A reader commented. “I can’t tell you how many married men visit prostitutes because of something kinky that his wife won’t do.” Don’t read what follows as justification for anything, it’s just the way things are with their natures.
This will make you scream, but taking on the kinky with prostitutes leaves respect intact for wife. Morally vacuous he may be, disrespectful and unfaithful he is, but domestic aftershocks may be absent and marital trembling unknown if the wife doesn’t know. Men don’t identify their wife’s faults by comparing them with whores; they visit prostitutes to keep from admitting or disclosing faults they find with the woman they live with. Truth be known, it’s a marriage-saving maneuver more than marital complaint.
Visiting prostitutes is far superior to viewing porn. Prostitutes release sexual energy and leave little behind except perhaps a man’s guilt—and men are naturally endowed with a spongy guilt-memory bank. Men don’t bond as women do with sex partners, and so men don’t emotionally connect with prostitutes. It’s physical cheating of course but not emotional infidelity. Thus, sex with prostitutes doesn’t disturb a man’s allegiance to wife. Whores aren’t marriage material to the male nature.
Porn releases no sexual energy, even though sated temporarily by masturbation. Views and scenes linger in a man’s imagination, make emotional connections, energize his curiosity for more and better, and divide his allegiance between what he has (wife) and wants to have (who knows what?). Porn is emotional infidelity.
After visiting a prostitute, the male’s mind may lose self-respect, and guilt may set in. But he can learn to live with it and the family can survive more easily than if husband’s respect for wife declines. Marriage is not about perfection; it’s all about tolerating the imperfections, surviving the put downs, and recovering from the negative influences. (OTOH, women can’t do extra-marital sex as men do and keep their marriage harmonized as before. Women who cheat bond too easily with sex partners, which encourages them to see and condemn previously undiscovered and tolerated faults in their husband.)
Husbands appreciate a high-class wife in the bedroom. It confirms a husband’s conviction of wife’s classiness outside the bedroom. Whorish behavior does not convey that. Whorish ‘entertainment’ shifts bedroom intimacy over to sex, which ignites husband’s adventurous imagination about more and elsewhere. He imagines what else she will do and comes to expect it. Her whorishness also generates some measure of disrespect for her that undermines his devotion. Consequently, if wives seek to be husband’s whore, they can expect to end up with a shortage of his respect, devotion, and love although it may not build to separation or end married life with him. (Only God and the Shadow know the part it plays in present-day divorces.)
OTOH, the absence of wife’s whorish behavior endorses husband’s leadership in bed. When he fulfills his responsibility under the guidance of her unique modesty, indirect influence, and feminine determination to build reliable compatibility, his success breeds habits that eventually satisfy her. Out of his successful habits, her sexual gratification strengthens his character, enlarges marital goals, fine tunes his personal responsibility, and encourages her living up to his expectations. All of which the female nature longs for, and so the promise of it enlarges her common sense and natural patience for shaping their future together. When a couple’s sex takes that high road, it restricts their urges to the simplest forms of sexual satisfaction. Out of that, mutual devotion harmonizes to produce domestic tranquility.
Why does porn make emotional connections in the man? Will they ever go away or is he emotionally divided forever?? Can the wife do anything to repair the emotional divide? Why do men seek porn over prostitute when both are available? I presume my husband chose the former because it was free, easy, and “fake” (plus no risk of cooties)… but of course I don’t really know. I just know what he told me when I found out. :s
Your Highness Anne,
Why does porn make emotional connections in the man? The magnet of new and exciting experiences intensifies his attention away from wife.
Will they ever go away or is he emotionally divided forever? IMHO, it depends on how successfully he conquers his addiction (Much like conquering addiction to alcohol and drugs, the attraction diminishes and fades according to willpower and success staying away from it. However, the pull probably continues.)
Can the wife do anything to repair the emotional divide? Yes, don’t let it show that she’s bothered by it. Remember, men don’t relate to emotional infidelity, so don’t make it an issue with him.
Why do men seek porn over prostitute when both are available? Pretty much as you describe it above plus this: Some men, especially those with low self-esteem or self-image, relate more comfortably and better with inanimate rather than animate objects. WADWMUFGAO, we all do what makes us feel good about ourselves.
Guy
Sir Guy, I am confused by two things:
1) If men “don’t relate to emotional infidelity,” then how is it that their emotional alligence to wife is damaged by porn?
2) It seems like such a large difference between how you recommend women handle physical infidelity (virtual virginity, withholding sex until husband renews vows publicly, etc.) vs. suggesting wife not let husband know his porn-viewing bothers her. Why such a great difference? I must be missing something. My personal inclination would be to react the same to both — the virtual virgin way. If not on principle, then at least because I would feel physically sickened. Could you elaborated, then, on why you suggest we handle porn so… nonchalantly (at least it feels to me like that is what you recommend)?
Your Highness Anne,
Re your 1): I could have been clearer with the term ‘relate’. Men do undergo emotional infidelity, but they don’t recognize or admit it cognitively. They turn from it as a female thing and disclaim that it applies to them. Therefore, they damage their allegiance to wife without admitting it even to themselves. They mistakenly and perhaps dishonestly claim that what enters their mind does no damage to their heart. The female nature knows better instinctively, but males must learn that fact of life cognitively. Even then, males are inclined to defend themselves by denying it; to them, keeping heart and mind separated is very plausible, manlike, no big deal.
Re your 2): You ask, “Could you elaborate, then, on why you suggest we handle porn so nonchalantly (at least it feels to me like that is what you recommend)?” Answer: To win for wife the advantage in subsequent interpersonal, domestic, and legal events.
Recovering from husband’s physical infidelity is quite different from escaping his emotional infidelity that comes with porn addiction. If she reacts the same to both offenses—one’s likely to be recoverable and one’s more likely to only be escapable—she will very likely lose in the latter instance. It may be tough to comprehend, so I’ll try to focus on clarity.
A man easily understands wifely explosions over his physical unfaithfulness but not emotional infidelity. He shrugs away the latter; he can give or take porn. It ain’t no big deal, and he’s not addicted. (Of course, it’s a rationalization designed to hide probable addiction.)
The female nature enables a wife to tolerate physical but not husband’s emotional infidelity. Emerson said, “The world turns on hope.” A woman can tolerate physical cheating, but it leaves her with hope for preserving marriage and future. What she can’t tolerate—e.g., porn and the threatening emotional unfaithfulness—deprives her of hope. No hope, no future with him.
If she tries to recover husband’s physical cheating with hope wobbly but not extinguished, it enables her to deal with him by weighing his promises against her hopes and dreams. It’s tough, but husband can convince wife that he didn’t bond with someone else. Even though she disbelieves him at first, she sees some hope and can slowly adjust her thinking toward keeping him around. And so, physical infidelity can be fought out on the domestic battlefield and, because her hope isn’t dead, wife perhaps can win credible promises from him to shape a new future. Under ideal circumstances, she can keep him if she desires. (In that case, for him to go along I presume that he remains tethered to wife more emotionally than to the other woman.)
However, if forced to recover with hope gone, as with porn and the consequent emotional infidelity, she needs a new mate. It’s her natural reaction. Her greatest natural fear is fear of abandonment, and emotional infidelity spawned by porn crystalizes that fear into reality. She’s now alone, because he can’t really love her if his time, eyes, and heart when away from her threaten to be filled by sexual images. Loss of his solitary love equates to mental if not physical abandonment, and so her hope vanishes.
In the case of apparent emotional infidelity caused by porn, she sees abandonment and loses hope. It makes her vulnerable. To regain her hope, she needs to see promise, which means she needs to outmaneuver husband during separation and divorce. As her ‘enemy’, it means that he can’t learn of conclusions behind her actions. She regains hope by not disclosing her thoughts about their future. When he can’t argue or ‘fight back’, he has little recourse but to turn inward on his guilt, conscience, and hope for his own future. Her apparent nonchalant attitude turns his thoughts inward.
If she isn’t nonchalant but aims at full disclosure of her emotional turmoil about porn, him, and them, he has responsive reasons and rationalizations to prove her wrong. If she has not spilled her guts, he has only his inner self to examine for ways to proceed that may include winning her back.
When he seeks answers inside himself, he will teach himself about emotional fidelity—hers—and its importance to him. If wife wins that war in his head, he will initiate actions designed to win her back. If he no longer is into her, he’ll maneuver to optimize the arrangements for his departure, whether temporary or permanent.
It boils down to this. She argues and negotiates over husband’s physical cheating and works out a future that pleases her at whatever the cost to him. In the case of porn addiction and emotional infidelity, she stealthily initiates actions to get him out of her life.
Displaced from her heart and mind as evil, her natural reaction to porn, she gives him no tips and he’s left on his own to find his way back into her heart. By her not explaining herself or criticizing him, she pushes him back to courtship days to make the most of himself without knowledge of her feelings or intentions. If, somewhere in that cognition process he decides to dump porn as an interest, he will go to great lengths to prove it. By that time, she’ll know how to judge his honesty, sincerity, and emotional-connection value for her future.
Guy
Wow, Sir Guy! I am not the type or temperament to loose hope easily, but your response certainly gave my hope-circuit a run for the money!! Nicely (I suppose?) it has been a year and-a-half since the porn came to light, and I have no reason to believe it has been repeated – I have attempted to apply all that I am learning here, devotion has increased, and he has become rather “addicted” to his job probably as a replacement for time spent/wasted, um, elsewhere. Of course, I cannot *know* what “really” happens when he is on this computer. (Sadly, porn is so nauseatingly available.) But I have regained hope due to doing everything within my power and seeing positive results reflected in our marriage, home, and family.
Things could be better, of course, and reading your reply made me do a double-take on our “progress” as I see it. But nothing for me to do at this point except improve onward and hope for the best, right?
Your Highness Anne,
Trust, trust, trust. Don’t even bother to verify. Act only on HARD evidence.
Live by suspicions and you will self-destruct yourself and marriage. Watch the DVD “He’s Just Not That Into You.” Watch how one wife self-destructs over her suspicions about cigarettes and husband smoking/lying. (I’m neither moralizing nor pardoning him. I suggest that her distrust kills all her interest in who and what she is to both herself and her husband.)
Guy
Sir Guy,
I’m so glad you added this to your comments because, ironically, I thought of this movie with the start of this series. The husband becomes sexually involved with a woman not his wife — who is quite seductive (a whore in the bedroom and out of the bedroom). In contrast is the wife’s character, who seems quite frigid and is obviously self-destructing over focus on his smoking. After wife discovers affair, she attempts to please him with what she imagines turns him on sexually, and tries to seduce him at the office. This was almost painful to watch. In your opinion, even though imaginary, would he eventually have lost interest in duty slut and returned to wife had wife maintained her self-interest? It seems the wife had no chance to compete once his mind was set on this other woman.
Your Highness That Horse is Dead,
As a man, I viewed the reverse of your last sentence. His mind was not set on the ‘other woman’ except as disturbed in mid-sex. He was set on escaping the situation without losing either one. Wife’s renewed interest could not be recognized much less appreciated by him. He was caught between rock and hard place with no escape exits. He’d be impotent in that situation and with no acceptable excuse to pass to wife. When he failed her, she took offense that he was essentially ditching her, and she fell back to the cig/smoke/lie distrust to assuage her guilt.
Had the wife not self-destructed over her suspicions, I think he would have returned to her. As it was and as the movie intended to show, he lost both women because he couldn’t decide, choose, and remain true to one.
Guy
I meant in the movie it seemed like he was emotionally involved with the affair, so it would seem like the wife had no chance to compete against the younger, more vivacious and exciting (in the bedroom) woman in general. I know women struggle with losing their husbands to the other woman. Obviously in the office scene, he was between a rock and a hard place and didn’t want to lose either in the moment!
Your Highness That Horse is Dead,
Here’s a man’s view again. The presence of both women panicked him. He feared all manner of outcomes and had no alternatives or options to relieve any of the pressures. Put simply, he couldn’t have gotten an erection under those pressures, anxieties, and fears but the wife took THAT personal. The worth of both women to him at that moment wasted away in front of his need to survive by escaping. Such feelings in a man far exceed the positive and affirming emotions of love, respect, attractiveness, horniness, and anything else you can name. His emotional panic out-throbbed anything else in his heart, and both women would suffer future disdain for having put him through it. The best way to forget the pain of it all? Drop them both and look for another woman.
Guy
I just wonder how prostitutes could be better than porn myself because with PROSTITUTES YOU ARE HAVING SEX WITH ANOTHER SOUL..while simply porn is just images. Having sex with another person being a marriage saver is just weird (i know you are talking about the nature of men and not christian) but still..
Your Highness mYstiQue,
Dealing with another soul isn’t as easy and natural as for women. Men are very different.
If you read the article closer, you’ll find sex with a prostitute is one-sided for the marriage. Wife doesn’t know, so husband’s ‘release’ doesn’t challenge their marital relationship.
You close with “but still….” Yes, it’s incomprehensible for women who’ve been taught that physical cheating is the same or worse than emotional infidelity. But, turn to the deepest part of your nature, inquire of your own value system, and see if it registers any easier for you.
The article posits that two things outrank orgasmic satisfaction in the nature of females. Is it not possible to believe that those same two things can outweigh physical infidelity, whether caused by porn or prostitute?
Guy
My husband and I have been married and together for 12 years. In those years our ages ranged from 20 to 35 and he has never cheated on me in either way. There are exceptions to what you say. I am a very respected in our marriage and I give him what he needs in the bedroom and am conservative outside of that. He has never looked elsewhere b/ c and I quote He has everything he wants and needs at home. There are men who don’t loose respect for there wife if the act whorish in the bedroom and there are men who don’t need porn or prostitutes to fill desires b/ c they truly have exactly what they want.
Your Highness Houser,
Welcome aboard. It’s a great day when another pretty woman joins us on this cruise to WhatWomenNeverHear.
Of course, there are exceptions as you describe and you’re blessed. As a newbie, you should know this. I describe the male and female nature that usually guides people until they find overriding reasons to do something else. For example, WADWMUFGAO, we all do what makes us feel good about ourselves, and many people have found that pleasing someone else is a great step toward WADWMUFGAO.
Guy
Sir Guy,
Are there early signs of porn addiction in dating? How easily do/can men of supposed character keep that hidden in relationship? My guess is it would seem a difficult thing to uncover in the context of virtual virginity, female indirectness, and modesty.
Your Highness That Horse is Dead,
I don’t have an answer for your first two questions.
For a discerning woman, I guess the opposite of your last-sentence guess. Look for interests or thoughts dropped about extreme things, especially violence and sexual activity. Does he shy away from stuff that offends or stretches a woman’s taste or sensibility? Or does he bring up such things almost habitually? What are his internet habits? Video game nut? I would expect that a strong bent toward violence would already have driven or in a relationship would drive him toward porn. Remember, it’s only a guess. Only a discerning woman could see red flags about a man’s tendencies or habits.
You cited virtual virginity, female indirectness, and modesty as difficult to help a lady spot porn red flags. I disagree exactly the opposite. I consider that those qualities load up a woman’s mind and heart best for uncovering red flags about porn. Her ambitions and interests are furtherest away from porn and therefore more easily sensitive to fear or uncertainties that arise in her mind or heart.
Good luck and let me know if you uncover some real-life red flags.
Guy
Sir Guy,
My thought process is if there is no physical contact or sexual talk, it would be difficult to see a tendancy toward forceful or aggressive sexual behaviors. My assumption is men with porn addictions are good at hiding these thoughts and behaviors. I guess you are saying the opposite, it will eventually leak out.
Your Highness That Horse is Dead,
Yes, your last sentence is correct. It will eventually leak out if she’s alert, looking for it, and strings out a lengthy courtship.
You say, “it would be difficult to see a tendancy toward forceful or aggressive sexual behaviors.” Perhaps, but what kind of movies does he prefer? Books? Mags? Heroes? How well does his taste match your tastes, his habits respect your feminine modesty, his behaviors not offend your woman’s sensibilities? Does he always want to talk about sex? Hide behind closed doors? Does he openly talk about himself, his background, his habits? Or, does he tend to retreat but not otherwise appear shy?
Guy
Mr. Guy,
Again you have opened a new article that has new information – raw knowledge not shared in national media. In a logic way the article depicting man behavior does make sense and also makes one wonder. To be specific as a female we associate sex with love therefore we make the mistake that our male partner would feel and act the same way. Since sex is not as important to men as a sign of devotion to his wife but important enough for him to seek it at any expense; why does sex not bond a man? If most of the marital issues lie in the actual act of sex ( infidelities) or prostitutes. What makes the male nature so strong to have sex and have no connection with the other person?
Your Highness Emma,
You say, “…as a female we associate sex with love therefore we make the mistake that our male partner would feel and act the same way.” Very true. It’s so counterintuitive to women that they can’t seem to forget it.
You ask, “why does sex not bond a man? … What makes the male nature so strong to have sex and have no connection with the other person?” It’s God’s design, Nature’s endowment, and hormonal energy. That is, he’s different from women. He’s primarily a hunter-conqueror, and marriage is the most prominent and permanent institution to turn his hunter-conqueror ways into those of a domesticated and labor-efficiency-izing producer, provider, protector, and problem solver.
Guy
The domestic aftershocks of incorporating prostitution into a marriage, can and often do include Herpes (there is no cure) or a slew of other STD possibilities. Not only is the unfaithful husband at risk. He puts his wife at risk, without her knowledge or consent. I hope that never happens to me.
Do you equate female receptiveness and enthusiasm in the bedroom for whorish behavior? I am one male who is turned off by females that have no passion for sex. Maybe I missed your definition of whore. But in my book, passion and a taste for variety of sex with one partner does not make a whore. A whore is one who cannot be monogamous or one who fails to commit.
Sir,
Welcome aboard. It’s a great day when a man joins us on this cruise to WhatWomenNeverHear.
Yes, you did miss my definition in Part II, #1802. “What is whorish behavior? Basically, it’s a wife abandoning her female nature in favor of duplicating the male nature. She may assertively and immodestly displace husband from his initiating role with the intent to please husband first, bypass her own needs, or ensure her own sexual longings are satisfied. Or, she may follow husband’s lead and participate in activity that offends her natural modesty or female sensibilities.”
You say, “I am one male who is turned off by females that have no passion for sex.” That means you expect whorish behavior by women. Men make better bed partners when they have passion for a woman rather than for sex. Passion for her that overrides his passion for sex makes men better lovers too.
Guy