Is Watching Porn a Form of Cheating? Jada Pinkett Smith and Her Family Chime in
On Red Table Talk's latest episode, "Does Porn Ruin Relationships?," Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, and Adrienne Banfield-Jones engage in a frank discussion on the effects of pornography.
The trio also invited a young married couple to the table whose marriage was challenged and tested by an addiction to porn.
"I had an unhealthy relationship to porn at one point in my life where I was trying to practice abstinence," Pinkett Smith said during the talk.
No topic is off limits for the women of Red Table Talk, and that includes sex, masturbation, and pornography. In a no-holds barred conversation on Monday, May 20, Jada Pinkett Smith, her daughter Willow Smith, and her mother Adrienne Banfield-Jones sat down to chat about pornography. What could've been an awkward situation between family members actually ended up being an honest, healthy, and shameless discussion about porn.
But the conversation didn't just take place at the red table. No, the trio kicked off the porn discussion backstage while they were getting their makeup done, with Pinkett Smith quoting a stat that 40 million people watch erotic material.
Let's just say Banfield-Jones (a.k.a. "Gammy") didn't really need her makeup artist to help her achieve a natural flush, because the subject matter at hand prompted enough blushing from the 65-year-old grandmother.
"I just want y'all to know this is a lot for me," Banfield-Jones said, adding, "This will not be my favorite show-let's just put that out there."
Pinkett Smith went on to describe how Willow was introduced to porn through Tumblr when she was 11.
"I can't believe kids are exposed to this on a daily basis," Pinkett Smith said of the erotic videos and photos posted on the social networking site. "I was profoundly disturbed."
"The thing that I will say, though, is that because I had you and daddy [Will Smith] to actually have, like, real conversations with, that stuff didn't really affect me, because I knew I had a connection with people that I could talk to about it and knew what the reality of it was," Smith said.
After talking about the generational differences when it comes to accessing erotica, from the "seedy" video stores from Pinkett Smith's childhood to the "porn in the pocket" the younger generation, like her daughter, is exposed to today online, the three ladies decided it was time to officially take their backstage chatter to the red table.
"I had an unhealthy relationship to porn at one point in my life where I was trying to practice abstinence," Pinkett Smith shared at the beginning of their discussion. "It was like filling an emptiness-at least you think it is, but it's actually not. Reading some of the effects of pornography, it really gives you false expectations as far as sexual interaction."
Even though Banfield-Jones admitted that the topic made her uncomfortable, she didn't hesitate to chime in, saying that watching porn felt "unnatural" to her.
"It's not like I look down on people who use it because it's been beneficial for me, too," Banfield-Jones explained. "I grew up in a household that just created a lot of shame, which is so interesting, because it wasn't like that for you," pointing to her daughter, Pinkett Smith.
Upon Banfield-Jones expressing her discomfort with the rough-housing that happens in certain erotic films, Pinkett Smith proceeded to reveal her preference for more "artistic" sexual acts. Which shouldn't come as a surprise considering Pinkett Smith filmed a nude sex scene for the 1994 coming-of-age film, Jason's Lyric.
"You have the porn that’s more sensual," Pinkett Smith said. "It’s very sensual, done in a very artistic way. You know, more about lovemaking instead of abuse and aggression."
She continued, "It is those two schools of thought. You have a lot of women who are, like, porn should be eradicated and that it's not good in any way. And then you have those women who feel the same way as you do. I've heard lots of women say that it has helped them break their inhibitions in regards to sex, which I feel like a lot of women have that to deal with. I don't think we know culturally what women like because women have not been allowed to explore in the same way as men."
Weaving in a few more stats from Psychology Today on how porn addicts are 300 percent more likely to cheat on their partners, the candid dialogue between the three women shifted to whether watching porn could be classified as cheating in relationships.
"There are a lot of porn addicts who lose sexual interest in their partners because the expectation is so different," said Pinkett Smith. "A lot of couples say that porn has a devastating effect on their relationship."
At that moment, Pinkett Smith invited porn addict Garrett Jonsson and his wife Arial, a former Utah Jazz dancer, to the red table to talk about the dangers pornography had on their six-year marriage.
"I think when I started to realize that I had a challenge with pornography was when we started dating, and then I didn't feel comfortable telling her," Jonsson admitted. "Through four years of marriage, I was able to hide it from her. It was easy to sneak around because it's this rectangle in my pocket, not a box of magazines. I tried to stop and couldn't."
Fortunately, however, once Jonsson opened up to his wife, they were able to work on his addiction, which both say is still a work in progress.
This isn't the first time Pinkett Smith and her family members have talked about sex and self-pleasure. In July 2018, Pinkett Smith revealed on Red Table Talk that her grandmother taught her about masturbation at the age of nine. By the time she turned 21, she was experienced with giving herself multiple orgasms.
Similar to their recent discussion on May 20, Pinkett Smith's reasoning for having a frank, albeit awkward, discussion about self-pleasure for millions to see on Facebook, including her own mother and daughter, was to erase the stigma that comes with female masturbation. And now she's doing it with pornography.
"People are already having problems with it [pornography], so if we stigmatize it, it makes it more shameful, and it makes it so that people don't want to talk about it and then don't heal," Smith said.
By bringing this taboo subject to the forefront, the hosts of Red Table Talk are helping more couples like the Jonssons take the first step, which is to simply talk about it.
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