You Need Help: My Trauma is Activated When My Partner Masturbates to Porn

Content warning 11/18/22: This question mentions childhood sexual abuse.

Q:

Dear Autostraddle,

A while back, my partner of many years and I (both they/them) spoke about Crash Pad Series, and they said that it meant empowerment for them to see very different bodies (trans and non-binary people, mascunline-presenting persons, various sizes) and how it normalized kink for them; and I was absolutely fine with it. Recently however, I learned that my partner masturbates when watching Crash Pad Series. This made me feel hurt and betrayed. Maybe this is naivete on my part, as I know most people masturbate when watching porn, but I did not receive any prior indication that masturbation was a part of what they were looking for in Crash Pad Series in the way they described it to me. It feels as if a crucial information was omitted on their part.

Moreover, I feel like a bad queer for not being into queer porn or having a problem when my partner masturbates to it. It seems to me that the only people who are critical of porn are religious fundamentalists and those feminists who want to outlaw pornography, which is no company I want to be in. To make matters more complicated, I was brought up in a fundamentalist Christian environment in which pornography was absolutely condemned, and I was sexually abused by my father in my childhood; he also showed me porn. As a teen, I discovered feminism which was very much second-wave, and my socialization in this regard is Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, and Gloria Steinem, who were critical of pornography. And as a young adult, when I believed to be straight and had a boyfriend, he watched porn that I considered sexist and that was made by cis-men and for cis-men. I wanted to be the “cool” girlfriend who didn’t have a problem with his porn consumption; but deep down, I did. I crossed my own boundaries when watching porn with him.

Back to the present – I feel really down by the recent information. To be clear: It is not that I expect my partner to only be attracted to me; also, I believe they should be free in their fantasies when masturbating. Yet, it feels (to a limited extent) like cheating or a breaking of trust that they didn’t tell me before. Somehow, it feels very different if they masturbate to videos and images of other people on a website they pay for, as opposed to fantasies in their head.

My partner cares about how I feel and said we could negotiate if I didn’t want them to use porn. To the same time, I don’t want to reduce or “prohibit” something that is empowering to them.

I have been doing research. The only thing I seem to find on this topic are narratives by straight couples, in which a) the guy consumes porn that the woman considers misogynistic, and/or that b) he is addicted to porn. Neither is true in regard to my partner and me, or Crash Pad Series. I would love to hear some how queer/lesbian couples handle it – besides joyfully watching porn and happily going to queer porn film festivals together. It feels like I am the only queer person who has this problem, which is probably not true, but it surely appears to me right now.

I’d really appreciate your thoughts and considerations.

A:

Wow. Hey reader. Thank you for this question. I’m gonna try to be as gentle as I can with this but I think you need to hear it.

It may not feel like you’re coming from a bad place when you feel, to use your own words, “betrayed” by your partner’s porn consumption. Honestly, that’s a strong word and a strong reaction and makes me think you are laying claim to a part of your partner’s sexuality that you don’t necessarily have the right to. They aren’t cheating on you, though it may feel like it. They are just practicing a very healthy sexual relationship with themselves while supporting a queer indie porn site. The fact that you feel betrayed or like you’ve been cheated on says more about you than it does about your partner.

I know I may sound harsh, but you really have to ask yourself why this bothers you so much. You say that you know they have a right to their fantasies, that a lot of critique of porn is usually through a fundamentalists lens and you don’t want to be in that company, but do you really grasp that you’re basically asking your partner to stop doing something that brings them a feeling of joy and acceptance because you personally have a problem with it?

I’m operating from a place where I assume people watch porn to masturbate to it. Especially porn that is made by sex workers who are queer and have a range of body sizes and abilities. Your partner says they find something really special in watching Crash Pad, and I don’t know but I think masturbation is a key part of that. To see bodies like theirs being desired and catered to is probably really hot for them!

I fear you aren’t gonna like my solution which is essentially that you have to accept your partner’s porn and masturbation habit. I know you probably want a happy medium, but if that medium consists of your partner having to reduce or limit their fantasies because of you, that doesn’t seem very fair. To be clear, they are just watching queer porn. By your admission, they aren’t doing it obsessively, and they aren’t watching something that depicts another person being harmed, so I don’t see a solution in which you get what you want, which is for them to not masturbate to Crash Pad or do it less.

You aren’t a bad queer. You’re someone with a history of trauma that has probably affected the way you view those who watch and masturbate to porn. You may say all the right things in this post, but you also admit that you feel betrayed and cheated on. That tells me that you are still viewing porn consumption as something that is bad or is somehow taking away from your partner’s desire for you, which it isn’t. They can be 100% into you and still want to see another person engaging in sexual activity.

I don’t know if you’ve tried it yet, but you say you think Crash Pad is cool and everything. Maybe try watching a few together without masturbating. Talk about what you see and how it makes you feel. You can work up to doing a mutual masturbation session while watching porn when you feel comfortable if that’s something that interests you. You haven’t spoken about your own masturbation rituals so I don’t know how you do that or if you do at all. But mutual masturbation can be a hot, fun way to connect with your partner and share something that is important to them.

I want to leave this by just reiterating that your partner isn’t doing anything wrong. They are just masturbating which is normal and a part of a healthy sexual relationship with the self. It’s on you to work through your feelings around this, not on them to change their behavior.

Best of Luck!

x
DJ

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