Is looking at porn ok in a relationship?

Ive been with my boyfriend for 10 months and he is the kindest sweetest man ive ever met and my best friend in the whole world, we have no problems bar one:

Ive found porn on his computer, ive confronted him about it and he's said he'd try to quit, then I saw it again and once again he's said he's try then I asked him recently if he had looked sinse the last conversation and he' admited he had a while ago but regrets it and hasn't done it for a while.

He says he wont do it again but we will apart for the next month so I know he will get tempted and may give in.

I know its very common, but I still hate the thought of him seeking out images of naked women, I feel betrayed and it makes me a poor substitute in comparison, ive had mixed reactions about this from friends ranging from its just something men do too its not on and he should stop.

Am I being unreasonable by wanting him to stop?

Hope this helps

im absolutely on ur side hun, reading your post it sounds like i could have written it myself lol! my boyfriend looks at porn (we've been together for a year now) but he also lies, hides it and makes excuses. if you've told him how much it upsets you and he still hasnt stopped he may have a problem/addiction. erotic stories that were suggested seem like a good idea. my bf tried these for a while and all was going well but he eventiually gave in - the stories apparently made him tempted to look at the more graphic stuff. now i just think it will only be a matter of time before he gets 'tempted' again and looks, no matter how much he promises he will never look.

the best way to try and get him to stop is to be supportive of him. try and get to the core reason why he is driven to look at it. it may be the case that he sees a pop-up or ad with those kind of images on the internet and then gets tempted to find more images/films. then i found this website www.wikihow.com - if you search porn it comes up with advice on hom to overcome addictions etc - i actually showed them to my boyfriend and he took the advice. make it clear you want to help him and support him. persuade him to get a filter or something on his computer so that he wont get tempted. i really hope this helps, and everything works out ok for you both! let me know how you get on xxx

Share the experience

Why not look at some films together so you can both gain pleasure from it. There are some films directed by women that you might like to track down, they're not degrading to women. One female director is Candida Royal/Royalle or something liek that. If you don't like it then at least you've given it a go, if you do like it, then you've discovered another ingredient to add to your sex lives!

The definition of a "problem"

There is such a thing as pornography addiction. If you and your boyfriend have an otherwise normal sexual relationship and yet he still feels the need to look at porn (and cannot stop) then that qualifies as an addiction. His behavior has become such that he cannot stop even though it is interfering with his life.

I think it's normal to feel jealous as well, but it's often not constructive. Really, there is no chance that he can possibly cheat on you with an image.

If you don's think it's ok it's not ok

I'm 100% on your side about not wanting him to get turned on by looking at girls in porno.

But what about 'erotic fiction'? For years before my daughter was born I wrote fiction. At the moment I'm giving it another go, this time round in the genre of erotica. I'm writing about myself, but just like in my old 'clean' short stories, I'm also writing about other people. To be honest, it's exciting -- I'm imagining other people having sex and getting turned on.

People get aroused, I think, by all sorts of things during the course of their days and nights, many of which have nothing to do with their partner. But the healthy approach, I should say, is in sharing the excitement, all the while letting one's partner know that he or she is the 'real' one.

All right, so hard-core porno and erotic literature might not be the same thing. But maybe there's some middle ground. How about reading him some hot, healthy erotica? Making that a part of your lovemaking? Maybe it would be a step toward finding what you both like. Just recently my man and I have been trying that, and it really adds a lot to our fun. It's mostly stuff I've written, but soon we're going to look at some other material. Have a look at Amazon.co.uk: in the Browse menu click on 'Books', click on 'Fiction', click on 'Genre' and finally on 'Erotica'.

I've not seen much porno, but what I have seen is utterly degrading: to the women in the pictures, and to any women who might see them and compare themselves to them. But to my great surprise, I came across something on another site called 'feminist pornography'. Now, I'm no feminist, but my understanding is that it's films and books that women could find exciting, without the exploitation of most porno.

Why don't you look around for some of that? Maybe your boyfriend will find it to his liking, and you can watch it together. I don't think men absolutely have to see women being degraded to get turned on -- if that's true, we should all be better off confirming ourselves as lesbians straight off!

xxx Sweet D