I’ve been going out with a man for two years now and he’s great, loving, kind, etc. However, I'm not sure if it's my gut telling me not to trust him or it’s just my own insecurities. Here’s the problem: My boyfriend is always checking out other women [in my presence]. He's not exactly subtle – he looks at random women on Facebook, and sexual photos of one woman in particular. Yes, I know this isn’t exactly a crime, but it makes me wonder if we’re on the same page. I have my own fantasies, but I love my boyfriend and I seriously don't look at anyone else. I feel put off, annoyed, and reminded of a terrible past relationship. Am I dreaming that there is a man out there who doesn't do this? Maybe I would be OK with it if I didn't feel disrespected and if he was better at keeping his online stuff on the down-low.
My friend and I had a running joke about my husband’s Instagram activity before I started dating him. All the accounts he followed were cheesy psuedo-porn sites like Big Booty Babes or Jiggling Jugs – whatever Instagram could get away with before the morality police shut them down. It’s the kind of harmless “boys will be boys” behaviour that makes you shake your head and laugh.
Straight men will always like to look at women. Can you blame them? We’re beautiful. As my friend, photographer Mandy-Lyn Antoniou, once said, “Women were designed by the artist, and men by the engineer. A sexy guy elicits a reaction in me similar to seeing a killer four-by-four truck. My body responds to the strength, power and proficiency of the design. Man is pretty impressive, designed to get it done. Seeing a sexy girl, on the other hand, is like seeing a sports car: you can hear it coming from up the block, you crane your neck to see, the body responds to its form, style, how it seems to purr down the road and take curves so effortlessly. Aesthetically, women are all about poetry in motion.”
When you’re out of town, he may jerk off to porn. When a woman on the street smiles at him, he’s probably going to smile back. When his female co-worker asks him to have a drink after work, he might go. These things are not a threat when there is a solid foundation of trust and understanding within the relationship. That’s what the whole thing boils down to. There are no rules except for the rules you create together. Do you trust him to respect these rules? I don’t think you do. If you did, you wouldn’t be writing me.
We all have ridiculous insecurities – it’s called being a human being. However, yours are being propelled by his behaviour. First off, if he’s checking out other women in such an obvious fashion that you notice it, then he needs to work on his tact. There is nothing wrong with subtly looking at the world around you, and if someone attractive happens to be in view, he doesn’t have to become a blind man. However, he has no form, and it’s pissing you off and making him look like a cartoon.
Now, the Facebook stalking: Random women on the street is nothing compared to this. Facebook stalking requires intent and time. It’s worse than porn because these people are only a few degrees away. Porn stars are majestic unicorns – it’s like lusting after a celebrity. Of course, his particular Facebook habits have left you feeling jealous and insecure; these girls are receiving the attention from your boyfriend that you thought you deserved.
As Suzanne Vegges-White Ph.D. writes in Psychology Today, jealousy causes a backwards metamorphosis in which your brain forgets its advanced functioning and your “reptilian brain” kicks in. “In ‘reptilian mode,’ we are ready to engage in fight, flight or freeze responses to danger, and for some individuals, the threat of losing a partner to a rival can catapult them back thousands of years to the reptilian way of processing information,” she explains. The modern version comes out in classics like the “cold shoulder,” or when he asks you to pass him the remote and you whip it directly at his chest.
Despite being the male sex hormone, testosterone is amped up in both males and females when jealousy occurs. In one study, researchers found that females experienced higher levels of emotional jealousy than sexual jealousy. For example, a woman would become far more jealous imagining her mate flirting with a potential suitor than she would imagining him receiving a kiss from someone with whom he had no prior engagement.
This is fight-or flight-mode. You have to confront your boyfriend about his annoying behaviour. Taking revenge by “giving him a taste of his own medicine” will not work. It’s a stupid “reptilian” tactic. You should sit your boyfriend down and tell him in a calm, stern voice what’s bothering you. If he doesn’t change his ways, cut him lose. For every woman he eye-fucks, there are that many men you could potentially date. If he isn’t willing to respect the monogamy the two of you agreed upon, I don’t think it’s worth curbing your sanity for a man who would rather fantasize about women on Facebook than be with the one in front of his face.
Send Mish your own sex questions and queries at sex@westender.com
