I went through my boyfriend's things and found porn magazines and a VIP pass to the local strip bar. When I confronted him he told me that it is a normal thing, and expected, for men to view pornographic material, frequently, and that lots of men, single AND married, go to strip joints -- it's just a man thing. I can't believe that. I feel that it is degrading to the woman they are with. I don't think that makes me a prude. I don't know how anyone can continually view pornographic material and be content with just one partner -- who WILL become somewhat routine over time.

I don't think women who don't like porn are prudes, either, necessarily; the whole idea of freedom of expression is that each of us should be able to pursue our own particular brand of happiness - or avoid someone else's.

There are all kinds of things we do in everyday life that are suddenly unacceptable within other contexts. Relationships are agreements, and their context changes the nature of things. Anyone can, for example, drink as much as they want - even if it kills them - as long as they don't do anything illegal while they do it. No one really has a responsibility NOT to die of cirrhosis of the liver. However, if alcoholism has caused damage to your marriage and your wife has told you that she can no longer stay with you and watch you slowly kill yourself, and you've agreed not to so that she'll stay, then suddenly something that was nobody's business but yours becomes a responsibility to someone else. Any of us can sleep with anyone at any time - but if you've promised someone else that you'll only sleep with them, then doing it with someone else is a betrayal.

Consequently, if a man has promised his partner that he won't look at girlie mags any more because he knows it hurts her feelings, then he probably shouldn't do it. Sure, he should try to get to the bottom of why she feels that way and work to change her mind, or at least let her know that he feels constrained and uncomfortable with the promise he's made. Ultimately, though, he has to face the fact that if he breaks it, it's broken, regardless of why.

Now it's up to you to figure out whether or not the promise you've asked him to make is a practical one, and whether or not a fantasy life with some scenarios that don't directly involve you - and that do involve other people and outlandish situations - is acceptable.

You wonder how someone can view pornography and still remain faithful; It's my belief that you've answered your own question: I think fantasy and all of the things that inspire it are a large part of what makes it possible to stay with one person for a long time.

The first and simplest point to be made, a no-brainer really, is that the girls in the magazines and the clubs are no real threat to your relationship. He's never going to meet the Pet of the Month, and let me assure you that most strippers don't make a practice of going home with customers; the odds that one of the ones who does is going to end up with your man are astronomical. That's really a non-issue, no matter how it looks when he comes home from a night out with the boys with a smudge of glitter on his cheek, smelling not-so-faintly of beer and perfume.

Many women worry that looking at porn or paying a visit to the local den of iniquity means he's unsatisfied with them, or secretly wishes that they looked more like the fantasy women. It makes them feel jealous and insecure to think of magazine models and exotic dancers parading around in the altogether doing God Knows What just behind his eyes and out of their reach - maybe even while he's DOING God Knows What to THEM. The thing is, as those of us who work in the fantasy industry can tell you, OUR men involve other people in their fantasy lives just like everybody else. Like it or not, it's the OTHERness, not the US-ness, that they're after in their dreams. It's the nature of the beast; not pretty, I know, and more than a little hard for some to swallow, but better to deal in the facts: you can't fight City Hall. Keep in mind that what they do in the privacy and safety of their thoughts hasn't got anything at all to do with how they feel about their real lives with us.

Indulging and encouraging your partner's fantasies can enervate a relationship as fast as suppressing them can kill one. Variety is the spice of life, even (or perhaps especially) if it exists only in the realm of imagination. Be honest: are you as faithful to your partner in your thoughts as you seem to expect him to be to you? Is it never someone else's face you see, some other body, some other where or when? What's the difference, then, except that he's using visual aids?

Want to make sure that he hides his behavior and feels ashamed of something he won't stop no matter how much you hate it, or will stop and resent you for it? Nag him about it and make him feel bad. Monitor and spy and shame and pout and make him feel like a filthy, sneaky child, and see where you are in a couple of years, or more likely much sooner than that. See if you feel safe, cherished and content - or if, instead, you have the feeling all the time that there's a leak somewhere that you can't find or stop.

Pornography in all its incarnations is something of which a large number of men partake - enough, in fact, to argue that the behavior is normal in every sense of the word (if that word makes sense at all). If they don't actually use a form of media to embody and act out their fantasies they're still fantasizing, you can count on that. Trying to require that a man not indulge that urge is like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket.

For Private Dancer Monthly
July 2003