He Chose Porn Over Me and It's Not My Fault

Before reading "He Chose Porn Over Me": Women Harmed by Men Who Use Porn, I never gave much thought to the impact pornography has had on me. Deliberately so. I knew looking into the topic would open a can of worms I didn’t feel ready for.

As a feminist, I’m aware of the harms of pornography – I’ve read most of the second wave critics of the field, I’ve followed cases of women who were tricked or coerced to appear in porn. I’ve also read about violence on porn sets, of injuries, of degradation, abuse and trauma that the porn “actresses” have suffered.

But to study the impact on myself was another matter. One reason for this was a profound sense of standing alone against a behemoth. Most of my 30-something life felt like porn was always on in the background.

As Gail Dines says in Pornland, “Pornography has become almost invisible by virtue of its very ubiquity. It seeps into our lives, identities, and relationships. We are so steeped in the pornographic mindset that it is difficult to imagine what a world without porn would look like.”

“It’s not just me,” was my main takeaway from "He Chose Porn Over Me": Women Harmed by Men Who Use Porn. Thanks to the 25 personal stories of women interviewed by anti-porn campaigner and author Melinda Tankard Reist, I found myself strengthened to revisit my own experiences. I no longer felt alone against an invincible foe.

Thus, diving into my memories, I distilled a few themes in the book that resonated with me.

Porn-inspired Practices

At 18, there was the ex-boyfriend who was sad I couldn’t give him blowjobs - I was wearing metal braces and they hurt his penis. This young porn enthusiast considered it a given that I would perform oral sex on him. I considered it a given as well. Meanwhile, I was secretly relieved that my dental helpers spared me of that “job.”

This ex was a prince charming in comparison with the one from two years prior. I remember a night when I was sitting in his living room. Hardcore porn was running on TV, showing the practice called “ass gaping.” I watched women’s anuses being extended for the camera in disgust and confusion. Clearly, the act wasn’t meant to bring pleasure to the woman – and what was the appeal for men who were not on track to become colorectal specialists?

By then I must have already accepted the porn dogma, as raising these questions with my “sex partner” had never crossed my mind. Neither have I objected when the 30-year-old man instructed me to “apply an enema next time” so that “we could perform ass-to-vagina sex.” With the help of alcohol and drugs, other porn staples this man tried on the 16-year-old me were “pissing,” “deep throat” and, with one of his peers participating, “double penetration.”

The women in He Chose Porn Over Me also experienced their partners coercing them into porn-inspired practices:

Maggie

"He loved to photograph me in different positions naked or dressed in specific outfits and dress ups. There was a time where he coerced me into peeing into a bowl whilst I was naked and he photographed it. (...)"

"He would usually dress me up for sex in different outfits, including latex. He liked for me to wear a latex mask sometimes and would ejaculate all over it. I felt disgusting while wearing it and wished for it to be over. He wanted me to drink his cum, or cum all over my body and face."

Moriah

"He’d been pressuring me to have anal sex. 'If you’re so scared of harming the baby, we should try this.' I declined, many times. He did it against my will."

"He began putting his hands around my neck. I asked him to stop. 'You know you like it,' he replied. 'Why don’t you want to explore a little? You know I hate vanilla sex.'"

In comparison with my turbulent adolescence, my 20s and 30s were tame. Most of my boyfriends were not visibly porn-obsessed – we never watched porn together, and we rarely discussed the matter. However, I expected they watched it in private – I considered porn-viewing an inherent part of male sexuality. While most of these men were into “normal sex,” they had other issues.

Penile dysfunction

“I’m surprised you don’t have a problem with maintaining an erection,” I said to an ex partner that I dated in my 30s. All my adulthood, limp-dicked men have plagued my sex life. I’d encountered this issue, paired with the inability to orgasm from penetrative sex, so frequently, that a functional penis made me suspicious. “Is he taking something?” I thought about the erected ex.

Although I never fully realized that I’d considered the erection failures to be my fault, the relief I felt after reading He Chose Porn Over Me made me reconsider. Again, I found out I was not alone.

Moriah:

“He began getting rough during sex and became frustrated that I couldn’t maintain the four-times-a-day schedule. He seemed to be experiencing what I now know to be ‘Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction’ which made him angry and more savage during sex.”

Sharni:

“Part of what made things so difficult was that, because of many years of porn use instead of meaningful sex with real people, his body was conditioned to get off only in a certain way, and that meant it would often take a really long time for him to come, and often it would have to be by the action of his own hand.”

Carla:

He was once a giving and passionate lover, but he no longer looked at me during the rare occasions we had sex. He had stopped going down on me, which he used to love. Foreplay was gone. He would sometimes have trouble maintaining his erection or couldn’t orgasm at all (which never used to happen).

Evelyn

“My husband was not interested in sex — when we were intimate it seemed like he was not there. He seemed bored and eventually couldn’t orgasm anymore.”

“Rabbiting”

Another feature of sex that used to baffle me before reading He Chose Porn Over Me, was “rabbit-ing.” This is a term I coined for a man repeatedly thrusting his penis in a vagina hard and fast. I could never understand the appeal of this painful, awkward-looking practice. Was I supposed to find a guy acting like a horny hare attractive? Yet, at least two of my exes needed “rabbiting” to climax.

Thanks to the women who contributed to He Chose Porn Over Me, I found out pornography could be the cause.

Sharni:

"The times that he did come from penetration, he had to thrust so fast that all I could do was ‘lie back and think of England’ until it was over. Some people describe leaving their body and floating up to the ceiling. It was like that. Sometimes I’d be in physical pain, just wanting him to finish so that we could cuddle and be in the part of the relationship that felt good."

Amalia:

"(…) But both the first guy and this one now only knew hard and fast thrusting which always makes me uncomfortable."

Maggie:

"He found it difficult to climax during sex and had to go super fast to finish. There were times when he actually didn’t finish."

To be clear, He Chose Porn Over Me wasn’t my first encounter with women describing the effect of porn on “their” men. However, reading about these experiences in a book, compared to online posts, felt more real.

The book gave me a taste of what I imagine consciousness raising used to be during the feminist Second wave – women coming together in real life, discussing how patriarchal oppression affected them.

During these meetings, many women present shared the problems, feelings, and experiences that they had considered personal.“It’s not just me,” they found out, and therefore, “It’s not my fault.”

"He Chose Porn Over Me": Women Harmed by Men Who Use Porn, written by Melinda Tankard Reist was published in August 2022 by Spinifex Press and can be bought here.

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