Have been seeing a man for over 2 months now, 8 dates total, most several hours long.
He has planned very thoughtful multi-part dates, been receptive to feedback, never suggested or hinted at going 50/50. He is tall, attractive, goes to the gym, makes great money, etc.
Another thing y'all should know that he is incredibly inexperienced. I was his first kiss and he's never had a girlfriend. We are both in our early twenties. He's been very respectful. For our dates he is always checking in on how I'm feeling, asks to hold my hand or to kiss me (he mostly stopped asking when I told him he doesn't need to do that every time). He doesn't gives any signs of being pornsick and has not shown a single red flag so far (and I follow FDS so I vet very closely).
On our last date I casually asked about his views on porn as FDS suggests to do. He said "I don't have views on porn. I watch it once every 2-3 months. I try not to watch it that often because my female friends say that it is unrealistic."
I didn't react positively or negatively. I kinda agreed and smoothly changed the subject. I don't think this is grounds to block and delete. I'm debating between a few options of what to do.
Tell him that porn is unacceptable to me. Tell him that I don't want to talk to him for 2 weeks. In that time I want him to educate himself on the porn industry. I'll send him some of Gail Dines' work as a starting point. After 2 weeks we can have a discussion about what he has learned and how he feels about it.
When the dtr talk comes up, I can mention to him that p*** is unacceptable to me in a relationship and that he should stop watching it. I really think that this will be sufficient. He has listened and gone above and beyond in many other areas that I've pointed out about him. He seems to take feedback really well. However the risk here is that he is changing for me, not that his views on the ethics of it have shifted.
Casually share some of Gail Dines' material with him and ask his opinion on it. Let him come to his own conclusions without pushing my view.
Do you ladies have any advice or thoughts about the 3 options above? I'm leaning towards #3.
He limits his porn intake because of how female friends have said it’s “unrealistic”, not his own observations about the dehumanisation, humiliation, and commodification of women and girls?! NEXT!
His response just does not sit right with me. It screams secret porn addict. I will tell you that in the past I dated a “perfect gentleman”, low and behold, the pornsickness was revealed not in a violent or aggressive way, but his extreme premature ejaculation. He was a healthy athletic guy, no physical issues. When challenged, the truth came out. I was a dumb martyr “supportive girlfriend” who endured a miserable unsatisfactory sex life. NEVER AGAIN. Do not be me. Please learn from my dumb dumb ways. Pornsickness does not always present as violent sexual behaviour, sometimes it can be covert. Don’t take the risk of sinking more time into a dud.
It's not your job to teach or mother him. We all did the work ourselves to level the fuck up. We didn’t expect to be spoonfed or coddled. We did the actual the work of applying our newly learned skills in our daily life! He is an adult with agency and autonomy, he is perfectly capable of bucking up and investing in his own intellectual and emotional development. Just like we did.
Power to him in his journey if he ever embarks on it, but don’t waste your time dating someone who thinks it’s okay to sometimes dehumanise women, sometimes exploit women, sometimes masturbate to women being degraded and abused.
Think about it. If you asked him whether he hits women and his response was “ohh I only punch women every 2-3 months. I try not to because my female friends say it’s not ideal”. Take porn as seriously as you would take physical violence. Might be extreme, but I don’t care, women’s safety and humanity is non-negotiable to me 100% of the time.
As with any self-destructive behavior or vice, always assume someone is downplaying their real indulgence in it because the truth is probably far less flattering. "I only masturbate to women being harmed every two or three months" should translate in your mind to "I watch porn regularly and would watch it even more often if the women in my life didn't vocally disapprove."
Maybe he's just super naive and dumb but if that's the case, do you really want to mommy this guy into decency? You aren't Captain Save-a-Scrote and it isn't your job to help him grow basic morals and a brain. More likely, he's telling you what you want to hear because men know that porn hurts women and that HV women won't tolerate it--so they simply lie to us about it. The lack of sexual experience at his age also points heavily towards a porn addiction; he may never have kissed a woman or had a relationship because he spends all his time and sexual energy jerking off to violence against women.
I'm not saying you should definitely break up with him but this is a huge glaring waving red flag and in my world, those are stop signs, not warnings to proceed with caution. If you insist on continuing to entertain this man, don't let your guard down and do NOT become exclusive until you've been seeing him for several months at least. The worst thing you could do is give yourself a scarcity mindset and allow your standards to slip for his sake. IMO he has already told on himself.
For me, I would just go the block and delete route. Sure he seems “high value” on paper (even though 8 dates is way too early to know) but if he is watching porn, he is automatically low value to me. Also don’t reveal to men your dating standards and what you expect in relationships (especially when it comes to corn). There are men who can be very manipulative and can pretend to be whatever you want before they know you are under their grasp.
If you tell him that you don’t want him watching corn, there is a high chance that he would lie to you about not watching it anymore. He would just be sneaky about it and watch it behind your back. That is why a lot of users on here suggest just asking him what type of corn he watches and just see what he says. If he says he watches it, just leave him because it shows his deep misogyny and views women as nothing but tools for his dick. If he mentions he doesn’t watch it, just continue vetting if he is showing signs of corn sickness.
"I don't think this is grounds to block and delete"
Yes, yes it is. Why are women on FDS if they insist on trying to get out of following FDS?
I see this very black and white: Does he watch Corn? Yes or no? His answer is Yes? Next. I don’t care if it’s once every full moon or every day. He watches it. It’s a red flag and all the HVM qualities mean nothing anymore.
I understand that your sunk cost fallacy might be kicking in already, but 2 months is still early enough to get away fairly unscathed. If this revelation makes you feel bad, end it and don't look back. You will be sad for a while, but I'm sure it'll pass soon. As a side note, can we stop calling men HV for exercising and making money? These features aren't markers of high value, they are often highly circumstantial.
I love #3 bc I think it's better to hear their thoughts 👀
Sweetheart, I'm so sorry but I just can't see this relationship work out in the long term. The correct amount to watch porn is zero and not anymore than that number. Porn is extremely addictive and lights up areas in the brain the same way as drugs do. It feels very good at first, but you have to keep watching harder and harder stuff to get that nice big hit like it did the very first time watching it. The effects of long term porn usage to the male brain is just as devastating, if not more so, than the effects of alcohol and hard drugs.
He says he only watches it a few times but you don't know what he's truly doing behind closed doors. He could be watching barely legal teenagers in those videos. He could be watching real r*pe on cam stuff. What he's doing is an absolute deal breaker and has shown you that he is a dangerous man around women.
I'm seeing that you are trying to somehow communicate and show him the light, but that is not your job as a woman and as a potential girlfriend. The part of vetting is to see if the man screens himself out and you do nothing about it except leave him alone afterwards. He screened himself out. Not your problem anymore.
3. Not to make excuses for him but he likely has no idea how bad the industry is. It's shoved down our throats how empowering doing porn is for women even though it's not. His response once he learns the truth about the porn industry will tell you everything you need to know
Option 2 involves the least emotional labor for you, and just sitting back and watching his behavior - that’s the most FDS/The Rules approach which I love. As for Option 3, look, I get why that’s appealing but it’s just another form of a woman doing too much. You’re not his therapist or mom. Men don’t care. If anything he’ll just use the material to mirror your views to get what he wants out of you.
This dude sounds like he’s trying real hard to present himself as an “ally”. Got a few orbiters like this that will throw in stuff about women to sound like they care about our issues but it’s always, without fail, 10000% bullshit. Naaaaah, sis.
I agree with both the view that he is NOT your project/student AND the view that people need to be educated--including ALL OF US HERE. We didn't just automatically know right from wrong; we had to be taught--and still do! Racism is one such example. Basically, NOBODY wants to even consider that they are racist or that anything they ever do/say/think is racist, but thanks to the work of Dr. Robin Di' Angelo, we have learned that we ALL are/do. Sexism is the same--and this goes for women, too! Women are horribly sexist. (And, I do mean sexism against women. Sexism against men doesn't exist, by definition; that's a fallacy.) Once we know, we can choose--or, not--to work on ourselves. So, let him choose. But, don't stick around while he figures things out. At minimum, don't make him your focus--you should be dating multiple guys, anyway, to avoid this very thing! If you only date one, he becomes WAY too important and you develop the intense need to MAKE it work with him, because you have no one else. I have learned this the hard way--we all have!
I am old enough to be this guy's mother and I had no idea of some of the horrors of current porn until my intro, thanks to FDS podcast, to Gail Dines, and to the ladies who host the podcast. Of course, I knew MANY of the potential horrors, but I still thought there was possibly some porn that might not be "that bad", albeit, hard (impossible?) to ascertain the truth behind. (Like one poster commented, how do we know the true age of someone? And, for me, even if someone is legal, that's not enough--they're still a teenager, a kid! Btw,16 is legal in many states guess where....the USA! Look it up and cringe!) So, yes, I have been aware of many problems with it, but I still had not learned of the extreme extent to which extreme types of porn were indoctrinating people as young as teens and, even, pre-adolescents. My 30-year-old guy friend said he started watching when he was 9 because of the internet. Lillith, a FDS podcast host, has said that she entered into sexuality being told that choking-out a girl was the norm. So, she went along with it, convincing herself that she was supposed to like it. While this makes me want to kick the shit out of the guy who choked her, I have to acknowledge that he, too, was indoctrinated. So, yes, we all need education. (And, part of that education for guys is having the shit kicked out of them!) Most of the time, we don't know how ignorant we are. So, go ahead and share your standards. NOT in any of the ways you've proposed, however--that's too much. Don't be his professor giving a lecture or recommending one. Don't be his mother, nagging and putting him in Time Out. As with any standard, you are simply sharing it and disqualifying the ones who don't meet it. You are NOT continuing with him in the meantime, coaching him along, giving him chances to con you. It's like wanting to be with someone who doesn't do drugs or smoke or hang out with ex-girlfriends or whatever it is you know you hate. Instead of laying down the law--which they will want to break simply BECAUSE you laid it down--and establishing all these rules that makes your head hurt to create in meticulous detail, accounting for every possible scenario, and driving yourself (and him) crazy by monitoring/nagging him, just move on to someone who is already living in alignment with your values. I know it is easier said than done. Good luck!
It's like people saying they are not junkies because they only do drugs on the weekends
I'd say number 3 - because telling him you're against porn would give him too much info - he could use it to pretend that he stopped.
If you'd like to be strategic about it, you could share some anti-porn posts with him in a way that would signal you have JUST discovered that and don't know what to think.
Kinda "omg I just saw this, is this what happens on porn sets?"
Then you can gauge whether it will have an effect on him - especially if it concerns violence against women. Will he brush it off? Will he deny it's happening? Will he wanna find out more?
If he reacts defensively, I would take off. Did you see this article?
i think i like option 3 better.
"asks to hold my hand or to kiss me" --> sign me up! this is my golden dream!!! never happened in my life, probably never will. one can only dream, right?
about his stand on porn, i don't know... he could be lying. why does he watch? he told you ahy he tries to not watch frequently because of his female friends blabla but why does he still watch? hmm i odn't know... i don't trust him.