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Dear Betty,

My boyfriend and I live together. He is open that he masturbates to pornography regularly, often after I leave for work in the morning. I understand this as healthy, but I sometimes feel uncomfortable about it, since I feel that it influences the way we have sex, and how he views women---he often wants to come on me, or asks me to "do something" he's seen in a porn, often something humiliating to me. It makes me uncomfortable, but I try to be supportive of his desires, while maintaining my boundaries. However, things recently went too far.

I was awoken the other night by him masturbating to pornography while I was asleep. Not only do I feel that he took a liberty with me by doing this in my presence without my consent (and disrespecting my need to get up at 7AM!), but it has made it obvious that pornography is creating a rift between us. I'm very confused and feel that this may be a deal breaker. Do you have any advice on how or if we should try to repair my hurt feelings, distrust, and general feelings of violation?

Dear MK,

You have just described some of the problems of living with a young man who has not had much actual sexual experience but watches porn all the time. PORN IS NOT SEX ED! It is merely entertainment for men. What they often see and get off on will never actually be experienced by them. Some get that, but others are too dense. If he wants to come on your tits then tell him you charge $200 for the favor. Women porn stars are getting paid good money to put up that crap! Unless he can get that straight, I wouldn't blame you for breaking your deal.

Your situation requires communicating to him something similar to what you said to me. If he can't understand how you feel (I'm sorry to say that some avid porn watchers can be very dense) then you can either move along or seek some kind of counseling for the two of you. This is my constant complaint about young men using porn as their primary source of sex information. It doesn't honor us. Women just become blow-up dolls to be pushed and pulled and twisted into different kinds of shapes while men are shoving their dicks into every opening they can find. It would be similar to watching a movie where they have fancy editing and trying to imitate a bank robbery.

Dr. Betty