What is that phrase again? Oh, that's right-
Pussy Whipped.

The flip side is that maybe something wretched happened to her as a child.

Seriously do it quick before she sabotages your birth control and you end up with a kid with this psycho.

She sounds like an idiot.

And here's a tangential piece of advice to all adults interested in healthy and productive lives that I know to be true not only from decades of observation, but from personal experience: STOP HANGING OUT WITH YOUR COUSINS. Rarely does anything good come from it.

RUN BRO!

I think the real winners here are the unborn children who will never result from this relationship.

Knowingly procreating with intolerant, controlling people is the worst kind of sin. DTMFA and count yourself lucky.

#4 FTW. Thank your lucky stars you have not already had children with this idiot, and get the hell out of dodge before it comes back on the table.

Oh, and also? Call a lawyer. Right now. Before you tell her. Get your ducks in a row so neat you can cut paper with it. Because she is not going to let you escape without attempting to punish you.

@11: "controlling, irrational, abusive psycho."

Somehow you just know he won't take this advice.

LW, this is your wife's problem, ok? Her irrational jealousy ( and that's what it is, hidden behind her weird stuff re porn) , if you insist on staying around with her, needs to be dealt with. And why are you hooked in, by such crap? Both of you need to do some therapy and
Become adults. Having children with this woman, as is, could be a very painful experience for you. Crying kids, controlling wife- sound like fun to you?

Dude, Take My Free Advice! - I see what you did there :-)

I agree with Dan, except that this conflict is also about the porn. Her attitude toward porn is crazy and stupid and incredibly uninformed. She thinks it makes you a pedophile? Is she a goddamn moron? And she is constantly yelling at you in public? DTMFA.

I am not saying commitment proceedings might be a useful ancillary to the divorce proceedings, necessarily. But she needs counseling at least. As the LW said, her beliefs thoughts and actions are as irrational as hell.

Clearly this is a crazy controlling bitch. Never mind the porn, there MUST be other areas where she exhibits this behaviour. RUUUUUUUUUNNNNNN!!

Dan is probably right about the first choice here, but I think he missed the second choice: the last ditch Hail Mary non-bluff "Cut this the fuck out or it's over."

Tell her--don't discuss with her--that watching porn is not pedophilia and that controlling your partner's thoughts and eye movements is not love. Tell her to cut the shit or you'll leave. And if she doesn't agree to cut the shit, leave. (And #10 is right, call a lawyer first.)

Maaaaaaybe she's an OK person who latched onto some stupid ideas. If she is, she'll ditch the stupid ideas to save her marriage.

Thank goodness her bat-shit insanity put kids off the table. Even a crazy clock is right some of the time.

If this is all on the up and up, and if she hasn't been a crazy, controlling freak for years (did SNAP leave that part out?) then the only way her behavior makes any sense to me is if she was victimized in child pornography. The "best friend's cousin" may have been after her.

SNAP should get his crazy-ass wife into therapy. Suggest couple's therapy if she is unwilling to go on her own.

And then maybe get the fuck out of there... Presumably he has stayed with her because he cares for her, and if she has an identifiable problem and is getting help, he might want to stay.

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but say you manage to smooth this over and eventually do have kids. What if one of those kids some day grows up to be a teen who doesn't remember to clear his or her internet cache? There is nothing like parental shaming to truly screw up a budding sexuality. She needs to get her head straight on this before you even consider procreating with her.

Personally, I do have a problem with internet porn. Men, seem to have managed for , well, centuries, to have their erotic lives without watching screens.
But I came of age in the 70s; no mobile phones, no internet. It does seem to be a pretty prevalent activity, these days.
However, LW- your dear wife freaks out as well at you looking at real live women. That's a big problem, and not something anyone should put up with. She doesn't own you.
Jealousy is a hard emotion to confront, and while you collude with her behaving like this, she won't even see it as a problem.
Why do want to stay with this woman? Have you asked yourself that, lately. Being a doormat for someone else's neurotic impulses is very unhealthy.

@23. I more or less agree. I lived with a guy that honest to god had some sort of internet porn problem and it created bizarre expectations in his real life (Dan mentions this from time to time, that porn CAN be a problem, usually though he has to explain why it's not always a problem.)

BUT, in context. This guy looked at porn years ago, before they were married and they were living at a distance. YEARS ago. I think that this is the very definition of unproblematic porn.

Never marry a tightass. It never works out in the end.

Grow a pair and divorce, ASAP, before she traps you with a pregnancy.

"The flip side is that maybe something wretched happened to her as a child."

Oh, riiight, because when someone acts as a tremeduous piece of shit, then that someone must have tremenduously suffered, right ?

Wrong.

Golden rule of human nature : it's the pampered individuals who act like spoiled brats, not the actual suffering ones.

Otherwise, logic dictates that berzerk women and children would have swarmed and smothered all patriarchies a long, long time ago.

As a rule, pieces of shit are absolutely NOT survivors.

Don't blame the victims of childhood abuse for all the faults of the human race.

Holy shit, I've been living with a version of this for the last 8 years of my life and can tell you that as much as you probably don't want to hear it just as I didn't. ....Dan is absolutely correct. DTCIAP and run. It is not going to end, only worsen. You must keep perspective that you did nothing wrong by watching porn. You shouldn't even be questioning your motive or whether you are a pedophile. In my case, my previous two relationships were with African Americans. Somehow that was turned into a weapon to use against me by the current one who is Mexican. Just like you, he tracks my every gaze to a batshit level. If someone Black is even in the vicinity, my eyes are closely watched and if he even thought I glanced in the direction of them, the day was ruined. It got to the point of being stressed out if I noticed someone Black had entered the area and fearing how he was going to act. If someone Black was on TV he would always have a derisive comment to say. This is only one example of the bat shittery I've had to endure. It comes down to realizing there is no reasoning or explaining to her because it isn't about that. It's about controlling you. You will never be allowed to be you. I stayed because there was always some checkpoint to reach where I thought everything would get better. Don't make having kids be one of those. Calm periods will come, but they are always just the eye of the storm. You need to spend more time with sane, rational people to get a good reminder of what's normal and how see much she is draining you. Take it from someone going through what you are. Stop responding to her batshittery. Don't argue or reason with her. Walk away when she starts up. Begin getting your shit together to prepare to move on. Sleep in another room until you can move out. You need to grab your balls back, which comes with getting YOU back. Somewhere out there is a woman who will love YOU, porn - watching and all.

@25 Yep. Like a friend of mine whose wife knew it was falling apart, took fertility drugs and had twins. He stayed another 6 years, but in the end it just sucked for the kids.

Women generally don't understand porn because they are not visually aroused the way the male of the species is. Human males are naturally predisposed to using sight for sex. Women are predisposed to using sound as a sexual arousal. That's why women fall for men that can talk their way into getting sex. Think of it like bird plumage. We are subject the mating rituals that all animals have. Sight and sound are commonly used.

Bullshit, pope. There's plenty of ladies out there watching porn. Take your evo psych elsewhere; people aren't peacocks. And even if they were, the metaphor still fails... If women really are "predisposed to using sound as a sexual arousal" why the hell is it the MALE birds with more colorful feathers???

Pope Peabrain @29,

See, when I invent ego-psych nonsense I issue a disclaimer: "I pulled this out of my ass but my point is X."

I understand porn perfectly well. I prefer stories, have used m/m video, get aroused by most ordinary straight porn. Even when I'm aroused by it, I still hate most ordinary straight porn. It wasn't made for me. When I do research on porn sites I know I'm going to be disturbed by much of what I find there, and I am. I don't like my partner to watch it when I'm around, though when I'm not is fine. There's no need to explain why "women don't understand porn." We do.

If men aren't aroused by sound, why do women vocalize to get their partners to come?

And who do you think most of the customers of phone sex lines are?

Pope Peabrain: I'm a woman who is generally not aroused by porn, and like Alison Cummins, don't like to watch most of it and would prefer not to see my partner's porn.

But do I care whether he watches it when I'm not there? No.

Do I equate masturbating to porn with cheating? No.

Do I assume that any man who watches porn with actresses in it younger than middle-aged me is a pedophile? No.

When in a relationship, do I spend all my time obsessively trying to control my partner's gaze and accusing him of wanting to be a sexual predator if he looks at a woman because I know he's watched porn ever? No.

While I am not aroused by 99% of the porn I've seen (and while much of it actually disgusts me), I understand men's arousal.

The woman described in this letter is crazy: controlling, irrational, delusional, obsessive. Also highly sex-negative and incredibly jealous. This is not an example of "women don't "get" porn because they're not visually attuned."

In fact, I don't understand what your comment is supposed to be about. It certainly has no relevancy to the letter, or the letter-writer's predicament, and it doesn't have much else interesting to say either.

@5 porn is not cheating. That the wife views it as cheating doesn't make it so. DTFMA LW. It sucks that your wife's cousin was a scumball but that's not your problem.

@ 31, speaking only for myself, but I HATE that caterwauling.

Matt from Denver @36, which caterwauling? The sounds I make when I want to come are quite different from the ones I make to coax a lover over the edge. The latter I can fine-tune to a partner’s preference, the former I can’t.

Oh I totally understand commenter number 36, In fact the only thing I hate more than a caterwauler, are those that intentionally incite caterwauling

But HATE is a far far far too mild of word to paint the picture of my feeling towards a caterwauling inciter who after all that time, energy and money spant inciting, and then bitches and moans about the caterwauler

fucking caterwauling causing then bitching about it journalist, so go fuck themselves

To add a voice from the other side...society and the media tells women to be very threatened by porn and by their partners checking out other women. So let's knock off with the "she's so crazy!!" trope. Here's society telling women to act a certain way (the shrill overbearing threatened/threatening woman is a beloved characterless character in the media) and then when she does act like that we can all scream how CRAZY!! she is. I fell for it too. It wasn't until my mid to late twenties that I let go of that crap. I only draw the line at cam girls as that's an interactive porn that I feel crosses my comfort line. Other than that, and assuming it's mostly kept hidden from my constantly stumbling across it, I couldn't care less. The LW wife may or may not get to that point. I hope for her and her current/future partner's sake she does and the LW needs to do what's best for him up to and including DTMFA. But let's just be reminded of the society in which we live and ease up on the judgment and name-calling.

@5 porn is not cheating. That the wife views it as cheating doesn't make it so. DTFMA LW. It sucks that your wife's cousin was a scumball but that's not your problem.

@31 It's not psycho pop. It's human nature. I didn't say women can't be aroused by visuals. I said they aren't naturally predisposed. And as for a typical woman's response, yours is it. Just because you don't like it, something must be wrong with it.

@41 Your argument is garbage. There's a super famous study showing that women are more likely to be physiologically aroused by *any* depiction of sex, including non-human sex (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/161…). Further, your just-plain-wrong argument contributes to the continued socialization/normalization of "porn is bad" among women. If fewer people parroted this baseless assertion, perhaps young women could view porn with an open mind rather than "I'm supposed to hate this." You're part of the problem.

@42 thank you!!

@31 Evo psych. Totally evo psych and also bullshit.

1) I don’t get how you can conclude from my not liking something that something must be wrong with it. You don’t know me — how would you know if my preferences are authoritative? Why would you think anyone’s preferences are authoritative?

2) I dislike some visual porn and also like some of it. Therefore the reasons I dislike the things I do have nothing to do with them being visual.

@29: Do you seriously expect people to not laugh at you when you break out that PUA Evopsych bullshit? Because it's not actually based on evolutionary biology, just a bag of regressive just-so stories.

DTMFA can't be said enough. My brother-in-law married a woman like this (verbally abusive, controlling, and continual accusations of cheating, looking to cheat, yada yada). After a few years of marriage and a couple of kids (and knowing she had him beaten down to the point of no return), she then proceeds to do to him what she accused him of for so many years - she hooked up with an old boyfriend and blatantly had an affair. If Sincerely Not A Pedophile sticks around, he'll be in for the same. No, maybe she won't cheat, but who wants a marriage where you're abused on a daily basis and/or walking on eggshells constantly to avoid being screamed at? Fuck that, grab your balls and run dude.

@ 37, since the topic was porn I meant porn. Clearly I didn't read exactly what you wrote, so that is my fault. But I'll admit to not being a real fan of women who are "vocal" in bed either. Not that it's a worry - I've been with the same woman for almost 20 years and she orgasms quietly. But I can still tell (she holds her breath and then gasps), so that's probably the vocalization that works for me.

Ok Matt from Denver — makes sense. The caterwauling in porn is terrible, I agree.

SNAP, why on earth would you ever put up with this? As someone who recently ended a relationship with a man whose earlier circumstances were very similar to yours (except that she ended up getting pregnant, then they got married), there will be some point in time when you want to live without the guilt and shame that this woman is willing to burden you with regarding your sexuality and you will likely leave her (the other option is to spend your life miserable). But the later you do and the more time you spend with someone so twisted, the more you will incorporate the idea that her behavior (and yours, for that matter, since you're the one putting up with this shit and somehow finding it acceptable) is normal and it will warp you, leaving you incapable of having a healthy, happy relationship in the future. Leave now, get yourself into counseling to figure out why you'd tolerate this (and here's a question for you: would you put up with someone saying that all homosexuals are pedophiles because there exists twink porn? That's the bullshit your "beloved" is trying to pull on you...fuck her rubbish excuses), and perhaps you can find love with someone else, because I will say unequivocally, based on what you've said here, this woman does not love you. Her manipulation, her controlling ways, her lies (because I think her "thing" about porn is just an excuse to act badly) will only get worse and will probably start to include all sorts of things, not just your "transgressions" in looking at porn and, god forbid, actually seeing other women, including young ones, out in the world. Don't damage yourself further...DTMFA.

+1 on the advice to uncreative

@8 Hahaha...yes, indeed, they are the winners. Hopefully nobody else will procreate with this woman either.

I have nothing really useful to add to the great advice and the many follow up comments, except to say that I too am a refugee from an entanglement with a CIAP and while porn wasn't at all an issue, so many other things were. She wasted no time finding her next target, and got knocked up tout-suite to make sure he didn't flee too. LW, if you are in any doubt, please consider that you might be a frog who hasn't noticed the gradual rise in the water temperature.

I'd like to add that in addition to the obvious psychological genesis of LW's wife issues with porn (or I guess I should say likely genesis...that much hatred of a medium is waaaay of the mean), there was (and still is a) brand of mostly feminism that equates porn to rape. Remember the signs at the generally well intentioned "Take Back the Night" rallies in the 90s? "Porn is the theory, rape is the practice." I unfortunately grew up and ran that academic gauntlet and, in the process (in addition to being exposed to a lot of bad 70s man-hating feminism in my formative years) and internalized a lot of self-loathing w/r/t porn. I mean, I'm a dude, so I watched it, but I hid it and felt bad about it and married a woman who considered it....equivalent to cheating. We broke up because of her actual cheating (when you've been raised to believe that women don't like sex and it's something they do just to make men happy, it doesn't make you the best lover, I know in retrospect). The last 15 years have changed my views on this completely (Thanks, Dan! Thanks, Chris Ryan!) but it's important to remember that not only does porn-phobia among women come from being CIAPs, but there's also a theoretical underpinning that has both a) convinced many women that porn is baaaaaaad and b) can act as an excuse for the the CIAP-ism. I don't know what the answer is, except tell her to listen to Dan, read some pro-porn feminists (Tristan Taormino's book, e.g.). The LW doesn't mention this as part of the issue, but I've seen it with my own eyes.

Most women don't watch porn as often as most men because porn isn't made for women (please note I said most/most, not all/all. Exceptions, as always, abound). Porn is the male fantasy come to life; not the female fantasy. If more porn were made featuring stunningly gorgeous men doing sexy things to a reasonably attractive woman, with all the pomp and splendour of a Harlequin romance, I bet you'd find a lot more women watching.

I meant to say "mostly academic feminism". Trying hard to get that written in my lunch 1/2 hour.

One last thing: I actually understand women (and men, for that matter) who don't like porn. I don't like most of it either. Most of it *is* misogynistic, creepy, objectifying shite that is made by men who obviously have some serious mental/emotional problems with regards to woman. Sure, it's about male fantasy, but it's blown all out of proportion and ends up making your average porn viewer seem a little twisted. I mean, go to one of the free porn sites and see how many clips you have to watch before you see a woman slapped (either by a hand or a dick) have cum intentionally shot into her eyes, called a bitch, a cunt, or a whore, or just generally treated like shit. I assure you, it will not be many. It's a supply-side problem. Most of cheap garbage porn (which, in terms of volume, is most of it) is made by twisted misogynists. There is good porn out there, where both the actors are actually enjoying themselves and no one is is being abused or objectified (except if they want to be--a complicating factor, for sure), So while this doesn't change the essential value of Dan's advice, I think we do ourselves a disservice when we blithely claim "All dudes watch porn" and leave it at that. There's the additional question of whether the fact that we have this mass of crap porn that is a good percentage of what ends up being sex ed for young men, who start to think that the abuse and objectifying, etc., is what women want. Oi. But anyway, as always, I'm with Dan on substance, but I think we do have to NB that most porn really is crap and you couldn't blame someone who is unsophisticated about porn for drawing some not-so-flattering conclusions about those of us who watch it if they sampled what's available on most of the free sites....

Have an escape route ready. She will flip the fuck out when you ask for divorce. Get ready to run. The bitch will be dangerous and unpredictable. Do not have sex with that woman anymore! She might try to get pregnant.

Somehow you just know he won't take this advice.

I know, right? That's depressing.

@23 Are you anti-vaccines too? We didn't have those for a long time.

Although I agree technically that SNAP cheated on the rules of his relationship and subsequent marriage, I also believe that SNAP's wife chose him (and his self-effacing traits which probably cover his behaviour in other aspects of life) deliberately, believing she could get him to agree to her rules without argument. It's easy to see how cowed SNAP is even in explaining to Dan why he needed to masturbate, though I am surprised his wife didn't put a rule on that as well (perhaps where he'd need to seek her permission in advance by phone or e-mail).

Of course, SNAP should have objected to the price of admission when he first heard it, but didn't. Perhaps he thought her objections would soften over time but, as he now knows, she's rewriting the rule book Every. Damn. Time. TV? Print Media?? Real life??? SNAP is screwed. [I can envision him driving the car when she spots a woman – not even a pretty one – ahead and yells at him to close his eyes!]

He asks how he can get his wife to reconsider, to accept that he's not a creep or pedophile-in-training. Short answer: he can't. SNAP's wife started off on the premise that he's guilty-Guilty-GUILTY and she won't change her verdict or increasingly irrational sentencing. The only good thing IMO is that his wife yells at him in public, so perhaps having some of his acquaintances around to document HER irrationality would help him so he doesn't get screwed in the divorce.

@61. Pretty boring comparison. Did you read thru @58?
If porn was about real people, not mainly male fantasy figures, it wouldn't concern me as much. And really, what's wrong with your imagination? You heard of imagination? It's a function of using your brain, you know, it's situated in your head - way way above your dick.

@61: and if you're a woman- way, way above your vulva.

Note to Pope Peabrain:
Nope. Nuh-huh. I don't believe the men-are-visual-creatures nonsense at all. Why? Well, remember who made up the rules of both male and female sexuality? The MALE medical profession. It was only a scant bit over a hundred years ago that women were being told BY MEN what their sexual response (and responsiveness) should be. Perhaps that was better than being told that women didn't enjoy sex at all and, if they did, then they were sluts (or, in the language of the day, women with loose morals). But, still restricting and wrong.

Yes, there's lots of stupid straight porn out there. But there are a few glimmers of sexual honesty. I've always liked Nina Hartley's instructional stuff (though OMG that lithp!), especially as she brings laughter into the bedroom. There's a lot of terrific gay stuff featuring young good-looking guys where there's a bit of a Q&A after the session when they're asked about what they really liked. Getting back to straightish porn, I watched something French recently where everybody was young and good-looking (and two women did something I associate more with gay male sex!).

As long as I have sight, there is NO reason for me to deprive myself of the ability to see fun and creative sex. And, just for the record, I am an equal-opportunity voyeuse!

The best thing about this comment thread is how people create conflict and argument out of NOTHING. They are magicians!

@59 I have to disagree, if only because I think cheating needs to involve another human being, not images on a screen.

The way I see it, SNAPs use of porn is really beside the fact. If this were really only about his wife objecting to him watching porn, I would kind of understand her point of view. I wouldn't agree, but I have talked to people who have their reasons for not only disliking porn but feeling betrayed if their spouses watch it. In those cases, to each their own.

But this isn't about porn. This is about control and abuse. If it hadn't been for SNAPs little slip-up, CIAP would have found something else to abuse him over. Screaming at him in public for looking at other women? Calling him a pedophile? Comparing him to her creepy cousin? Yeah, that's abuse. She isn't doing it because she's mad about the porn. She's doing it because she likes it and because, so far, she's gotten away with it. The porn slip-up has given her a perfect excuse to abuse and degrade her husband.

Personally, I think SNAP should do what we often suggest that women in abusive relationships do: Quietly go see a lawyer. Then, while she's at work or otherwise engaged, gather what is important to you and get out.

As #2 points out, it's quite possible something happened to SNAP's wife when she was young; I wouldn't be surprised if the friend's cousin tried to recruit her. However, that doesn't explain why she gets bent out of shape when her husband so much as looks at someone else. Just because her friend's cousin is a pedophile sleazeball doesn't mean all guys who enjoy porn with women of various ages (so long as they're all older than 21) are pedophiles.

So this woman needs counseling to get over her view that porn=cheating and to get over her control freak tendencies. And SNAP needs to get his ducks in a row and leave her.

I will admit that I don't like porn. So I don't watch it. But if my boyfriend watched it, I wouldn't mind, as long as it wasn't in my company. And if he let it slip that it was years ago, I'd probably shrug it off.

Dan's (and my) first and last advice, "DTMFA".

Dan proceeds to put additional arguments between the first and last advice. But that's what he gets paid to do.

DTMFA.

@63 I make my living as an artist, so I don't need lessons from reactionary puritans on imagination.
I bet you think GMO corn is evil too.

Marry a block of concrete, it will be warmer, more flexible and more reasonable. Anyone who equates watching porn with cheating, let alone pedophilia, is not sane. Get out now while you still can.

They are both pretty irrational. It was irrational of him to lie about his porn use, and she can't speak rationally about porn at all. I'm betting he's lost in some fantasy of who she is and who he is, and she is scared that he saw her in some underage vid her best friend's cousin uploaded. He's limerent or stupid and she's damaged or stupid. Why else attack his character over this, that's the same as ending the marriage even if it was crappy to lie.

I hope Dan is not saying that "no porn" or "no oral" are abusive prices of admission to set. I'm sure they work well in some happy relationships and always have. I agree these rules are unusual these days.

I think SNAP should hook a prepaid card to a makelovenotporn.tv account and tell her to change porn instead of abuse him about it and leave. Maybe she'll want to solve her problems, maybe not.

If he sees no harm in mainstream porn then he might be in denial of a porn problem, and this slip might have been freudian. Sasha Grey's recent restraining order is one example. Mainstream porn is about what you can pay women to do, about what gets a dick hard, not how to get a woman wet or have fun sex, and this doubles as sex ed these days.

Wow. So I'm guessing the discussion about opening your marriage up to the occasional lover-on-the-side is a ways off into the future then?

@70 I'm wondering if that story is even true. Because it sounds a heck of lot like the 'it happened to my father's, brother's, cousin's former roommate' stories I'd heard in middle school.

I don't have a problem with porn but it sure is interesting how many pseudo or outright sexist comments emerge on threads about the topic. Go figure.

@78 I'm not racist but....