and wrong, by a religious figure, who was standing as some sort of authority of what is right and what is wrong, to a bunch of women, with very much the attitude that we were inferior creatures who needed moral guidance.

This is why I reject concepts of arbitrary "this is ok and that isn't."

The only time I accept such, is when someone is clearly being victimized by the actions of another. Harm is being done. But then...I'm kinda libertarian-ish in my ideas about personal freedom. And I don't think that triggering difficult feelings in your partner is harmful enough to be arbitrarily wrong by definition. Might be an opportunity for growth!
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I understand exactly what you're talking about. To be clear, when I spoke about interaction of a sexual nature. In a sense, comparing the acts of viewing porn vs., say, viewing a nude picture that someone you know personally sent you for the purposes of arousal. I never meant to intend that general interaction with members of the opposite sex, or having platonic friends of the opposite sex was wrong. I didn't care that my wife have male friends either. It's when it crosses the line into flirting, or even romantic feelings where I take issue.

I do, however, strongly believe that we have responsibilities to those we love. Maybe forbidding him/her to do xyz isn't the way to go about it, but doing something, despite knowing our partner is uncomfortable with it is just as unloving & disrespectful. If it's an issue, the best thing for both would be splitting up.

As for the "needs"... I've never understood that in regards to any sexual capacity. I'm not saying that sex itself is bad, or wrong, but to call it a need is perplexing. Food, water, shelter are needs. Sex is not. There's never been a case of someone dying as a result of a lack of sex. George Carlin once famously said, that if your needs aren't being met, "drop some of your needs. Life is a zero sum game".
 
I can tell I've touched a contentious issue. I didn't mean to. Monogamy, non monogamy, porn, cheating... maybe I should have predicted the maelstrom of emotions this would bring up, but let's see if I can tackle it head on and then bring the thread back to the main point, which I still think is intersting and remains unresolved.

Question:
Do some people consider porn cheating and is porn actually cheating?

Answers so far in this thread include at least 2 from each side. In the end, I think it's whatever the couple define cheating to be for their relationship. Just as there are a million ways to do poly, there's probably a million ways to do monogamy.

With regards to my opening post, I hear a lot of rebuttal saying that masturbation or use of pornography is nothing like a relationship. I totally agree with that. Obviously. No debate there.

The point my opening post is trying to make is that a relationship consists of emotional and physical intimacy. It probably consists of a whole lot of other things as well. I feel that porn in today's world can be viewed as an expression of physical intimacy with someone other than your partner, even if that someone is imaginary. Futuristic porn further blurs that distinction because of the possibility of the porn actor interacting with you in real time to give you a physical and visual stimulus that would be indistinguishable from real life. Complicating this was the exploration of the possibility that an AI might be controlling the virtual porn actor rather than the porn actor actually being there. I explored the difference and thought that the possibility of reciprocation of feelings was the crux of it. Reciprocation of feelings is possible in today's world with paid prostitution, 100 mile rules, DADT, swinging, etc, which is why these are all said to be aspects of non monogamy rather than monogamy.

In the end, my feeling is that modern-day-porn falls within the realms of monogamy because of a lack of possibility of reciprocation of feelings since the porn actor is unlikely to be able to interact with the porn consumer. However, the future is likely to have technology that can increase the reciprocation of a pornographic experience, as well as to provide physical and emotional connectedness indistinguishable from real life. I feel that when there is reciprocation, even in virtual porn, then monogamy becomes non monogamy. I am uncertain how the A.I fits into my narrative and would like to hear your thoughts. I find this concept of when monogamy becomes non monogamy interesting since it relies less on physical and emotional connection and more about reciprocation, which I thought may be a new idea.

I hope I have clarified that I am using futuristic porn to explore the various grey stages between monogamy and non monogamy. In particular, I am interested in others' ideas on reciprocation being a key milestone in this context rather than the societal-standard line of "non monogamy" being drawn at sex.
 
If (in the future) someone's spouse goes out and has sex with a robot, is that cheating?
 
On the virtual porn, I wouldn't consider it non-monogamy because there still isn't interaction between live people. It's a person interacting with a virtual person. When technology becomes such that two live people can have virtual sex with one another, in real time, that's when the line begins to blur for me. But, even when I was in my monogamous marriage, it wouldn't have bothered me if my ex had had virtual sex with a virtual person who is controlled by a computer....even if the graphic was of a real actor. I can see benefits and pitfalls to such technology.
 
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