Q My boyfriend and I have been living together for a year. He knows I’m an insecure person when it comes to my body. I’m not overweight, I’ve been told my whole life how good-looking I am, and my boyfriend tells me he loves my body. We have an active and interesting sex life. Here’s my problem: I get upset when he looks at porn. I never had a problem with porn until my previous boyfriend (he preferred porn to sex). I’ve been uncomfortable about porn ever since. I wish I could get over this. My boyfriend knows I would love to share pornography together, but he just does it in private.
A The usual porn de la concorde—the only porn compromise that works—goes like this: he pretends not to look at porn, out of consideration for your feelings, and you pretend to believe him, out of consideration for his. And I would stick that advice on a pike and parade it under your window if it weren’t for that amazing little postscript: you’re turned on when you check out the porn your boyfriend’s been watching, and—this is a very important detail—you masturbate not so much to the porn itself but to the idea that this porn is getting your boyfriend off when you’re not around.
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Q I’ve been in a stable poly relationship for 20 years. A good friend of mine knows this but rejects poly as a lifestyle choice for himself. He’s in a “monogamous” relationship now. But he’s willing to cheat on his girlfriend—with me if I wanted, but I’m not keen. My question is this: Why would someone pick cheating when they know about open or poly relationships? I don’t understand. I don’t see the logic in it. —Honest Open Poly Eros
Q I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend for the last five years, and we moved in together this past year. Our sex life isn’t too active, and it’s an issue we’ve discussed numerous times. This has caused my self-esteem to plummet. And a certain aspect of our problem has made me very resentful. We’re very into D/s play and discovered our kinky interests early on. In fact, any time I bend him over and spank him or add a bit of bondage, our sex life picks right up again. I resent the fact that this is the only way I can get him interested. Is it possible that he’s only interested in kinky sex? Does it mean that good old-fashioned vanilla is out of the question?
