He may have been the world's most wanted terrorist at the time he was killed, but it turns out Osama bin Laden was also a typical man. Evidently, bin Laden had an "extensive" stash of porn at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, according to officials.
There's no way to know if the Mrs. -- or the three Mrs. he was evidently living with -- approved of it or even knew. Most people are secretive about their porn habits. Perhaps they may have watched with him although that's doubtful; although more women are watching online porn than ever -- some 13 million American women were checking it out at least once each month in the first three months of 2007 -- they have yet to come close to guys. Women tend to favor cybersex chat rooms -- we like to talk -- while men go for the visuals.
Face it -- if there's a man in your life, he's most likely watching porn and if you're a woman, you're most likely not too happy about it.
I happen to like porn, but a lot of women get tweaked by porn in part because they think their partner is comparing them to Jenna Jameson and other porn stars; we can be competitive -- or insecure -- when it comes to other attractive women, and there's just no way most of us are going to have perfect breasts and butts, and the sexual responses a porn star does. Nor are we necessarily going to be open to all the positions and, uh, broad-mindedness of porn stars (although I'm guessing few of us would turn away, say, a Brad Pitt-George Clooney threesome; I sure wouldn't).
Polls show that we're pretty evenly divided on whether porn is just part of the package when it comes to men and if it's demeaning to women. We're also equally divided on whether porn is bad for relationships, although if you've been involved with someone who's lost interest in having sex with you because he'd prefer to jack off to some online porn, you're pretty clear on the damage it does.
Still, that's a small percentage of porn watchers. The majority of people view their porn watching as some good, not-quite-so-clean fun, according to the late researcher Alvin Cooper, the former head of the San Jose Marital and Sexuality Center. Only 15 percent of the respondents to Cooper's study said their porn watching actually led to behaviors that interfered with their lives.
But what if you happen to be married to someone in that 15 percent? Is that a good reason to dump him? What about the "recreational" porn watchers?
If you read many of the online advice boards, it seems that a lot of women are fed up with their partner's porn watching and wonder if they should get a divorce. According to research by Patrick F. Fagan, senior fellow and director of the conservative Center for Research on Marriage and Religion, pornography is a "quiet family killer."
Not only does watching porn contribute to infidelity, but a spouse's porn obsession was a factor in 56 percent of divorces, Fagan says.
Divorce attorneys tend to agree with Fagan's findings. At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two-thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers noted that the Internet was playing an increasing role in marital splits, with excessive online porn watching contributing to more than half of the divorces. According to Richard Barry, president of the association, "Pornography had an almost nonexistent role in divorce just seven or eight years ago."
Others aren't so sure, but know something's amiss. "The attention paid to the connection between porn and infidelity doesn't translate into anything like a consensus on what that connection is," writes Ross Douthat, a senior editor at the Atlantic, in "Is Pornography Adultery?" "But if you approach infidelity as a continuum of betrayal rather than an either/or proposition, then the Internet era has ratcheted the experience of pornography much closer to adultery than I suspect most porn users would like to admit."
But is the problem porn itself or a guy's obsession with it? Or is there something else going on?
No man in a healthy sexual relationship would choose porn over bonking his flesh-and-blood partner, says San Francisco Bay Area sex therapist and America's War On Sex: The Attack on Law, Lust, & Liberty author Marty Klein. Emphasis on "healthy." So, if a guy's watching too much porn -- whatever "too" much is and who gets to decide that -- a couple now has an out; they can say he has a "porn addiction." "If a wife claims that porn use is infidelity, if a girlfriend claims that porn use means he isn't attracted to her, a disease is a good place to hide," Klein says.
So what typically happens is she puts her foot down -- "Porn or me!" -- and he promises that he'll stop watching. And some guys actually do stop, Klein says. "The rest will do what they did when they were 14 -- they'll do it in secret, feel bad about it and hope they won't get caught. And so a life of lying about sex continues. You can imagine what that will do to the couple's closeness."
Not help it, and I imagine that's how many couples find themselves divorcing over "porn addiction." What about you?
Follow Vicki Larson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/OMGchronicles
But it is the same problem faced by women throughout history, why they hate hookers, golddiggers and strippers so much, mean girls.
Now technology has imposed the same bait-thieving problem for women, but with a difference and it night not necessarily be a bad development (the whole deal was stupid to begin with).
Men would be more likely to marry their best friends rather than some trophy or toy, because grade-A virtual babe is widely available. For her best companion is the new selling quality, not cup size. Together because they want to be with together, no matter how poor gets, no matter how fat or old she gets. And some sexy vamp won't be as able to lure him away, he can watch better. But most important it's not like he is going to develop a relationship with his video porn gals.
So we will see, it's not going away but probably just going to get more 3-D explicit. But it might just be a win-win-win development reducing marriage to what it should be rather than a meat money market.
What if its the MOST ENJOYABLE time I spend?
Either I have a really pathetic life...or my girlfriend is thankful I'm not ON HER every night. :)
I suppose it would make sense, since the most statistically repressive states spend the most on porn...
Just not true. A whole lot of women in porn have ugly pieces of plastic instead of breasts, and "responses" that show a similar degree of verisimilitude. Every time I go anywhere in public, I see women with better breasts than half the women in porn.
Don't sell yourself short.
"Nor are we necessarily going to be open to all the positions and, uh, broad-mindedness of porn stars"
There's a lot of stuff shown in porn that most men wouldn't be interested in actually doing. It's fantasy. It's not supposed to be 100% realistic.
"But if you approach infidelity as a continuum of betrayal rather than an either/or proposition, ..."
It's an either/or, with degrees of seriousness on the 'yes it is' side of that divide. Stay on the 'no it isn't' side. If you can't love, honor, and cherish one woman while doing ____ with another, don't do that.
"No man in a healthy sexual relationship would choose porn over bonking his flesh-and-blood partner"
...unless she's not in the mood and would only be doing it to humor him. That sometimes happens, even in healthy relationships.
That's about as meaningful as the question of whether saying things involves cuss words. Yes, people say lots of cuss words, and lots of porn is demeaning.
1) ...two-thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers noted that the Internet was playing an increasing role in marital splits, with excessive online porn watching contributing to more than half of the divorces.
2)According to Richard Barry, president of the association, "Pornography had an almost nonexistent role in divorce just seven or eight years ago."
Just goes to show, you don't have to be female to be full of misandry.
Porn, especially in uptight America, is an easy way for a spouse and her/his lawyer to stigmatize or intimidate their soon-to-be ex during divorce and child custody hearings. That's a more plausible reason why these supposed 350 lawyers are hearing porn mentioned more often. That in no way means that's the real reason the couple fell apart.