I often get calls from women who are outraged because their Significant Other takes an interest in some form of pornography. They feel threatened and unhappy, because they feel that they are no longer attractive to their partners. They feel that they should be the sole reason that their partner gets turned on, and regard it as a form of unfaithfulness.

 

Like many things in life, it is not quite that simple. Males definitely don’t tick the same way females do. One study demonstrated that men have a sexual thought approximately every three minutes, whereas for women it is once every three hours on average. That’s a huge difference right there!

 

Men don’t get turned on the same way women do either. They need a sexual fantasy going on in their heads in order for their equipment to function. The information that accompanies Viagra makes that very clear. Just taking the pill isn’t enough unless the turn on is also present. Arousal all starts in the head for a man. The images he looks at feed the arousal mechanisms in his brain.

 

Because the women’s liberation movement categorized all sexual imagery as degrading to women, it’s hard to even raise the topic without being shot down in flames. But the truth is that even “nice” men have some very explicit sexual fantasies that don’t involve their own partners. It does NOT mean that they are unfaithful or that they plan to be, simply that they are male!

 

Because women tend to react with such hostility to the mere suggestion that their man is looking at another woman’s body and getting turned on, it remains a bone of contention in many relationships. Interestingly enough, a recent study showed that the best indicator of long term compatibility in a relationship was not attitudes to money, or children, or any of the expected factors – it was a shared attitude to pornography (whether for or against).

 

What I am leading up to here is a wee suggestion. Before jumping on your high horse if you find a copy of Playboy under the mattress, or discover a visit to a porn site in your computer’s internet history, take a deep breath. Calm down. Wait for a good moment. Then ask him about it in a way that doesn’t make him feel cornered. What he has to say might surprise you. Chances are he is NOT dissatisfied with what he has, and you DO still turn him on. But he’s a male doing what males do, and it doesn’t necessarily make him a cheat or a pervert.

 

If you find your blood pressure going up just reading this, please don’t “shoot the messenger”. I have actually asked a number of perfectly nice, faithful men about it, in order to try and understand how men tick. They have all said the same thing. It puts a bit of spice back into their sex lives in a safe way that DOESN’T involve being unfaithful or threaten their relationships. They don’t necessarily even want to try the things they’ve been looking at, but thinking about them helps them get aroused with their own partner. They would rather reach for the Playboy than the Viagra.

 

I am of course speaking in generalities here, and every case is different. Nor am I talking about hard core, obsessive, perverse or “sick” stuff. But for the average male, taking an interest in the occasional erotic image does not necessarily mean that your relationship is heading for the rocks or that he is some kind of dangerous psychopath.