do you consider beating off over porn and chatting with girls on site as cheating?

[lonelybird]

My husband is obsessed with porn lately, he even went further to those immerse sexual site with VR, it looks like real and you are in the same room with those girls. He chatted with girls on sex site, and didn't think it is a big deal, told me that one of the girls is "different"  because she does that for paying her college tuitions. Well, it sounds like he saying "she is special", and i am picturing him running away with this girl. probably less likely, he is not THAT attractive. Since i discovered his chatting, i cannot look into his eyes, and I don't want to be intimate with him, feel like yucky. He put away his VR and tried to engage some activities with me and children. But I still cannot trust him. Let's see how long he can stay away from the chatting and sex sites

Edited Thursday at 01:58 PM by lonelybird

[lonelybird]

well, he used VR last night again. We have 10 and 11 year old children together. I wonder should I prepare them with what's going on and let them know their father chatting with sex girls. Can anyone shine some light about this?

[Gebidozo]

I don’t consider porn or chatting with bots / AI / VR / whatever isn’t human etc. cheating.

Sexual chats with real women - yes, that I consider cheating.

[lonelybird]

Porn does have a negative effect on our sex life. I am always wondering if he picked up the lines from porns, and I don't want to be one of his hookers. 

He chatted with a real woman on a sex site, tried to make her laugh. In order to chat with her, he would rather sit in the car waiting for me and my children shopping, he would rather chat with her than spending time with me and our children. If he likes to chat with her,  then he will not have me. I probably should think about exit plan.

[Els]

I don't see what the point of asking this question is. In your other post you have explicitly stated that you both cannot stand each other, your bedroom has been dead for a "long time", there is no love left here, and in your eyes he's cheating.

What does it matter whether others think he is cheating or not? You need to leave. There is no point in staying at this stage. 

I wouldn't tell your children that he was cheating until they are older and able to understand. 

 

[basil67]

7 hours ago, lonelybird said:

well, he used VR last night again. We have 10 and 11 year old children together. I wonder should I prepare them with what's going on and let them know their father chatting with sex girls. Can anyone shine some light about this?

Absolutely not!  Do not divulge this level of information to your young children.   They should not even know that sex girls exist, let alone that their father is interacting with them. 

 

 

[MsJayne]

9 hours ago, lonelybird said:

I wonder should I prepare them with what's going on and let them know their father chatting with sex girls.

No! His behaviour is disrespectful to you, it's guaranteed to cause intimacy problems in most relationships, and I can see why you find it repulsive, but this is between you and him, do not involve the children. If he's spending what should be family time sleazing around the internet you've got good reason to assess whether you want to be in a marriage with someone who does that stuff. It would make me feel like I needed to bathe in Pine-O-Cleen, you'd be well within your rights to call it quits and leave him to his sordid fantasies. 

[Gebidozo]

OP, I don’t understand why you are discussing the exact details of his sleazy behavior and thinking of adding more negativity to this by involving your little kids, when the only sensible thing to do here would be to divorce him.

[ExpatInItaly]

12 hours ago, lonelybird said:

We have 10 and 11 year old children together. I wonder should I prepare them with what's going on and let them know their father chatting with sex girls.

In what world do you think it would be appropriate to do so? 

It's frightening that you would evern consider this. 

[LAspen]

Well, first of all, this question applies also to women who masturbate to porn and chat in chat rooms with men.
Now my answer.
I believe that cheating (infidelity towards a partner) is manifested if sexual acts online are performed personally with a specific real person including for money. 
If porn is impersonal (actors, unknown people, strangers, or AI), then I don't consider masturbating to them or chatting with impersonal characters to be betrayal. But at the same time, a person who is masturbating and having sexual chats with porn characters must do this in the strictest secrecy from their committed partner. And they must be prepared to take responsibility for their actions if they are caught. 
Clarifying my point of view.
We are all not angels, and not a single person on earth is free from sexual fantasies and temptations towards acquaintances or completely random people, even if this person is a monk/nun, spouse/partner who strictly adheres to their vows and promises. 
The main thing here is not to try to turn our fantasies into reality with a specific person for whom we feel lust, if we are already "occupied" and have obligations towards a partner.
Sexting with the fruit of our fantasies and other imaginary sexual acts with them, including masturbation with the idea of a sexual partner only in our head, is something that even the saints could not get rid of.

[Els]

On 7/25/2025 at 3:28 PM, LAspen said:

Sexting with the fruit of our fantasies and other imaginary sexual acts with them, including masturbation with the idea of a sexual partner only in our head, is something that even the saints could not get rid of.

You seriously don't see that there's a difference between masturbating to an imagination of someone else, and literally paying that person to do sexual acts on camera for you?

You appear to identify as a cishet man, so let me try to provide an example that might suit you. In one example, your wife is masturbating to thoughts of, say, Ryan Gosling doing unspeakable things to her. In the other example, your wife is paying Ryan Gosling to talk to her while naked on camera, and to do sexual acts specifically for her while on a VR app with her. (No shade on Ryan Gosling, I'm sure he wouldn't do that.)

Still don't see any difference?

[LAspen]

14 hours ago, Els said:

You seriously don't see that there's a difference between masturbating to an imagination of someone else, and literally paying that person to do sexual acts on camera for you?

You appear to identify as a cishet man, so let me try to provide an example that might suit you. In one example, your wife is masturbating to thoughts of, say, Ryan Gosling doing unspeakable things to her. In the other example, your wife is paying Ryan Gosling to talk to her while naked on camera, and to do sexual acts specifically for her while on a VR app with her. (No shade on Ryan Gosling, I'm sure he wouldn't do that.)

Still don't see any difference?

Paying a specific existing person for virtual sex, if that particular person does it for you personally and knows you, is prostitution, infidelity. 
But if you're only doing it in your imagination and the other person doesn't know anything about you and never will, it's part of our natural sexual essence that requires us to be non-monogamous/polyamorous in the interests of evolution and population development (like all other animals). But we, as civilized people, must hide this "shameful" part of our being from those who have been given vows and promises to be exclusive. That's exactly what I wanted to say in my comment. 
And the fact that each of us, including you, constantly "cheat" on our committed partner in our secret thoughts and desires in various forms (from simple romantic interest and imagining them naked to mentally replaying sex with them and even to masturbating to their images) cannot be denied by any honest person.

 

[Gebidozo]

1 hour ago, LAspen said:

it's part of our natural sexual essence that requires us to be non-monogamous/polyamorous in the interests of evolution and population development (like all other animals).

This is really incorrect. Sexual behavior in animals is extremely varied and includes everything from extreme promiscuity to lifelong monogamy. Don’t lump all animals together as though they were all one species. Also, neither monogamy nor polygamy have anything to do with evolution in the general sense, as different species evolve in very different ways.

 

1 hour ago, LAspen said:

And the fact that each of us, including you, constantly "cheat" on our committed partner in our secret thoughts and desires in various forms (from simple romantic interest and imagining them naked to mentally replaying sex with them and even to masturbating to their images) cannot be denied by any honest person.

At the risk of appearing dishonest to you, I declare that I have zero romantic interest in anyone but my current romantic partner, and I don’t mentally roleplay sex with anyone but her, not even occasionally, to say nothing of “constantly”.

I think it would be best if you spoke for yourself and didn’t make such radical generalizations about the rest of humanity.

[BaileyB]

On 7/24/2025 at 9:37 AM, lonelybird said:

I wonder should I prepare them with what's going on and let them know their father chatting with sex girls.

No. You don’t burden children with adult problems.

You file for divorce and tell your children that “mommy and daddy have decided that they don’t want to be married anymore…”

 

[BaileyB]

6 hours ago, LAspen said:

But if you're only doing it in your imagination and the other person doesn't know anything about you and never will, it's part of our natural sexual essence that requires us to be non-monogamous/polyamorous in the interests of evolution and population development (like all other animals). But we, as civilized people, must hide this "shameful" part of our being from those who have been given vows and promises to be exclusive. 

This is called fantasizing and it’s a normal and healthy thing to do. Many people do this - we all have celebrity crushes, it’s the reason why romance novels exist, people fantasize about others in various ways… one can be monogamous and still read romance novels and fantasize about celebrities. I think it’s a stretch to argue that this normal human behavior is “ part of our natural sexual essence that requires us to be non-monogamous/polyamorous in the interest of evolution.” Of course, some may be shamed and feel the need to hide their fantasies from their partner. But, with a loving and accepting partner, there is no need to hide this “shameful part of their being,” one could actually share their fantasies with their partner as part of an expression of their sexuality - within the context of their relationship. 

Of course, when one crosses the line and begins to communicate or establish a relationship with another person, spend marital assets on this extramarital relationship, and can’t stop communicating with this other person - that’s another problem entirely. And that’s what’s happening here…

[Els]

10 hours ago, LAspen said:

Paying a specific existing person for virtual sex, if that particular person does it for you personally and knows you, is prostitution, infidelity. 

Yes, and that appears to be what the OP's partner is doing...

Quote

But if you're only doing it in your imagination and the other person doesn't know anything about you and never will, it's part of our natural sexual essence that requires us to be non-monogamous/polyamorous in the interests of evolution and population development (like all other animals). 

Personally I have no issues with people using their imagination however they please.

The "all animals are non-monogamous" line is straight up wrong, though. If you actually read about evolution (from actual textbooks, not manosphere social media posts), you'd realize that there's a wide range of sexual behaviour in animals. It ranges from monogamy (90% of of birds, several types of mammals such as otters, beavers, etc) to various kinds of polygamy (polygyny, polyandry, and polygynandry), to promiscuity.  So no, "evolution and population development" don't necessarily require polyamory, not all animals are polyamorous, and neither are all humans.

There's nothing wrong with choosing poly IF you and your spouse have discussed this from the beginning and both people are on-board with it. It is most certainly not "part of our natural sexual essence", however.