Hi Janemarple.

I’ve got sort of a different opinion here, I think, given that I’ve always had a lot of guy friends. It sounds to me like he likes women to be conservative in real life, but he enjoys looking at pictures of scantily clad women as a fantasy, and he probably uses those sites sometimes to… make himself feel good. Men are visual creatures. This type of thing is very common among them, even conservative ones, and even ones who are very much in love with their ladies. They just try to hide it from their women, because they are very much aware that most women aren’t going to be okay with it. It’s understandable that the women are upset when they find out though, because it does feel like a bit of a betrayal and like they have wandering eyes, but again… that’s why the men hide it, because THEY don’t see it that way.  (Hence: “It’s just like looking at magazines!”)

Now, I don’t think the sites where there is actual interaction between the men and the women are okay at all, but I’ve learned to just kind of shrug off the sexy photos, as long as they’re not looked at excessively.  His reaction when you were questioning him about it was likely due to embarrassment, especially since he’s conservative. He might not have realized that people could see what he was following.

So I guess the question is… are you SURE he’s only been looking at this stuff for the past year?

At any rate, this has understandably changed your opinion of him. If it’s something that you can’t get over, I think you did the right thing by breaking up with him. Just because it’s common, that doesn’t mean you have to accept it. It just means the men that truly don’t ever look are few and far between. I also want you to know that him looking at those photos doesn’t say anything about you or how he feels about you. I doubt he saw doing that as a betrayal toward you as it’s usually just a fantasy. It’s the equivalent of women reading 50 Shades of Gray or some romance novel and dreaming about the guy in the book. Looking at those photos is the guys’ way of enjoying fantasy in the visual sense the way that women enjoy fantasy in the storybook/imagination sense. Again… doesn’t mean you have to be okay with that… it just is what it is.