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Hi! I'm Petra Boynton.
I'm a sex researcher with over 10 years experience. My PhD is on porn (truly!), assessing the effects of sex in the media. I train health professionals to talk about sex, and advise a number of organisations like the Family Planning Association, and BBC World Service on sex coverage. I've a regular telephone sex phone in on the BBC, and write several columns on sex and relationships. |
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| What does it mean when your boyfriend has a dirty magazine?
At first i didn’t care I thought all boys are dirty minded, that’s just what there like… i have a few issues with my body but he tells me he likes it the way it is and nothing wrong with it, so I was feeling more confident. but when i saw them recently I started to think he’s lying about what he said coz why would he feel he needs to look at pictures of porn stars with perfect bodies if he liked mine so much? I feel like he prefers them to me.
It's just totally knocked my confidence down =( =(
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| Guys like dirty magazines because they get off on looking at the pictures in them. They may use them to masturbate to (looking at the magazine while they masturbate, or thinking about it later when they masturbate). Some guys also use porn magazines to give them ideas about how sex should be, how women’s bodies look, and what they should be doing in bed. That doesn’t mean to say porn magazines actually give them all that much useful information, but this is often where lads get a lot of ideas from.
When I’ve spoken to girls about porn magazines a lot of them feel as you do, worried that you are somehow inferior to the girls in porn. When I’ve spoken to lads about it they’ve said they just like porn when they’re feeling horny. They are often very surprised that girls might feel threatened by magazines.
Nowadays we live in a climate where we’re all supposed to be fine about porn. There’s nothing wrong with images that turn us on, and there’s nothing wrong with looking at sexy pictures or films to get excited. You can do this alone or share with a partner. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to express an opinion about porn, or to say you dislike certain images or ideas.
My question to you would be ‘how did you know he looked at porn?’ Did he suggest you look at it together, did you discover it by accident, or did he just have the magazines in his room? It may be he showed you the magazines because he thought it would turn you on. If it didn’t then you have every right to tell him it’s not something that works for you so you don’t have to look at it again. It’s most likely because he sees the magazines as something to get off on he doesn’t make the connection you could be upset. He’s looking at something for a short period of time because it turns him on, he isn’t using it as a study to compare other women’s bodies to yours. He’s not really thinking about very much at all except having an orgasm.
If, however, he showed you porn in a way that deliberately did compare you – for example if he mentioned how you don’t look like the women in porn, or if he asked you to change yourself to be more like them (for example to shave your pubic hair) then this is different behaviour and is something you are right to be worried about. Using porn as a means to put women down, or to try and get your partner to look like or act like (when they don’t want to) is unacceptable.
I would suggest two things. Firstly, ask him why porn is something he’s discussing with you. Make it clear it’s not turning you on and it’s not something you want to share. Secondly, tell him that you don’t feel confident and that the magazines make you feel bad. Tell him how you want to feel reassured. That may again involve him keeping his magazines private and not showing you them. You can also work on your own confidence separately so you feel better about your own body. Hopefully he’ll realize he’s just been a bit tactless here and will be more respectful. If, however, he continues to make you feel you are being compared, or asks you to do things he’s learned from porn that don’t appeal to you, then you should end the relationship and find someone who’ll show you the respect you deserve.
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