Gay Hickey: Pornography twists couples' expectations

Published on Friday 3 April 2009 09:45

WITHOUT knowing anything about the stability and harmony of Jacqui Smith's marriage, it is probably fair to assume that her "furious and mortified" reaction to the knowledge that her husband had viewed adult movies in her absence was probably more politically than emotionally motivated.

But there are countless other wives, husbands and partners making the same discovery every day. It is hard to find reliable statistics on pornography, but it was reported a few years ago that Los Angeles was churning out 10,000 hardcore movies every year, so somebody must be watching them.

Watching adult movies isn't necessarily harmful in a relationship. If a couple choose to watch them together and both enjoy the experience, they can be enjoyable and even beneficial.

What is harmful, though, is if one person is coerced into watching against their will, or if one partner's use of the porn gets out of control. Pay-to-view porn is pretty innocuous, but unfortunately there are much more extreme internet sources which aren't difficult to access.

It can still be a shock, though, especially if people aren't of the generation which takes the use of porn as completely normal and acceptable. A man in his 70s, say, who mourns the fact that he is losing desire and decides to try to stimulate it by watching porn. The shock of discovering that he is doing so can hurt and exclude his partner.

She probably is in her 70s too, and is unlikely to look much like the girls he is watching.

However convincing his protestations, her self-esteem is going to take a severe knock.

It's also about expectations – a current TV series is asking school pupils about their experience of using porn as opposed to the reality of how normal people look and behave. Both boys and girls have a depressingly airbrushed idea of how their ideal partner, or themselves, should be.

How is that going to effect the development of their own sexual and intimate adult relationships?

Gay Hickey is head of public affairs with Relationships Scotland