‘My husband of 30 years is secretly viewing sex shows and using sex chat lines’

Dear Roe,

My husband of more than 30 years has started to view live sex shows and use sex chat lines online. I have also discovered he has taken intimate photos of himself and deleted them. I went looking when I came home one night and found his phone beside him as he had fallen asleep. It was still connected to the chat website. We still enjoy a healthy sex life (until now) and I’m upset because I view it as prostitution. I’m going to discuss it with him, but my question is, why does he need this and what am I for?

To begin, I’m going to be using the term “sex work” instead of your term “prostitution”. The term “prostitution” holds connotations of criminality, immorality and shame around (primarily female) sex worker’s worth and personhood that many, including myself, do not agree with. The terms “sex work” recognises the labour around various forms of sex work and acknowledges the choice, agency and professionalism of people who consensually choose to engage in the modern sex industry, which holds many complexities and varieties of work, including cam girls, phone sex operators, porn performers and more.

I’m also going to begin by asking why you felt compelled to and entitled to look through your husband’s phone. I’m not going to issue a blanket condemnation of snooping; people are human, sometimes people lie or act abusively, and if snooping is the only way of confirming reality it can sometimes be retroactively justified. But it is still a betrayal of someone’s privacy, and I wonder what it was that led you to look through your husband’s phone instead of asking him about whatever feelings of mistrust, suspicion or hurt you were experiencing?

‘My partner’s mother has a sharp tongue and she won’t stop commenting on my weight’

---

‘My crush is gay and will never love me back. How do I cope?’

---

‘My ex said she wanted to marry me – so how has she moved on so quickly?’

---

‘I’m an assault survivor and don’t want as much sex as my partner’

---

I raise this not to make your snooping the main issue, but to highlight that even before you knew about his online activities, there had been a breakdown in communication, honesty and trust between you. I wonder how that was playing out in your relationship before this moment of discovery?

Regarding the central issue here, regular readers of the column know that I believe that everyone deserves to have their individual sexuality respected even within a relationship. This means partners don’t get to police each other’s masturbation, porn use or fantasy life. If there are issues in a couple’s shared sex life, these issues may need to be addressed, but policing, limiting or infringing on someone’s individual sexual life is almost never the solution.

However, the realms of pornography and sex work are expanding rapidly and the increasing accessibility of things like online sex chats, OnlyFans, and interactive online experiences means that the lines between the two can become blurred. Given this evolving landscape, couples do need to have open and ongoing conversations about what they consider to be respectful and ethical behaviour within their relationship.

I consider masturbation and the consumption of “traditional” (non-interactive) pornography part of an individual’s sex life, and individuals have a right to privacy and autonomy – neither of which means silence. Couples can respect each other’s individual sexuality and still have conversations about masturbation and porn use. For example, couples can discuss boundaries around privacy and masturbation; what they consider to be ethical consumption of pornography; or if one or both of you is paying for pornography, ensuring that the amount works for your shared finances.

The increasing accessibility of things like online sex chats, OnlyFans, and interactive online experiences means that couples do need to have open and ongoing conversations about what they consider to be respectful and ethical behaviour within their relationship

However, when navigating any form of pornography or sex work that involves interacting with someone – such as speaking with or messaging; sharing photos, videos or voice messages; or engaging in other sexual services – I believe that the conversation stops being about the individual, and becomes about the couple and what both of you consider respectful and faithful. (The conversations can and should be ongoing, as boundaries may change over time.) Different people and couples will have different perspectives and boundaries around this, making explicit discussion important.

You ask why your husband needs this form of stimulation and what you are for. You will have to ask him these questions, but I would hazard a guess that he enjoys online sex shows for the reasons many people do: the purely sexual content that demands little emotional labour from him, the novelty, the fantasy and the ability to cater to his specific desires.

And I’m guessing he is with you for the reasons most people are with their spouses: care, love, companionship, a deep emotional connection, coupled sex, intimacy, a partnership, a family. The issue is that he has jeopardised the latter by not being honest about his desire for the former. This may be because he genuinely views these activities as simply a more personalised version of pornography and hasn’t considered it as an act of infidelity; or it may be because he knows you would view it as an act of infidelity. But either way, he has chosen not to openly and honestly discuss it with you, so that you could set boundaries together. His refusal to do so, is in the most generous reading, wilfully ignorant and negligent, and at worst a conscious act of infidelity.

There obviously needs to be a serious discussion around his engagement with sexual content, the lack of honesty and trust in your relationship, the boundaries you want to set in your relationship around fidelity and respect, and the repair that needs to be done if you want your relationship to survive this. He needs to acknowledge that he alone does not get to decide what is permissible when it comes to sexual interaction with another person, of any kind – couples decide together what they consider to be disrespectful or unfaithful behaviour, and his refusal to have these conversations with you has led to understandable feelings of hurt and betrayal. If you have completely different opinions on what counts as cheating in a relationship, then you can either come to a compromise or end the relationship.

A relationship is a collaboration between two people, and boundaries around fidelity and respect need to be mutually agreed upon

I will note that while I believe couples can successfully navigate the consumption of pornography and even engaging with various forms of sex work if they want to, it is important to acknowledge how cultural and gender norms can often put pressure on women to acquiesce to male partners’ engagement with sexual content and sex work in ways that men are rarely expected to when it comes to their female partners.

Overwhelmingly, the services of strippers, porn actors, on-camera or phoneline sexual performers, and sex workers have historically and culturally catered to men. Even when such services are geared towards women, gender and power dynamics mean that the tone and dynamic of such interactions can be vastly different. Women in relationships with men can thus often be asked to get comfortable with male partners’ engagement with sexual interactions that there are few gender-flipped equivalents to, and this imbalance is worthy of discussion. A couple’s sexual life doesn’t have to be a completely parallel quid pro quo, but imbalances in relationships can cause understandable resentment and it’s important to acknowledge and discuss how gendered and cultural frameworks encourage or perpetuate these imbalances, and instead strive to create dynamics that work for the individuals in a relationship.

A relationship is a collaboration between two people, and boundaries around fidelity and respect need to be mutually agreed upon. Your husband has not adhered to this basic idea, and you have both let honest communication and trust disintegrate. Open the discussion and strive to lead with honesty. Hopefully you can get to a new place of understanding, respect and trust. Good luck.