Dinner and a Show: The (Mostly) Happy Couples Who Watch Porn Together

If you’ve got the right relationship ingredients, watching porn with your partner can rule. Even science says so — those who watch together tend to have higher satisfaction with both their sex life and relationship overall. It’s also been a savior for many over the last two years, as many non-cohabitating couples were forced into celibacy thanks to government-mandated lockdowns (in the U.K., it was literally illegal to have sex with anyone outside of your house). 

But even though watching porn together can be hot, it can also be a logistical nightmare. How do you find the right porn? What do you do while watching it? Do you fuck? Masturbate? Talk about it and take notes to improve your future sex life? And before you even get to all that, you have to broach the topic with your partner. How do you even bring it up? 

Well, who better to learn about these intricacies and nuances from than the veteran couples who’ve already mastered it? Find a pen and get ready to take notes (and also my address, where you can send me thank you flowers).

Mia and Ezra

Mia, 22, and Ezra, 25 (not their real names), are from North Carolina and have been together for five years. Until recently, Mia had always perceived porn as a threat to their relationship. She sees herself as hypersexual, but her relationship to porn is imbued with shame, in part thanks to her upbringing in a strict Christian household, her past problems with body image and her experiences with sexual trauma. Because of this, her and Ezra cut porn out of their lives. Last year, however, after finally opening up to him about her complicated feelings, as well as her desires and fantasies, the pair watched porn together for the first time.

Mia: When I decided to broach the topic of watching porn with Ezra, I had become turned on at the thought of him being attracted to and/or having sex with other women. The very thing that I thought I was most afraid of became my go-to fantasy! Plus, I felt this would be a way to further explore my sexuality in general. And, surprisingly, we found that we’re into a lot of the same things — anything I watch alone is something I would also enjoy with my partner. We tend to watch a lot of amateur couples on your typical porn sites — it’s all pretty vanilla, aside from some light bondage or roughness. We have an identical taste in women, so we choose a lot of what we watch based on what the girl looks like and what positions they’re in. Plus, the camera angle is usually POV. He probably enjoys blow-job videos more than I do, and it’s safe to say that I have more of an interest in lesbian porn than he does.

We tend to use porn to spice up foreplay, or sometimes we just masturbate together. I like to give him blow jobs while he watches, and I really like it when he sucks on my nipples while looking at or thinking about the girls we see in the videos. Sometimes when I’m not feeling so sexy but I still want to get intimate with him, we just put a video on my phone and he watches it while fucking me.

Porn had a delightfully unexpected effect on our relationship. Before watching porn together I thought my boyfriend would see all these gorgeous women and instantly find me unattractive, but that wasn’t the case. If anything, our attraction toward each other has intensified greatly. I can see us getting kinkier with age, too.

Ezra: Sex and nudity is taboo in both of our families — even non-sexual nudity was difficult before, creating insecurities — but now, by exposing ourselves to it in this way, we’ve become more open-minded and accepting. There used to be a fear of sexual attraction to other people in our relationship, but now we enjoy a mutual sexual attraction to others that enhances our attraction to each other.

Watching porn together is exciting and stimulating, and feels like another form of foreplay for me. Being able to fantasize and enjoy porn without shame or guilt has not only made me more comfortable with sex and masturbation, but it’s helped me discover more ways to please myself and my partner, and express my sexuality freely. I now believe that there isn’t anything wrong with sexual fantasies, and it’s totally natural to be sexually attracted to other people. It all comes down to good communication, and understanding that sexual attraction doesn’t mean you want to leave your partner or cheat. My partner and I are madly in love, and nothing about our sexual preferences or fantasies changes that.

Michelle and David

After 15 years of marriage, Michelle, 46, and David, 44 (pseudonyms), from Australia, both wanted to try something new in their sex lives, but hadn’t found a way to tell each other, despite several suggestive conversations about it. So, a year ago, they decided to use a quiz called MojoUpgrade, which is designed to help couples communicate better about their intimate fantasies. After matching on a question about watching porn together, they started candidly talking about what they’re into.

David: I researched a lot, mostly looking for “female-friendly” porn. Through Google and the r/chickflixxx subreddit, I found a handful of websites, including Frolicme, Bellesa Plus and XConfessions, all of which I pay for and we watch on a monthly basis. We tend to watch while I perform oral on her or use a vibrator until she cums, and then she might go down on me for a while. Then the video usually stays on as we move to penetrative sex. Sometimes we talk about what’s happening, or the storyline — but we usually talk more if the video is bad.

Watching porn together has broadened our range of sex and sexual conversations, and now we can speak openly about trying new stuff. Being able to talk about what we’re seeing has been useful — for example, me cumming in her mouth was never a thing, but now it is.

Michelle: It’s been surprisingly good to watch porn together. I’ve definitely enjoyed it more than I expected to. I don’t feel like our sex life has changed that much, but I like the exciting novelty that occassional porn-watching brings.

Kayla and Seth 

Kayla and Seth, both pseudonymous 32-year-olds in California, have been together for 11 years. During that time, they realized they have wildly different tastes in porn and what turns them on. While Kayla veers kinky and queer, Seth is more into traditional, heterosexual vanilla fare. Nevertheless, after reading about how watching porn together improved other couples’ sex lives, they decided to give it a shot. As is the case with some couples, it, uh, didn’t go well. 

Kayla: Have you ever just been totally in love with someone but your sexual interests don’t match up? That pretty much describes Seth and I — I’m very into things like BDSM and kink, and he’s very much not. This has caused some tension in our sex life, as we’re both not willing to do certain things the other person is into. One night, however, we thought we’d meet each other halfway and watch some porn together. 

Immediately, I knew it was going to have to be something vanilla. You know, “hot girl gives blow job,” or something like that. But I wanted to see him turned on, and I was curious what would get him. So I told him he could pick — I was just aroused at the thought of him being excited to watch something. At the same time, he knows I’m pretty into more extreme stuff, so he picked something he thought I’d like: an orgy. It was a party scene, where a bunch of amateur hot people were fucking on couches and the floor. 

Now, I have nothing against orgies, but I wouldn’t have picked that video, nor do I get off to that type of porn. I’m more interested in a power exchange, and in an orgy, everyone’s kind of on the same power playing field. But he seemed intrigued by it, and so I watched, amused, while he got off. Nothing about it was hot to me, but it did feel kind of intimate. I liked that we were doing a sexy thing together, and I liked that he got into it, but really, it was more of a bonding experience than an arousing one. 

Since then, he’s caught me watching porn several times, and it’s always stuff he’s not into, so I don’t invite him to watch it with me. (He’s much sneakier — I’ve never walked in on him doing the same.) I’d try it again, but I really think this works best when you and your partner have the same tastes, or are just exploring what you’re into together. For me, I know what I’m into, and so does he, and they just don’t line up. So, we find passion elsewhere than through porn. 

Lucy and Paul

Lucy, 39, and Paul, 38 (not their real names), have been together for nearly 12 years, and live near Oxford in the U.K. As one of their 2022 New Year’s resolutions, the pair decided to spice things up in the bedroom. After spending the first couple of weeks exploring their sex life and trying new things, they also took the MojoUpgrade test to find out even more about what they both wanted. When they matched on their desire to watch porn together, they decided to give it a go. Paul has watched porn fairly consistently since his teens, but until last week, when they did it together for the first time, Lucy had never really watched it, even alone.

Paul: We had a few things pop up in the results of the MojoUpgrade test, but the one that excited me the most was wanting to watch porn together. When we discussed the results, Lucy said she’d watched it a couple of times in her late teens with her girlfriends, but that was it, so she wanted to see what was out there now. This really excited me, as it meant I could learn about what sort of things turned her on and what she’d like to watch.

We first watched some together last week. I was a little nervous, but Lucy seemed fine and quite excited. Someone in the Reddit thread I’d posted recommended Bellesa Plus, as it caters to more “female-friendly” porn. I thought that was the best start, so I bought a month’s subscription. We went to bed, set the mood with candles and wine, put the laptop on the bed and scrolled through the videos available. I held back telling Lucy what videos I’d like to watch, and let her make a shortlist of three that took her fancy. Then out of those, I said which one would be the hottest for me. We settled on a really sensual MFM, where the woman was massaged by two guys before taking part in a really hot threesome.

As we watched, I asked what she liked about it. She loved the attention the woman was getting, and she asked what I liked — the attention was exactly what I loved too. As we talked, we stroked each other’s bodies and began light foreplay as we got more and more aroused — she got really turned on when the guys began pleasuring the girl from both ends, which turned me on even more. We didn’t get through the whole thing before having sex ourselves, while the video played in the background. The best part was when we were in doggy and both watching the video — it almost felt like someone else was there with us in the room.

Since watching it, Lucy has said she wants to watch more, but wants to see what I get off on. So I’m going to make a playlist of five of my favorite videos and show them to her, explaining why I like each one and why it turns me on. It’s certainly enhanced our sex life, but I think that helped from focusing on the “female-friendly” stuff first.

Elijah and Henry

Elijah, mid-30s, and Henry, early-40s (also pseudonyms), started dating a few months before the pandemic took hold in March 2020. So when New York City went into lockdown, they decided to quarantine separately, assuming it would only be for a few weeks. But when weeks turned to months, the pair began to watch porn together remotely, in an attempt to stay connected while in isolation. They’ve since moved in with each other, and they still watch porn together.

Elijah: We did some remote dates — like watching movies and FaceTiming afterwards — but after a few weeks, and some awkward live video sexting, we decided to start watching porn together. At the time, I preferred live sex shows, so we would watch that and jerk off together while sexting. We then drifted into sharing our porn with each other (we each have a stash), and we still do it today, long after we merged our bubbles. I can’t remember who broached the conversation first, but I remember finding the idea pretty exciting. At the start of the pandemic, it really helped us keep our intimate bond strong at what was a weird and fragile time for our relationship. We’re also sex positive — we actually met at a group sex event and are in a non-monogamous relationship — so it felt pretty par for the course for us.

Now that we’re in person, we’ve moved into more classic porn. One really great resource for us has been the subreddit, r/GayPornWithPlot — we find it sexier to watch at least a tiny bit of story before we get going. Although we do have similar tastes, we sometimes differ in the types of guys we like — I tend to go for bearish, hairy dudes, and he’s much more into the wholesome geeky type. So oftentimes we switch off. Someone will pitch one and then we go with it. We’re usually pretty good about being equal.

While watching, we mostly masturbate together. For me, part of it is the fantasy of when guys watch porn together and then start jerking off, which itself feels a bit like a porn scenario. I find it pretty hot, and my partner does too. We often do some MST3K-style commentary on it because porn can be ridiculous sometimes, but as the porn goes on, that tends to fall away. Masturbating while watching actually works pretty well with the story-based porn we’ve been watching lately. Generally, we start out just kind of watching together, making commentary, and only just starting to touch ourselves. But as the action really gets going, we start going as well. Eventually, we kind of get to the point where we’re enjoying each other more than the porn itself.

We’re wired in similar ways, and I think for both of us, watching porn together hits a lot of the same buttons. In some ways, it feels a bit like inviting a third, but without some of the pandemic-related health concerns of that. I’ve also found that it’s changed my relationship with porn — before, I would often keep it to myself, but now when I find a good one, I get pretty excited that we get to enjoy it together.