I (22M) had an argument with my gf (22F) about alternatives to pornography
For context and to clarify, your partner's feelings on what you get off to do matter. But for my specific example, it seems somewhat arbitrary? Just wanted to get some other people's opinions on the matter.
When we first started dating, she asked me to stop watching pornography for as long as we were dating. I agreed. On top of the very real ethical reasons for doing so and that my gf doesn't want me masturbating to other real life women, it's a very understandable request. We clarified that books and audio books were allowed. I then tried some free erotic novels. I just found it incredibly time consuming, I didn't particularly want to read several chapters of "story building" when all I really wanted to do was skip to the relevant chapter.
However, I then stumbled upon r/gonewildaudio. The way it works is someone writes a script for someone to follow, and then someone voice acts that script out. It was exactly what I was looking for: easy, free, and something different each time. I assumed it is effectively the same thing as listening to an erotic audiobook. The only difference is that there are some added sound effects. To be clear, it is nothing like just listening to the audio track of a porn video, it is very much all about the words in the script. But it's definitely a little weird, I won't deny that. There are also some really disturbing themes there if you look for them, which I wasn't listening to.
My gf and I recently discussed this, and I mentioned that this is what I had been using since our last discussion. She was quite upset by this, and asked me to not do it from now on because she doesn't like it. It turned into a small argument because I didn't think it was any different to listening to an audiobook. The deal breaking difference to her was the inclusion of sound effects, that brought it closer to porn than to erotic literature. That seemed an arbitrary difference to me, but that may be my biases clouding my judgement.
So, in conclusion, what is the best way to resolve this? Obviously the easy answer is to just accept it, after all, her feelings matter more than some technical equivalence. However, not all feelings are always justified, I wonder if she may be overstepping here? Or maybe I'm being unfair, and the added audio effects do make a difference, and I'm being unfair to her by asking her to just accept it? I would be interested to know people's thoughts on the matter, as I know I can sometimes get caught up on technical differences even to my own detriment.
Thanks!