Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Behind Closed Tabs: What Porn Reveals (and Doesn’t) in Relationships

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Porn isn’t always just a solo activity—it can carry a lot of weight in relationships. In this episode, we dive into the tricky, often unspoken space where porn and partnership intersect. What does it mean if your partner watches porn? When does it cross a boundary? And why does it feel so personal when it might not be?We talk about the emotional complexity behind discovering a partner’s porn use, the assumptions made about what it means, and how those assumptions are shaped by culture, shame, and our own sexual self-understanding. We talk about consent, communication, and why early, honest conversations about porn are important. Whether you’re struggling to bring it up, feeling judged for what you watch, or just trying to understand how porn fits into your relationship, this episode offers a thoughtful and nonjudgmental starting point.If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestionsIf you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hey everyone, welcome to today's episode of Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here to dive into the topics of sex and sexuality that you might be curious about, but don't always feel comfortable talking about. No judgment, just open, honest conversation. So zip down and let's get candid. Today, if any of you listened to our most recent episode on porn literacy, today we're going to dive into porn and relationships and kind of unzip some dynamics around that. But before we do, hey, Dr. Sue. Hey, Charlie. How's it going? It's going well that's good to hear you know the world's a dumpster fire but yeah but you know it's always

fun to watch a public celebrity breakup anyway I won't date this episode you kind of did but I just did uh well keeping us on track would you like to give our listeners a little bit about your background before we unzip yeah um and I want to be really mindful of the feedback I've been getting, and I know they've mentioned this once or twice, but we're a little ahead when we record of what's being released. And so one of the pieces of feedback I get is that I'm not taking the time to like talk about my credentials. I'm just like, oh, you know who I am. So if you do know who I am, you're getting a repeat. If you don't, I have a PhD in human sexuality education. I work primarily in academia because I like health insurance. And I actually do really enjoy working with college

students. It's a fascinating age for me. But I also do other things outside of that. So I have my own consulting firm and I work with outside agencies to create programming around education on a variety of topics. And I also answer your sex questions. So if you have something you want answered or addressed, you've got two options. Option one, and I'm sure we're going to say this at the end, is to submit it. And we'll give you the link in the description to submit it to the show and we'll talk about it but also if you just want the question answered um you can send it to me i am hey dr sue on social media so i also answer your questions not just my students i think that was good i think that was that was a little bit more i just i do i want more

comfortable with it i know i just for the people who are giving me feedback um mostly people who yell at me i want you to know i hear you and don't yell at me um but now we're going to move on to you, Charlie. So yeah, you, Charlie is our curious co host, he was always ready to talk about these topics and really explore the ins and outs of sex and all the things that we so rarely talk about in this country. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about you? Sure. I, I have a general curiosity about life and, and how we're all expected to do this life thing. And Dr. Sue and I've been friends for many, many years. And one of the things we discovered within minutes of meeting each other was that we could be pretty open and have conversations without judgment and

all of those things. So all the things that we strive to do in our conversations here with you Uh, and I, I just generally enjoy challenging societal expectations, um, taboos, kind of breaking those things down, helping people feel more comfortable in their skin with some of the things that they may be contemplating or not sure if they're weird or whatever, um, because they're thinking about certain things. I like to be a person that people can come and talk to and feel heard and nurtured almost sometimes. So that's how I wound up on this podcast with Dr. Sue.

And the rest is history. And the rest is in all our other episodes. So this one came about because you tried to get me to do this in the last episode. and i was like no no we need to do this yeah um and and we want to talk about well this is your job it's okay you want it you want to give it a shot no i okay you are welcome to veer into my lane some sometimes uh so as dr sue was just mentioning in our porn literacy episode i had asked a question, uh, kind of regarding, you know, what if you find you're on your partner's device and you find you happen upon their search history or something like auto populates. Um,

and so like, what do you do with that? And how do you manage that expectation or that reaction and, and confront what you maybe shouldn't have found um so dr sue quickly pointed out well maybe that's a that's probably another episode because if we had veered down that rabbit hole that episode would have been like three hours long and we we try not to do that mostly to ourselves yeah So we find ourselves here having an episode on porn discussion, unzipping porn and relationships and some of the things that I think many of us might encounter or feel or think or judge if we find that we are curious about consuming porn. or if we find that our partner has been enjoy maybe enjoys watching porn and you didn't know or something along those lines so here we are all right thanks for tuning in so where yeah where should we start with this discussion i think it's the idea of like what

happens if you find it accidentally because i don't think unless you're consuming porn together consuming porn just sounded so academic i'm sorry that's how we write it in the literature if you're watching porn reading it listening to it whatever it may be most most people don't do it with their partner it's it's it well i don't even want to say most let me let me take that back because i don't really have a lot of studies to talk about what the general population does like we have some isolated studies but it's never large populations um we know that there are a lot of times where you may watch porn with your partner but also may have your own porn viewing habits um but for a lot of couples they it's not something they share

and so it's this like you said i'm on their computer for whatever reason or scrolling through something and and i see it on their in their search history or auto populates that kind of reaction of like now what yeah so now what so i think the very first thing you have to do is you need to check yourself because your immediate reaction to that is going to be your baggage surrounding how you feel about porn how you feel about porn use in a relationship well how you feel about porn to begin with so if you don't think that porn is something that you need for you or you don't think that

people should watch it because you have your own ethical issues with it like you're gonna have a reaction already excuse me the other thing may be if you believe and unfortunately this belief is out there and my big thing about this and i know when we were doing show prep um that i don't should on people because it's always like a couple should do this i'm like i don't i don't should on anyone. The only thing we should be doing is making sure we have consent for the things that we do. That's it. Other than that, two couples can do things completely differently. Five individuals can do things completely differently. I don't care. Well, then I'm going to say you should. But you should check your own thoughts about this. So if you are one

of those people who believes that people who have a satisfying sex life don't need to watch porn or shouldn't need to watch porn that is your belief not everyone believes that and I don't think it's true I think there are people who are in very happy healthy sexual relationships who still like to watch porn on their own whether they're bored or for masturbatory reasons or whatever so I think the first thing you have to do is kind of check yourself like you're gonna have a gut reaction and if it's a negative one you know it could be a positive one like oh that looks fun like why have we never tried that but for most people in that situation and when they reach out to me with questions about this it's usually a this is horrible and so they're already coming

at it from this negative viewpoint so i think the important thing is check your own reaction and see where it's based and that's hard because if you think that watch oh sorry you're nodding do you No, I want you to finish your sentence. If you feel like that's cheating, and some people do, some people feel that watching porn without your partner is cheating. Like, there's a lot that's already coming up for you that may not be anywhere in their brain. So really kind of checking what you're thinking and why and that can be really hard in the moment, especially if you feel like it's a violation or you think it says something about them ethically. yeah i was gonna kind of hone in on that because you know check check yourself check your reaction can be such a broad thing and so i wanted to break it down a little bit um if you do come across porn uh a porn search history or what have you unexpectedly on your partner's device um i think the first thing is understanding that your initial reaction is probably a combination

of how you feel about porn and how you feel is it do you feel betrayed do you feel like they've been keeping secrets from you and then are you starting to go down that that path of if this is what they're keeping from me and what else are they keeping from me so there's gonna be kind of a it's not gonna happen linearly per se it's not gonna be like oh first it's my it's how I feel about porn and I'm going to process that. And then I'm going to feel it's going to be a combination of all these things to be mindful of. And I think that that is to your point, why it can be really difficult to unpack that, especially when many of us, when we have that kind of reaction to anything, any kind of anticipated confrontation or feeling of being

left out of someone who someone's inner workings um that you that you feel like you have a more intimate relationship our immediate reaction is to go right to them and confront it right there right that's not always the best time to do that because because there's a lot of static between between what you're doing and then you go to confront them and then they're gonna throw up they're static um so you might not get where you're hoping to if you um confront it right away so just know that checking yourself is going to be checking multiple layers at once yeah and and that's how and you're allowed that reaction you're 100 you are allowed that reaction but then you have to think about a lot of things and what's interesting so i've had i've had people talk to

me about this where they found it and they felt like it was wrong and they went to their partner and said why is this in your history and the very first thing the partner said was why the hell were you looking at my history like let's start with your violation of my privacy first and the person was so like i'm in the right here i'm gonna confront them about this thing they did and suddenly they're being asked why their behavior was inappropriate and because they hadn't taken that moment to kind of breathe and think through it and they were just like on the attack and suddenly it's like but wait a second what the hell were you doing right like like they were like it was just it was this whole explosion of things when really it was just about a miscommunication

um and an assumption of things but but there's also that like if you're looking at your partner's history like why are you looking at your part are you are you hoping to find something um do they know you're looking at their history how would you feel if they looked at yours so that and I've had that happen where people like oh my my partner had porn I'm like how'd you find it well I was searching through their search history well why right well because I was pretty sure they were doing something wrong I'm like oh and then you found something imagine that yeah and not to say that if you find it it doesn't feel like a violation especially if you feel like it's cheating And not to say that any of your feelings are not legitimate, but also if they're grounded and you are doing something that violated their privacy, you have to take ownership of that, too.

But I feel like that's a whole other, like, we could have this conversation about technology and, like, sharing and boundaries. Yeah, because, I mean, I'm old enough and you're not far behind me. I don't know if you remember but when like when couples would get an email they would get an email address for the two of them or they would get a cell phone like for a thousand years my parents shared a cell phone um so when like this tech stuff really started there were no balance I mean they may have had their own private shit that no one knew about but essentially there was like this openness and now it's like a big thing about oh my partner got into my phone or my partner check my site you know this whole different thing about boundaries

especially around technology right now so yeah maybe we put that off for a separate episode yeah tech and boundaries in relationships um and privacy because that's part of this too like if i feel like i'm about to be like a very woody woodpecker like had woody gone straight to the police none of this would have happened and for those of you not old enough to get this reference google it um but it's kind of like had the couple talked about this beforehand none of this would have happened which is also a little it's a little pie in the sky it is a little that's exactly what i was thinking get the hell out of my brain stop that i know um but but i do think that the problem with a lot of this is that there aren't and the same goes for like what

constitutes cheating which we we've done an episode on couples don't usually talk about this until after a boundary is violated so like if i've been using porn all my life and i don't never had a problem with it and we've never had a conversation about it and i use it for my own masturbation when you're not around i don't see anything wrong with that behavior and now you're suddenly in my face yelling at me about a violation and cheating and like and i'm being put on the defensive for doing nothing that i thought was wrong so right yeah it would be helpful of couples And if you are, I feel like we may start fights with couples where one person listens to this and then like turns it off and calls their partner is like, how do you feel about? Yeah.

But I do think it'd be it'd be really important for couples to have a conversation about how they both view pornography, not view pornography, like how they view it. Yeah. But like, how do you feel about it? And where's the boundary? Like if I'm if I'm on Pornhub or Xtube or a thousand other sites that are out there, is is that a violation? What if I'm listening to like a spicy novel about dragons? Because this whole genre right now, like if you've read or listened to it. You know, some people may view that as pornographic.

So like, is that OK or no? because there's a storyline is if I get onto a live camming site and I'm interacting with someone and telling them to do certain behaviors, has that crossed a line? And that can be hard because you don't have me in this conversation being like, okay, here's 10 scenarios. Let's walk through them. You know, it's, it's a conversation with partners that you may not even know how to have it because you didn't know these were all options. Some of you were like taking notes. I, I should try this um but it it can be really difficult to try to feel like you're defending a behavior you never thought was wrong in the first place and it can be hard for a couple to come back from that

when someone feels like they were being attacked that their privacy was violated and they were being attacked um when they didn't feel like they'd done anything so i'm not saying don't have that conversation if you found something that makes you uncomfortable you should have that conversation just don't assume you know where it's going and really think about it yeah or have the conversation with porn early well that's a perfect segue because i wrote down when when would be ideal you start dating somebody and you know i think in all of our episodes we um we do we do assume good intent good natured people with this um but i mean it's not really a first date conversation because then why not or that's because

it could imply more of a willingness for something that maybe the person asking the question just to, I mean, that could be some of the trepidation. That could just be some of the trepidation. If I'm someone who doesn't like porn, but I'm asking about it, especially if I'm, I find if I'm on a date with a male person, with a man, and I bring it up, I ask the question and i i say you know do you do you watch porn there could be a concern internally for me that he's going to interpret that as oh hell yeah she's into it she's into anything i can do anything with her right so there's kind of that i was just just asking yeah i mean it's it's it's the great question though like why not why not on a first date well for I think many

women who go on dates with men there's a lot of calculus going on inside for gauging safety and all of those things so um to me there could be that that concern that if I if I'm the one to bring this up what does that what is he going to think that means about me right and his access to me right but so what are what are some ideas i mean first date might be ideal i know we've joked about this before like if you feel like you have chemistry with a person i feel like the first date should just be like a meet in person exchange documents at like a coffee house go separate sit in separate corners and like rifle through the paperwork and what that paperwork is is up to you like proof of kids uh proof of you know divorce um when i bring

this up my students they're always like they're transcripts i'm like okay but after a certain point that doesn't matter to humans yeah that's not central to your yeah like i don't know if bank accounts are important to you sti testing history there should just like be like an exchange of documents that you could rifle through and maybe your like history your search history is one of them but nobody ever does that in real life so or at least I don't think anyone's doing that in real life so I do think that doing it on a first date can be difficult I do think it's better to do it as soon as you feel like this is turning into a relationship and for some people that is date two and for some people that's date 20 so I feel like it's one of those things that

as you're thinking that we're becoming exclusive if that is a thing for you maybe they're not maybe they're just on your you know maybe they're just a member of your roster and so then it's a different feeling um but i think that when it when it feels like this is becoming exclusive and you may be bothered by behaviors like feeling like you're being cheated on because if it's just you know friends with benefits or open relationship or you know your normal wednesday night you may not give a shit what they're doing outside of that but as soon as you feel like you're you're putting time into this I feel like this goes up there with the what is cheating what are your expectations how many other people are you sleeping with or seeing like I feel like those are all

around the same time maybe not at one dinner yeah yeah you don't have to go through this checklist of ideal disclosures and maybe not with your phone on spotlight and like holding it over their heads I feel like they're being questioned maybe not Instagram live that would be fantastic but I think that I think earlier because I think the problem is if it's gonna bother you if and when you find out about it the longer you don't have that conversation the more time there is for something to go wrong so if you're having an open upfront conversation like hey porn is my thing i watch a lot of it you know this is where i am or hey i don't like porn and i i've never understood why couples who are happy use it like where are you in that i think it's easier to

have those conversations up front and it's setting expectations for you because if you're like oh yeah porn all the way like every minute i don't see you that's what i'm watching and your partner's like oh i have a problem with that you have to really decide if this can move forward now because it either means lying to your partner or curtailing a behavior you really enjoy so i do think earlier is better but maybe not in the first second or third dates yeah i think certainly the the moment you feel more and more emotionally invested and and like you said what would feel like um a violation of your expectations yeah um so i think you you were talking about you know i don't know i gave an example of i don't understand why couples who

are happy may watch porn um can we talk a little bit about the it's the ideas of why couples or individuals may enjoy it like are you going to it to learn something yeah and and this is i've run into some people who have some very very deep-rooted thoughts about porn as you can imagine and um i had one student who was like everyone who works in porn is going to hell i'm like whoa okay well first of all not everyone believes in hell second of all it's like are you including the you know the lighting guy like are you including the person who's paying like writing

pay stubs like what like and she was just like everybody and it's just this all-encompassing like the whole thing was evil to her and she couldn't understand that there may be good reasons quote-unquote good reasons that was a very judgy word but um but there may be acceptable reasons why people are watching porn and one of them is that they're it's a great way of getting new ideas and i know one of the questions we've gotten more and more and inside conversations we've had in the real world is people like oh i'm so bored in my relationship well how are you if you don't want to open it up and include other people which may or may not be your thing how else are you going to figure out like what your other options are except by

like watching what's possible maybe you want to watch you know maybe you've always wanted to try i don't know role playing and so you watch some porn about how to do it or if you're engaging in a behavior where pain is involved um i would highly suggest you watch a house you video so you're not doing permanent damage so it can be a great way of learning things and also just like I didn't know that position was physically possible outside of like that book um so I think it could be a great way of learning new things and seeing new things and and watching different types of porn you could be like I didn't realize I was turned on by someone using I'm trying to pick something out of the air and I got nothing right now you got anything

I don't okay um oh actually that's a great segue to something else though hold on um you may not realize that you got turned on by a certain thing whether that thing was a behavior or a costume or maybe you've never had a partner talk dirty to you during sex and you're watching porn and they're doing it and you're like oh that's really yeah try that um so i think there can be a lot of learning that can happen not that porn is always realistic we have a whole episode about that we do we do um but it can be a great way to get ideas there was this other notion you and i talked about as we were prepping for this episode of you know are you watching it for catharsis or are you watching it for imitation or and i thought that was an interesting um

an interesting way to sum that up we uh will you talk a little bit more about that yeah and i i talk about this a lot in my classes when I talk about the whether or not there's a link between watching porn and being sexually violent because we study that because we find that that's important or we have studied that in the past and we haven't always found what we expected but there's this idea that people are watching it to imitate it or they're watching it to kind of get their rocks off mentally which is would be the catharsis idea so I'm going to stay away from the violence because we it doesn't seem to be porn that makes people sexually violent it's actually violent films themselves and being in a violent community not porn so i don't want to

further that idea um but maybe you've always had oh i gotta like i don't know why my brain's not grabbing things from the air just grabbing idea maybe you've always wanted to see what it was like to engage in a real power situation in sex but you know you could never do it because it doesn't feel comfortable but so you watch that play out in porn and you're like okay like that was it that's all I needed like that was amazing to watch but I don't ever ever ever want to do it yeah um and then there's the imitation of like oh that was really kind of cool I want to talk to my partner about this and so there's different reasons why people watch porn sometimes it is to live out a fantasy that they're never ever going to ask someone else to do or they don't

really want to try they just love the idea of it and then there's this idea of like yeah let's let's try that let's give this a go and so the imitation part i think is self-explanatory but the catharsis is this idea that you're living out this fantasy without having to do it i'm so glad you mentioned that, um, you know, the, the, Ooh, I love the idea of that. And now that I've watched it, I'm good. Or, um, I love the idea of it and I'm feeling a type of way that I may want to learn how to engage in with sex play that way. Um, I think to some of what, if you happen upon a partner's porn history or you discover that they do watch porn, I think part of that internal reaction is maybe a fear of, oh, are they watching this

because I'm not giving that to them or they have this secret desire that they know I'll never engage in or maybe they have this kind of disposition that is scares me that or worries me that it's because it's something that I don't think is okay normal whatever whatever word you want to use there or um or the people they're watching have a build that I don't they don't look like me yeah yeah so i i wonder how how can how can you and i dr sue help our listeners with and not just partners discovering their partners porn but yourself if you're interested like i if if you were to enjoy watching a certain type of porn category are it does that are you worried about it if if you're worried about it that that's what intrigues

you um i suppose what what does the type of porn you're into say about you possibly nothing possibly everything um and i bring up the the reason i interrupted you before to bring up the idea that it was a certain body type um because now we're getting some pretty directed questions i've had from folks in community settings i had i had one woman who said that she found a lot of gay porn on her i don't remember if they were married or not i feel like they were married so i'm just gonna say husband but they were committed partnership i just don't remember if they were married um she'd found a lot of gay porn on her partner's computer and she was afraid that he was gay and didn't know how to tell her and i'm not having that conversation with him

because he didn't come talk to me and i'm not their therapist you know she grabbed me after a She grabbed me politely after a community event, asked me the question. And I mean, there's only so much I can do. And, you know, for the five minutes, I'm going to have a conversation with you not knowing your whole background. Sometimes people do get turned on by watching two people of the same gender together. And sometimes they're curious about what that would look like and what that might feel like. they're not necessarily attracted to so in the situation it may not be that the guy was attracted to other men but there was something in that maybe it was the taboo nature of it maybe it was because he there's a different power situation than there is between men and women maybe they were hitting positions that he'd never even thought of before it doesn't mean that he's attracted to someone who's male but it also could it could be that he has secretly always been attracted to men and didn't know how to express it or i mean let's be honest this isn't the safest country in the world

to come out as gay right especially with things happening yeah um so it could be and the only one who's going to be able to answer that is the person who's watching the porn um i had a woman tell me that she loves watching female on female porn she just loves it she has never once been attracted to the women she has never once wanted to be with a woman for her it was really not about the women it was it was really the power it was it was the different power dynamic it was the different focus than just you know that money shot when you have a man having sex with a woman on camera um so it was more the feel and the focus like that it was about like watching these women explore their pleasure but in for her she's like but i was always like ah like i want my boyfriend

to do that thing that i'm watching them do not like that chick was really hot and i want to be with her so only you only you can prevent forest fires only you sorry only only the person viewing the porn can know why they're viewing the porn it could be that like the the situation with that woman who found the gay porn it could be that her boyfriend has always been or sorry partner husband whatever i said i was going to call it that the partner was into men but didn't feel safe coming out or didn't want to express that side of himself or didn't understand that he could also be attracted to women that he maybe he was bi and not gay and not straight like but there's no way she was going to know that and even if she had a conversation with him

he may not be ready to really understand what it is that turned him on about what he was watching yeah and that's that's part of the frustration when you find that like we're sitting here like hey take you know you found porn on your partner's computer okay like take a minute think about your baggage think about your most people don't do most people don't ever think about why they do what they do they just keep going back to the things that feel good for them so if someone discovered power dynamic porn and they're like what is this this is hot and not like oh I wonder if this is what I'm into you know most people aren't having that moment they're just like this is what I'm going to get off to right now and that's all that matters so I want you to think

about the fact that one if it's someone else's behavior you may not ever understand why they're doing what they're doing and even if you try to have a conversation with them in a very non-judgmental non-accusatory way they still may not have put the time and effort into thinking about it the reason did you want to jump in before i went to that last one okay no the reason i brought up the one about the physical features is that that did happen to a student who was talking to me that her fiance that i know they were definitely engaged her fiance had been looking at porn that solely focused on women that looked nothing like her and so she was afraid that either she wasn't meeting his needs or that the women look like

his exes and i'm like again you have no idea until you have a conversation with him and he may not have an idea he may just be like oh this is what i've been watching since high school so this is just right this is what i know get me off quickly and i like it and i don't have to go searching because I don't want to go searching and you know pop-up ads and like all this crap and so it's really easy to assume intent but we have to realize that not only do you not know someone else's intent but they might not even realize why they're watching what they're watching sometimes they do sometimes yeah I've always been interested in this and I just I knew you weren't going to be so I didn't even mention it and I just like to watch it every once in a while yeah I would I

would yes and that and let me know what you think about this but i would say that um someone's porn preferences often have very little to do with you yes yes it has very little to or nothing to do with you it's just as you've been saying it's something that they they know will get them there that intrigues them for what they they want to accomplish if they you know want to rub one out real quick they might just go to a quick snippet it really has very little to nothing to do with the partner very often unless it's something where they're like oh like the idea of me trying this with my partner is super hot and I want to do that and then it it probably is like but this idea of we may want to like I might want to do this with you at some point but you're right I

mean most of the time it's just about them and what's going to get them there really quickly but even in that scenario the motivation to watch that particular type of porn likely had very little to do with the partner and then they saw it and then they're like oh this would be fun to do with my partner yeah so and then try not to center yourself in someone's porn consumption yeah unless they say i think about you when i do this right and then unless they're like i picks people who look exactly like you or like i have your face like i put your face on the screen um i think that's a really good idea and something a really good way of summing it up is not to center yourself in other people's habits and not to assume that you are the cause of them doing something like

just because they're watching porn doesn't mean they're not happy with you they may have a higher sex drive than you and they may want to get off way more often than you and they either don't want to keep asking you because they feel like they keep saying no right or you may not be around like maybe you're at work or out with your friends and they don't really want to wait till you get home but they're happy to do it with you with you get home too like yeah it could just be one of the desire discrepancy kind of things and so yeah i think it's a great way maybe that needs to be the title somehow as don't center yourself in other people's porn habits what i watch has nothing to do with you but it also may have everything to do with it so yes right right yeah it's always

our answer is always it depends yeah because if it if you if your partner said hey i really want to engage in light bondage or heavy bondage and you're like nope that's a boundary for me then yeah they they may be watching that on the side because they are still really fascinated by it and it gets them off and they know you're not going to do it and they're not going to ask you to do something you've said no to so in that case it is a reaction to you but it's still about them it's still about getting them off right exactly yeah they're just not trying to come at you every week and be like so what about this week like they took how about now yeah they took your no no how about now okay no no um but yeah i mean i think people get frustrated you know we we talk

about consent so often and then you say no and they respect your no and then find a way to fuel that need for them and it's like well what about me and they're like but you said no but you said no yeah and i'm not gonna be that person who's constantly trying to change your mind so yeah i think it's a good i think it's a great way of saying good job thank you job charlie this happens every once in a while um but i do i think that's one of the big things to keep in mind is that it probably has nothing to do with you and that it it doesn't i think we've alluded to it but i i want to say it explicitly um someone in a relationship watching porn does not always equal that the relationship is in trouble or that they're checking out. Yeah. Sometimes people want to

get off on their own because they can focus on themselves. Like if I'm with a partner and we haven't talked about it, like, Hey partner, this time is going to be all about me. They may be like, why is this all? Like, what about me? There's two of us here. Hello. Um, but when you masturbate, you get to, it gets to be all about you. And so, yeah, you're going to pick something that's going to turn you on you're going to pick something that you want and it doesn't mean that you're not happy in the relationship it just means at this moment you're either you just want to get off for 18 000 reasons but you just want to focus on what feels good for you it doesn't mean you're checking in with a relationship at all and i do think that some people assume that and that may

be true for the for people i mean there may be people who are like my my my master my sex life with myself is better than my sex life with my partner but in that situation that's kind of on them to not come to you and be like hey let's try something new i'm not happy although we know that those conversations are hard to have in the real world yes absolutely you have any other thoughts sure but not necessarily on this topic no i think it's just i think it's re i think it's worth reiterating like if you if you have a problem with porn and you find that your partner's using it like understandable that you're going to have a wide array of reactions everything from like what the hell you're a sinner what the hell's wrong with us why aren't you happy

to hey that sounds really good let's try it like I understand there's a wide range of reactions but you really you are entitled to that reaction but you are not entitled to like shove that reaction in your partner's face without taking some time to think about what are you thinking and why so just it's really easy to try to confront someone and be like I found this explain it you you got to take a second to realize where you're coming from before you have that conversation and don't assume it's the end of the world and don't it may not be so yeah that's it yeah i think i think that's all all sage advice sage words all those things that you do so well dr sue um well everyone i want to thank you for joining

us on this episode of unzipping taboos. We hope that today's conversation sparked some new thoughts. We'll maybe open up some, some conversations worth having. And remember that your curiosity is the key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex and relationships. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who might need to hear this, leave a comment on this or any other episode. If you had some thoughts as you were listening and you're like, Hey, consider this too. And that leads me to, if you have a question or a topic you want us to dive into, please reach out to us via the link in the episode description. And we want to give a very special shout out to Ali O'Brien for our

incredible theme music. Thank you so much, Ali. And until next time, everyone keep the conversation going, keep unzipping those taboos and take care. Thank you for watching.