Talking to boyfriend about pornography

[DJgang]

I have heard this from former porn stars who left the industry, look at the lives of Linda Lovelace who left and became a Christian and a current star, Jenna Jameson who boasts about how her father raped her. Many, though clearly not all, were sexually abused as children or teens. By it very nature, the porn industry abuses all the “models”.

Shame on you for making wild claims

I knew that I had heard this before, although I don’t have hard proof…hum…kinda reminds of another industry that we don’t have hard proof about the numbers and the happenings…um…can you say…abortion industry…

 

[royal_archer]

Harmony I’d look further int that if I were you before you say it’s ridiculous. There is a sex slave industry that is enormous beyond your imagination, exploiting young women(and men/boys) from all corners of the globe. Many of them are kept against their will under threat of violence. They receive no money and are kept in totally inhumane conditions. On the internet you can see almost any age person, of any race, engaged in the most disgusting and dehumanizing acts imaginable. If that isn’t abuse, than I don’t know what is.

Now, if you are talking about porn in the sense of the girls gone wild type of thing, with ‘college girls doing it for the money’ as you said, I would bet money a good number of them are victims of abuse as well, and probably were promiscuous at early ages. In any case, they are displaying grossly disordered behavior which shouldn’t be dismissed in any way.

Please accept that there are degrees of this sin. Sports Illustrated models are not treated the way you are stating. There is also a very large industry based on informed mutual consent. Your painting a picture of the whole based on one extreme of the spectrum harms your argument which is other wise valid. Please consider that even if slavery and abuse were causes of 5% of the participants, you would still have a condition which is less harmfull than the textile industry where they run vast oversees child labor operations which abuse countless more children. Are you equally as mad about people owning clothing made in third world countries? The point is many industries harm others but choosing to buy a product from a harmfull industry is not what is upsetting the spouses. I believe the concern is much closer to home. I would contend that a wife would be much more upset with her husband buying a magazine with a centerfold who was paid $15,000 for a photo shoot than she would be about her husband buying a cheep pair of sneekers made my a child who is essentially a slave of the subcontracted manufacturing company.

Please undersand I am not challenging the validity of the harm you are talking about. I am only trying to change focus to something that I feel is more relevant to the spouses dillema.

 

[Rach620]

Hi everyone!

This is one of my first posts on here. I need advice on how to talk to my boyfriend about something quite important - pornography. He is a non-Catholic, believes in God but is pretty much in line with what the rest of the world teaches on the subject of sexuality.

I’d really like to be able to get through to him on this issue as I feel it is crucial to having a healthy relationship that he isn’t into that stuff (not that I believe he looks at it much but it worries me that he doesn’t think it’s a problem).

I realise I may get some responses that I shouldn’t be with a guy like this, but at the moment I’m just praying tons and tons and hoping that with time God will change his heart! I’ve already seen some big changes in the time I’ve known him so I’m hopeful! If not, well, further down the line I guess some decisions would have to be made.

How can I talk to him without appearing ‘naggy’? Are there any really good secular websites and books that give concrete reasons why porn is bad? So far I’ve been running into problems because if something is overtly ‘religious’ he assumes it’s biased. Personal testimonies and emotional arguments don’t work too well either, so I need something that is completely based on facts and statistics…

Thanks for any help you can offer!

Sarah

Sarah,

I am probably closer in age to you than many of the other posters on this thread, but I wanted to pretty much agree with what has been said.

I myself, when I first started dating, did not understand quite how affected guys are by pornography and the ‘porn culture’. But the truth is…I don’t think I have met ONE guy who has not been tempted by it in some form or another in his lifetime.

What separates the men–the good men–from the boys precisely whether or not they reject what the world says about sex.

I’m not meaning to be harsh or to attack your boyfriend–I’m sure he’s good to you–but if he doesn’t understand the incredible dignity of the gift of sexuality; if he is not committed to chastity; if he does not value a woman’s modesty…he’s still a boy who has no business being in a serious relationship. And from personal experience I can say that it’s going to be incredibly hard to ‘change’ him from that–if it’s possible at all. I know many Catholic men who still struggle with porn, masturbation, etc. It took them years to even fully comprehend the sinfulness of it, and only by the grace of God do they even try to win the struggle for sexual purity.

Simply put, I can’t imagine it’s possible to avoid sexual sin in this day and age if someone is not seriously committed to chastity because of their faith. It’s much too easy to give in to the ways of the world.

Finally–I think it would help to think of your boyfriend’s views on pornography in terms of how they affect your relationship. Love is all about self-gift. In marriage, to which dating relationships are meant to lead, husband and wife give themselves fully and without reservation to one another. In pre-marital relationships, understanding this means that we recognize that our own sins affect the other person, because they affect what we are able to give them. So your boyfriend’s sins of impurity, if they are happening, will affect the way he views you and your body, and inevitably how he understands the gift of human sexuality.

You can try to convince him with statistics about how the porn industry is abusive of women (that case has been made many a time…a famous lawyer has spent most of her life trying to get it classified as ‘hate speech,’ I believe), but until he realizes the damage porn does to himself and, more importantly, to **you **and the **relationship **you share…the message isn’t going to “hit home”.

You and your bf are in my prayers…

 

[Harmony1988]

My post about the generalization about pornstars was regarding what someone said earlier, it was my first post in this thread addressing some wildclaims.

Some of you have given some examples of some pornstars being abused and some of you have even ‘bet money’, some of you can only give a few examples because there are ‘relatively’ few that have gone through childhood abuse. Whilst I disagree with pornography just as much as everyone here, I do not wish to make wild and unsubstantiated claims about anything, including porn stars. One cannot label all pornstars or the majority as people who have gone through child hood abuse.

Talking about Jenna Jameson as an example does not mean everyone else has been through her scenario. D.J. Gang you are not taking things into account if you think you can agree with someone giving an example of one or two people and thinking this is the case for everyone It is like saying because medical marijuana is acceptable for people with glaucoma, it should be acceptable for everyone else, a few examples doesn’t validate everyone else.

Eitherways, back on track to the OP, a lot of people do think pornography is a big deal here and I’m sure you do too as you came in here for a reason addressing just that. You may have to draw some ultimatums, but before anything, pray and have patience and think about possible repercussion of this in the future.

God Bless

 

[rpp]

Please accept that there are degrees of this sin. Sports Illustrated models are not treated the way you are stating. There is also a very large industry based on informed mutual consent. Your painting a picture of the whole based on one extreme of the spectrum harms your argument which is other wise valid. Please consider that even if slavery and abuse were causes of 5% of the participants, you would still have a condition which is less harmfull than the textile industry where they run vast oversees child labor operations which abuse countless more children. Are you equally as mad about people owning clothing made in third world countries? The point is many industries harm others but choosing to buy a product from a harmfull industry is not what is upsetting the spouses. I believe the concern is much closer to home. I would contend that a wife would be much more upset with her husband buying a magazine with a centerfold who was paid $15,000 for a photo shoot than she would be about her husband buying a cheep pair of sneekers made my a child who is essentially a slave of the subcontracted manufacturing company.

Please undersand I am not challenging the validity of the harm you are talking about. I am only trying to change focus to something that I feel is more relevant to the spouses dillema.

Wow, so making shirts is less harmful than being raped and held as a sex slave. I am glad I do not live in your world. And I and thankful that no one else does either.

I happen to be intimately familiar with the textile business. Your claims of widespread abuse are so grossly exaggerated they cannot be reconciled with reality. On the other hand, the UN reports that millions of women and children are involved in the sex trade. You have a seriously distorted and uninformed view. Get educated before you start making sick, disgusting and false comparisons like this.

 

[DJgang]

I DID NOT say that every porn star was sexually abused as a child.

If I did…and I will look back, I didn’t mean to.

Harmony…what is the deal here?

 

[royal_archer]

…Talking about Jenna Jameson as an example does not mean everyone else has been through her scenario. …

They also miss the cause and effect relationship. Abused women going into the porn industry does not mean the industry caused the abuse.

 

[royal_archer]

Wow, so making shirts is less harmful than being raped and held as a sex slave. I am glad I do not live in your world. And I and thankful that no one else does either.

I happen to be intimately familiar with the textile business. Your claims of widespread abuse are so grossly exaggerated they cannot be reconciled with reality. On the other hand, the UN reports that millions of women and children are involved in the sex trade. You have a seriously distorted and uninformed view. Get educated before you start making sick, disgusting and false comparisons like this.

Your mixing apples and oranges. I am focusing on the products available here in the United States, not some third world brothel/ drug den.

The purchase of a dirty magazine in the US may result in an adult female actress wanna be in a photo session. But buying an imported textile from a third world country may result in a child in forced labor. And yes I do believe forced child labor is worse than an adult getting photographed with mutually agreed to financial compensation.

 

[Harmony1988]

I DID NOT say that every porn star was sexually abused as a child.

If I did…and I will look back, I didn’t mean to.

Harmony…what is the deal here?

The biggest deal here is the information you gave her on your first post. It would have never worked if she told that to her boyfriend, the main reason being it was nearly all wrong and he would easily picked up on that. Your intentions were right, but not the facts.

If she went and told all that you did to her boyfriend he would be even harder to get through later, he’d think she was lying.

Eitherways, we are all here to give advice on stopping pornography. And I think the best resources lie in places like:

www.pureloveclub.com

or something by christopher west.

Infact you don’t need catholic sources for this, pretty much any Christian source should be good because main Christian denominations condemn pornography.

 

[rpp]

Your mixing apples and oranges. I am focusing on the products available here in the United States, not some third world brothel/ drug den.

The purchase of a dirty magazine in the US may result in an adult female actress wanna be in a photo session. But buying an imported textile from a third world country may result in a child in forced labor. And yes I do believe forced child labor is worse than an adult getting photographed with mutually agreed to financial compensation.

As I stated before, you clearly do not know what you are talking about. Whewn I find that I am not informed about something, I generally do not make pronouncements. I suggest you cease talking about either of these topics, porn and textile manufacturing, because you have demonstrated a grotesque lack of knowledge.

 

[estesbob]

My take on this situation is that we dont know enough about her boyfriend to know if there is a problem or not. A vague "I need t talk to my boyfriend about porn " tells us nothing.

 

[royal_archer]

As I stated before, you clearly do not know what you are talking about. Whewn I find that I am not informed about something, I generally do not make pronouncements. I suggest you cease talking about either of these topics, porn and textile manufacturing, because you have demonstrated a grotesque lack of knowledge.

ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=57

 

[FrancesDaphne]

Hi Sarah,

I understand your concern here. I’m sorry to see some replies turn out a little ‘accusatory’, i’m not sure why we CAF posters have a tendency to get over-enthusiasted with our responses & forget the true concerns of the person posting for help…maybe that’s because religion & principles are hardest to convey… and easiest to voice in the ‘commandeering’ tone…(think: 10 commandments… grin)
( hm…so anyways… back to the topic)

Erm…for my 2 cents worth…
Below is how I would speak to my boyfriend who is secular, to my brother who is secular, to my Dad who is secular. SO far I haven’t been able to speak to any of them of course! (used to have bfs but now am single…hehe)

Is it alright for you to give up porn altogether for me?
Because it will mean a lot to me that porn does not exist in your nor my life.

I understand guys see porn very casually - a harmless hobby even. But I feel very uncomfortable about men looking at women they do not know— with those kind of eyes/intent/just to ‘feel good’…

I very much respect a man who knows that porn exists but choose not to subscribe to it – because porn makes sex look cheap and fictionalizes it – it feels like men who watch porn are boys who refuse to accept reality (that sex is meant to be private ! I feel they’re acting like busybodies with nothing better to do but watch other people have sex/ fictionalize sex)

This will mean a lot to me because your giving up and rejecting porn will give me confidence in how much you are willing to give in this relationship. I know it sounds demanding but Porn is an issue I am not able to compromise on…

Erm…
Sorry for the long winded post…
I chanced upon your post because I have been disturbed about my brother who watches porn… (he’s a free-thinker, he’s good brother to me, a great son to my mum, and the best friend anyone can have - and he watches porn )

I have thought very long and hard about this issue myself.
So I think I may know what you are facing here, Sarah…

so… Good Luck (u need more than luck of course) with this issue, because I myself am not speaking to my brother about it (I am the younger sister and a younger kid has no place to voice such things to an older brother) - I can only pray he snaps out of it when he has a gf/gets married and learns that sex is a sacred private issue … and those images protrayed by the porn industry are plain boring fiction semsationalized to make women look like brainless sex-maniacs.

Because according to my secular guy friend,
Porn is akin to eating chips (BAD analogy, I know!) – chips make people fat but crunching it just feels good anyways…
They do not attach a moral compass to it - there never seems to be one!

Once again,
Good Luck, and God Bless the relationship you’re in Cheers!