Carol,

My significant other and I have been together for 23 years. We still have great and satisfying sex generally at least once a day and often more.

What bothers me is how much my other half also masturbates. I know that you're a great advocator of this pastime, but since we are not currently working and are in transition, it bugs me that he spends much of the night (when he thinks I'm asleep) looking at porno clips and I-don't-know-exactly-how-much-but-I-suspect-it's-alot-of-the-time when I'm out of the house, engaging in this particular act. This has been a pattern for our entire relationship, which often waxes and wanes depending on how much stress there is in our lives--and always bugs the shit out of me.

Ideologically, I'm a masturbation advocate. Ideologically, I believe that whatever one chooses to do with their own body, ought to be fine and under no one else's jurisdiction. Practically, however, I've noticed that the more he engages in this "outside" behavior, the less physically and literally hard he is for me. This bums me out, pisses me off, and makes me feel on some level, inadequate.

We have experimented with trying to find pornographic images that turn both of us on. Generally what happens is that this is fun for awhile, like a day or two for me. I get TOTALLY sexually amped, I think I even overwhelm him, 'cause it doesn't take long before he just can't keep up with me. Then I start getting jealous 'cause he seems to be more into the images than he is into me and when there are no images, he's just simply not as hard.

Ultimately, I'm crazily turned on (mostly to the images in my head), and he doesn't have a whole lot there for me. Then the inadequacy thing hits me hard and I feel emotionally desperate and devastated....)

Maybe we should just get totally into porno and have that be the focus of our sex lives? (Maybe I'm too much of a realist at heart, but I don't like this idea....)

Ah, Carol, there are so many more aspects to all this than one can possibly write about in a simple email, but I'll try. He's been a big-time masturbator to images of beautiful women since he was a child. I was sexually abused as a child by much older men and have been trying all my life to be sexy and attractive enough to get male attention 'cause I've always felt unattractive (and "Dad" was never around). My mate and I still argue about whose habit is worse, his of being turned on and masturbating to visions of beautiful women or mine of feeling aroused and then validated by (often beautiful) men who are sexually attracted to me. We try to (and usually do) "come" together, but there is always this tension between us of both of us feeling like the other isn't really attracted or interested in us.

Can you shed any light on any of this?

Thanks for all your tremendous efforts towards lightening sex, in all the ways you do....

--Passionately Hot and Bothered

Dear H&B,

First of all, let me tell you that I love that, in spite of long-term sex-life stresses, you and your partner are still together and sexual with one another. I expect you know that many couples would have a much harder time that you both do, in spite of everything you’ve told me, handling an incompatibility such as this. So, kudos for what’s working between the two of you!

Now on to what’s not working. First, I want to really encourage you to try to take your sexual differences out of the realm of argument. “Whose habit is worse” is 1) probably an unresolvable question; 2) not making either of you feel connected to one another (this sort of thing just disrupts your connection, in other words); and 3) will affect both of your self-esteem. And both self-esteem and interpersonal struggle are really central to this tension, so try to declare a truce, OK?

Here’s what I mean. His masturbation habits leave you feeling cut out of his affections (and at his point in his life, even if it wasn’t true before, he may not have enough get-up-and-go to wank a lot and also make love with you, which reinforces this feeling). This affects your sense of well-being and connectedness with him. You express this, which may leave him feeling down in the self-esteem department too, but instead of meeting you halfway, he does the thing that leaves him feeling sexual but not stressed about all things interpersonal: masturbation. So the worm, ahem, turns.

I assume that you have expressed to him that his behavior not only bothers you, but also affects your self-image and feelings of intimacy with him. I assume, too, that you’ve pointed out that when he wanks a whole lot, he is literally less available for you and the sexual intimacy you are still lucky enough to share. If you *haven’t* expressed these things clearly and fairly non-dramatically, I would suggest doing so: but just as importantly, I would recommend against making it an ongoing, dramalicious discussion, replete with “Well, I may be fucked up, but you’re *more* fucked up!” No one’s getting a Most (or Least) Fucked-Up Award (more’s the pity), so this just feeds the cycle that you don’t like and ensures that the two of you will go around again... and not in a good way.

So he should know your feelings about it, and then you should try to communicate in a way that doesn’t make him feel like you’re bugging him. People (especially people who are fond of withdrawing into their own erotic world) don’t really respond well to being bugged. Call a truce on that kind of communication, and look at what *does* work in your relationship. It’s possible that you already have tried exploring exhibitionism, but if not, you might really have fun substituting yourself for his online or paper objects of desire; he sounds like a big voyeur, and it might be a positive change to get more of that attention yourself. Some couples find that erotically-focused activities they can do together help bring the sexual and intimate focus beck to the twosome: Tantra or other erotic skills workshops might have that effect (of course you both already have erotic skills; the point in this case is to use the workshops as a tool to help you change focus and get you both out of your loop). Perhaps you two are candidates for the Intimacy, Love, and Sexuality workshops put on by the Human Awareness Institute. Perhaps you would even be well-served by a few sessions with a sex-positive couples counselor.

As to your perhaps-too-good experiences with watching porn: This sounds like something to save as an occasional treat, a jump-starter for the two of you when you don’t have anywhere to be all weekend. Alternatively, do a little shot of mutual porn-watching, then turn off the TV and make your own entertainment so that you don’t get so into the fuck-fest aspect of it that you feel it is alienating and getting between you. (I do note in the way you write about it that you might be hoping his hard-on will keep up with you when you’re amped up; I certainly hope both you and he know about the pleasures of fingers, tongues, and toys!)

The real issue, it seems to me, is not the porn, and not the masturbation; it’s what these things represent to you and the function they serve in perpetuating the habits and patterns of your relationship. It’s also what you feel you lose in the way of intimate contact when your partner goes for his porn buzz. But remember that some women who have been with their partners for 23 years have the same laments about fishing trips and bowling night. I’m not sure you begrudge him his solo sex life; I think you hope for some balance, and for his attention to you not to wane. I also respectfully wonder whether your abuse history is especially relevant to your response to all this; in my experience, most women want to feel that they’re the object of their lover’s desire. Perhaps your history makes this an even greater issue than it would be for the next woman, but I think plenty of us value being validated by the people we love and are hot for. If you don’t feel you have the tiger of your history by the tail, you might want to consider more work on this issue: one place to start is SIR Video’s wonderful DVD “Healing Sex.”

Finally, one more possibility I see in your and your partner’s situation is depression. You say that you are in transition; it might be that he is at loose ends about his life and is using masturbation to calm and focus himself in the face of feelings of “What next?” This can be a pretty existential situation, especially as we get into middle age, and his real issue may have nothing to do with sex, relationship, and communication at all. If this hunch proves to have some merit, he needs your support, and he might be well-served by a couple of good chats with a therapist or life coach, with or without you present. This is not to say you don’t have issues and he does: in couples, if one person has an issue, they both pretty much have it, even if they’re not arguing about it. But if he is in fact up against life changes and feeling overwhelmed by them, you may not get the best of him until he gets out from under the transition you two are experiencing. Good luck, and I hope this sheds some light!