DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: It’s been years since I’ve read your site but I found it extremely helpful back in my single days, which I’m hoping are not about to recur.

My fiancée “Isla” and I have been together for four years and engaged for almost a year. Our wedding date is set for July 2023. We’re both highly strange, sensitive, particular people who seemed to have found our perfect counterpart in each other. We have the same political opinions, food preferences, taste in media—we even share the same uncommon kink. We never went into great detail about our past relationships, which is how we both seemed to prefer it. Recently however Isla got on my computer and found the (non-pornographic) pictures I’ve kept of my previous girlfriends. She became upset because all three of them were natural redheads, as is she.

The truth is, I’ve always been extremely attracted to red-haired women, for reasons I honestly don’t know—and, being a socially awkward introvert, I’ve only been able to get up the courage to approach women I’m extremely attracted to. It just happens that all three who then agreed to go out with me were redheads. But when I tried to explain this, Isla accused me of having a fetish and not really loving her because I’m only attracted to her appearance, which is completely untrue—I initially asked her out because I was physically attracted to her, but would not have stayed with her for four years, let alone asked her to marry me, if I didn’t love her personality, spirit, and intellect even more.

We had the first serious, voice-raising, name-calling fight of our entire relationship, and I ended up leaving our shared apartment and staying with a male friend. But I’ve also been talking to a mutual female friend, who told me Isla has been acting unlike herself lately, although she doesn’t know why. She also told me that all four of Isla’s previous boyfriends have been very tall, even though Isla herself is barely 5’1”. When I finally got Isla on the phone, and brought this fact up, she said it wasn’t the same thing and have no excuse for what she still calls my “ginger fetish.”

The call ended on a bad note. I’m completely distraught. The only thing I can think of is that she’s having cold feet about marriage and is trying to force a breakup with me, and just seized upon the first reason she could find. Could this be true, or is there any merit to what she’s saying? Is there any hope that we can make it through this, possibly with counseling? If so, what can I say or do to convince her to try?

Sincerely,

Filthy Fetishist?

DEAR FILTHY FETISHIST: I see today’s a “let’s clarify things before we actually answer the question” day.

As I’ve said before, the general policy for Ask Dr. NerdLove is that I’m not terribly fussed about fake letters and people hoping to get one over on me by positing some fictional scenario. 9 times out of 10, the fake letters – especially ones hoping to launder someone’s position or belief through somebody’s column – are glaringly obvious and easily found out. The ones that do make it through, however, rarely bother me. The truth is that all letters to advice columns, legit or otherwise, are functionally fake or theoretical to everyone except the letter writer. And if there’s something that can be taught or good to be gleaned from a “fake” letter, then that’s all to the good.

Now with that in mind, let’s address this… dilemma. And we’ll start with a discussion about the difference between fetishes and attraction. Fetishes means “an object or bodily part whose real or fantasized presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression” as per WebMD. In practice this can also refer to certain physical or sociological traits… such as weight, sexual or gender identity, disability, ethnicity or race. People with so-called “yellow fever”, for example, fetishize East Asian people for their ethnicity, while “devotees” fetishize people with disabilities. There’re people who fetishize fat women or trans women… the list is quite literally endless.

Now, there’re plenty of folks who will say that this is about attraction and preference, not fetishism, and there are people who are ok with being fetishized this way. For many, someone being attracted to you because of what makes you different or who you uniquely are instead of despite it can be incredibly validating.

But the problem is when the attraction isn’t to the person, but that feature or quality about them. The folks who fetishize East Asian women, for example, don’t simply have a deep and abiding love of Vietnamese or Malaysian or Indonesian culture and the people who live there. What they’re into is their idea of what East Asian women supposedly are: meek, submissive, eager to please and – critically – will exist to just serve their (primarily white) partner in all ways.

The same goes for people who fetishize fat women or disabled people or trans people; it’s not about the person, it’s about the thing that makes them different. The person is ultimately irrelevant, and in fact assertions of their individuality and agency tend to ruin the attraction. Doubly so if they stubbornly don’t live up to the stereotype in the fetishist’s head.

Now, is it possible to fetishize redheads? Sure, why not. “Ginger” stereotypes and prejudice don’t have the same hold here that one might find elsewhere, but they do exist, and I’m sure there’s someone who gets their motor revving over the idea of a redheaded spitfire. But odds are far greater that this is a preference, not a fetish.

Finding one particular aesthetic feature more attractive than another isn’t a fetish. To give an example: I know a lot of women who like guys with strong hands and forearms; it’s a body part that really turns them on. Line up a bunch of men of the same general attractiveness, and the dude with incredible hands will ultimately get their attention. It’s a feature that gives that person a little extra weight in their attractiveness, a value-add that will nudge them over the line before the others.

The same, incidentally, can be true about height. You can dress it up in evopsych drag, but more realistically, it’s about social values, exoticism and the attraction of the novel.

It may also be a quality that tends to show up as a sign of compatibility or signal other aspects of the person they find attractive. At one point while doing an inventory of my more longer relationships, I realized just how many women I dated were involved in renaissance faires – either as attendees or employees. That doesn’t mean I have a fetish for Rennies or women in corsets (…though now that you mention it… ), it means that the people I tend to be most compatible with and most attracted to tend to be the sort of people who also like ren faires. They also, not coincidentally, tend to like tabletop RPGs and similar pop culture and have similar personality types.

But the issue here isn’t how many gingers you’ve dated; it’s how your fiancée feels about you feel about her. The idea that you’ve dated too many redheads is less about “you’re a filthy fetishist who doesn’t see gingers as people”, and much more about “I worry that you’re not actually attracted to me as an individual and I’m ultimately interchangeable to you”. Which, if distilled further, really comes down to “there’s something that’s making me feel distanced and unloved and I don’t know how to express it”.

If your fiancé is so upset about this that she’s been acting “off” and the conflict has gotten bad enough that you moved out, then this would imply that there’s something bothering her that goes far beyond just “you dated too many gingers”… and likely beyond “you two have really poor communication and conflict resolution skills” to boot. And that’s something that only she can tell you.

My suggestion would be for the two of you to postpone the wedding, get back whatever deposits you can and then hie thyselves to a relationship counselor’s couch, pronto. If you and she have any hope of making this relationship work, then the looming deadline of a wedding needs to be taken off the table. Having a “must solve this issue by X date” hanging over your heads only serves to incentivize brushing the actual issues under the rug in hopes of making it to the church on time. Take that pressure away – just the wedding itself, not the engagement – and you give yourself more breathing room. You’ll have time to dig into the issues at a more reasonable pace, without the perverse incentives to pretend that it’s all been fixed. Plus, you can determine if you do want to get married, or if this is ultimately a sign that the relationship has come to its natural conclusion. It’s far easier to wind down a relationship that’s ended when you don’t need to get lawyers involved.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My boyfriend and I have been in a relationship for 2 years and a half.

I was with him for 1 year and a half and then I shifted another place so we are in a long distance relationship. I’m not physically available for him but the problem is he has started watching porn since 3-4 months and watches every day for hours when I confront him about it, he lies to me and swears that he doesn’t watch it but I know he does.

He lies to my face I even warned him that I will leave you because this is causing problems in our beautiful relationship but he doesn’t care he again repeats the same pattern. He has become porn addict. What should I do ? Should I leave him?

He lies to my face and him watching porn is making me feel so low since months. Please help me.

Porn Widow

DEAR PORN WIDOW: Alright PW, before we get started, I’m going to need to take a step back and address an issue with the premise of your question. The way you’re feeling’s real and legitimate, and I’m not going to try to take that away from you.

HOWEVER. This is another case of medicalizing a problem in the relationship by blaming the issue on a condition that doesn’t exist. Porn addiction – despite what front companies like Fight the New Drug and Your Brain on Porn and their religious backers will tell you – isn’t a thing. I’ll refer you to the Association of American Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists have said about porn addiction for years:

“ AASECT 1) does not find sufficient empirical evidence to support the classification of sex addiction or porn addiction as a mental health disorder, and 2) does not find the sexual addiction training and treatment methods and educational pedagogies to be adequately informed by accurate human sexuality knowledge.”

You can find more about the actual underlying conditions in their paper “If It Isn’t Sex Addiction or Porn Addiction, What Is It?”.

Now with that out of the way, let’s talk about the real issue: what your boyfriend is doing and how it’s making you feel. And frankly, there’s a lot of that missing from your letter, here.

See, I can tell this is bothering you. Obviously it is, otherwise you wouldn’t have written in. But the problem is that the letter seems to be “my boyfriend is watching porn and that’s bad”, but there isn’t really anything here about why it’s been bad.

Here’s what I see, based on your letter: you and your boyfriend were dating for over a year when circumstances required that you had to move away and you transitioned to a long-distance relationship. OK, that’s a thing that happens. And to be fair: long distance relationships are difficult under the best of circumstances. And one of the things that makes an LDR difficult is the lack of physical intimacy between partners.

One of the truths that folks often forget is that monogamy isn’t the default for humans, nor does love or commitment turn off desire for others. The fact that two people may be in a monogamous relationship doesn’t mean that they quit lusting after other people; it just means that they promise not to do anything about it.

It also doesn’t mean that our desire for sexual fulfillment goes away when our partners aren’t physically available to us, and pretending that it does is… well, pretty naive, at best, and actively harmful to relationships and our emotional well-being at worst. Expecting – or demanding – that your partner to live a completely chaste, monastic existence except when you’re involved, either in person or virtually is unrealistic. You can ask for it, but you can’t really be surprised to find out your partner is doing the five-finger shuffle or double-clicking their mouse in your absence.

One of the things that makes dealing with that absence easier? Porn. In fact, in some ways, porn helps people keep committed to their partners, because of a need it helps fulfill: variety.

We are a novelty-seeking species, and our brains will reward us for novel experiences – particularly sexual ones. The Coolidge effect – where our brains produce more oxytocin and dopamine when we have sex with a new partner – is extensively well documented. But because our brains are very complex and capable of abstraction and symbolic representation, we can find that novelty in a number of places. This includes fantasizing and watching porn. In fact, if you were to do a poll, you would quickly discover that the folks who watch porn (i.e., damn near everybody) don’t watch one porn star exclusively. They may have their favorites, but they tend to watch many different actors. It’s a way of getting that need for variety met without actually violating a monogamous commitment or involving a second (or third) party in the mix.

Now, when I say that porn addiction doesn’t exist, that doesn’t mean that people can’t use porn in problematic ways. There’re definitely times when people’s use of porn materially impacts their lives in a negative fashion. But once you dig into it, the issue isn’t the porn; porn is, more often than not, the prop, not the underlying problem. Compulsive behavior, for example, isn’t about the act, it’s about the compulsion; if it weren’t porn, it’d be something else. The same with using porn or masturbation to ease anxiety, numb oneself or otherwise manage one’s emotional state; the issue isn’t the porn, but the underlying cause. But if you take the porn out of the equation, that underlying problem would still be there. The only difference would be the way the problem manifests itself; it could just as easily be shopping, gambling or orthorexia.

But that also requires there being problematic use in the first place, which isn’t automatically self-evident.

With that understanding, my question would be: what’s the problem, here? I don’t mean that rhetorically or sarcastically; I mean, literally, “how is your boyfriend’s porn viewing harming your relationship?” Is he, for example, eschewing time with you and choosing to masturbate instead? Is he choking the chicken so much that he either has no energy or drive for in-person sex? Is he physically damaging his junk because he’s cranking it so much? Or is it the case that he’s getting off to other people and this bothers you?

This is an important thing to know, because this is going to tell us far more about what the actual problem is. If, for example, he’s prioritizing masturbating rather than having sex with you, that would tell us that there may be an issue regarding attraction or desire in the relationship. Similarly, if he’s jerking off so frequently that he can’t rise to the occasion when you two are being intimate, then there’s an issue with his prioritizing his needs over the needs of the relationship.

This is an area where you and he would need to have an Awkward Conversation about your mutual needs, what needs aren’t being met or why. It may be a conversation that needs to be mediated through a relationship counselor, but it’s a conversation that needs to happen. This way you can either find a way to resolve this conflict, or decide that it’s time for this relationship to end.

But if it’s just that he’s jerking off when you’re not around or thinking about other people while he’s doing it… well, that’s honestly more of a you problem than a him problem.

I would also like to know more about not just his actual porn usage, but how you know he’s watching porn “for hours”. Leaving aside the potential for hyperbole, do you know this for a fact, or do you “know”? Do you have actual evidence, or is this a case of “it can’t possibly be anything else” and you’re basing this on vibes? And if it really is actual evidence – despite his denials – where did you get this evidence? Because this is an area that comes perilously close to snooping and/or violating his privacy. If you’re tracking what he’s watching, somehow, or someone’s snitching, then I’ve got a lot of questions about levels of trust and autonomy in this relationship.

But let’s leave that aside and focus on the “he’s doing this even though he knows it upsets you” part. What then? Well… this is where things become trickier. On the one hand, a callous disregard for your feelings is a very good reason for you to kick him to the curb. That’s someone being a s--tty partner, regardless of the details. But if this is a legitimate difference in values – you find porn to be disgusting and demeaning, he doesn’t – then you have to decide whether the issue is the act or the knowledge. If the two of you are at an impasse and it’s a matter of conflicting values that doesn’t actually affect you or your partner in a material way, then it’s ultimately a question as to whether this difference in values is the price you’re willing to pay to be in a relationship with him. You can either dump him over this, or he can pretend he doesn’t watch porn and you can pretend to believe him, while he hides his tracks better.

However, one thing that is going to need to stop are the threats. You’ve threatened to break up with him if he keeps watching porn. Well I’m here from the future to tell you: that’s almost certainly not gonna happen, and certainly not for long. Despite people trying to pathologize porn or make it a new “thing”, it’s been with us for the entirety of human existence. From the days neanderthals, cro-magnons and humans were able to comprehend abstract representation and symbolism, we’ve had porn. As soon as we invented drawing, people were drawing dicks; as soon as we came up with sculpture, folks were making statutes of people doing it. The interest in, and response to, seeing other people have sex is quite literally part of what makes us human.

So if you’re going to threaten to dump him over watching porn and you’re still with him? That’s an empty threat. Leaving aside whether it’ll motivate him to stop – or at least hide it better – if it’s always just a threat, there’s no incentive to actually do anything about it. So you’re going to have to be willing to actually pull that trigger.

All of which comes down to: you need to decide what the problem is and what to do about it. If the issue is that he’s lying about it – and if I’m being honest, I’m not crazy about his lying, but I do think what you’re asking for isn’t reasonable – then the solution is either he stops lying, you start believing him, or you leave him.

If the issue is porn affecting his performance with you, then either you and he talk about that, not the porn, or you leave him.

If the issue is that he’s watching porn at all… well, then either you find a way to ignore it, or you leave him.

Yes, I’m putting a lot of this on you. Part of this is because I’m not sure he’s done anything wrong, but also because there’s a point where you can demand things, but you can’t reasonably expect them to be followed past a certain point. I could demand that a theoretical girlfriend never talk to blond-haired men, but declaring that doing so makes her a bad person and she is the one who needs to change is entirely unreasonable. If I’m going to follow her around to make sure she doesn’t do it when I’m not there, then that’s gone beyond the point of “unreasonable” to “what the actual hell is wrong with you?”

And honestly, if there’s something that he does that’s so upsetting to you and so anathema to you that you’re trying to police him from miles away? Then I think the real issue isn’t what he’s doing and more that you’re trying to stay in a relationship with someone you shouldn’t be in a relationship with.

If porn usage is a deal-breaker for you, then the answer isn’t to try to control your boyfriend, it’s to get the f--k out of this relationship. But, and I hate to be the one to tell you this, you’re going to be spending a lot of time being single. Because there’re ultimately two types of people in the world: folks who consume porn in its many forms and folks who hide it better.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Over the past year, I have been making an effort to get out more and be more social / make new friends with people and have found my place in a group that I hang out with often now. I kind of came in at just the right time for one of the women in the group, and managed to be of good help to her. Just before we met she underwent a toxic breakup with a boyfriend, I and the rest of the group had to help her come to realize was abusive and had her previous social circle collapse soon after. She was in a pretty bad place and needed some friends who could lift her up and be a set of open ears. Come Christmas, she even left me a handwritten note thanking me personally for everything I’ve done for her this year. I’m glad I was able to help her through all this.

Now after a few months of getting over everything, she’s moved on from her ex and just started dating a new guy. This should be great and I want to feel happy for her, but I can’t help but feel jealous at her almost instant-seeming success. I’m someone who’s always been cool with making friends with women but have never been able to land a date, much less a relationship. She’s a very attractive girl while I’m a pretty below-average guy that’s been slowly trying to get in shape and better groom myself. I had gotten pretty vulnerable with her while hanging out and opened up to her about my own struggles with loneliness, isolation, and depression, and while she didn’t really have anything new to say she was very kind and reciprocating in lending an ear to me. Now that she’s had her success and my own jealousy has set in, I worry about falling into the “crabs in a bucket” mentality since talking about her problems with her brought me a strange sense of peace. It was nice in a way to have someone I could help and listen to who was having problems in a similar ballpark as me, but now she’s fixed many of those and I’m still here trying to pass the starting line.

I know some might see this as me having feelings for her, but it’s genuinely not the case. I was attracted to her when I first met her but realized soon that things wouldn’t work out for us in that context. She wants to feel “protected” by her partners, wants a more stoic guy, and likes being the receiver/responder in a relationship as opposed to the initiator. I’m not that guy and I (imagine I’d) like more assertive partners as well, so I let all of that go a good while ago. Still continued to meet new people and ask others out, but still no luck.

I just want to figure out the best way to deal with these emotions and don’t want to hurt her after she’s come so far.

Thanks!

Is This Envy?

DEAR IS THIS ENVY: Here’s a question, ITE: what are you afraid that you’re losing, here?

I’m not asking to put you on the spot or question your position that this isn’t about your having non-platonic feelings for your friend, I’m asking because it’s good to zero in on precisely what you’re worried about that’s causing these feelings.

As a general rule, jealousy and envy are like check-engine lights – a sign that there’s an underlying need that isn’t isn’t being met. Sometimes that need is one in the relationship; you’re feeling distanced from your partner, you aren’t getting the level of connection or affection you are used to, and so on. Other times, it’s a need within yourself, and often one that you were looking to an outside source to fulfill. When we feel that the fulfillment of that need is in danger, that fear of impending loss tends to manifest as jealousy.

But jealousy or envy don’t actually tell you what the problem is. Just as the check engine light could be anything from “your engine’s about to fall out of the car” to “you didn’t tighten the gas cap”, feeling jealous or envious can come from a multitude of places, many that aren’t immediately obvious. You want to get in under the hood and figure out what made the light come on.

From your letter, it sounds like at least part of it is that sense of not being alone in your struggle. Having a comrade in arms, as it were, made you feel more connected and less isolated, like there were other people in the world who could understand you. Her success, then, would seem to diminish you, leaving you alone once more.

But maybe the issue here is that having a comrade in the “not doing so great at dating” trenches isn’t what you need, certainly not long-term. I can’t help but suspect that the issue was the closeness with your friend. You bonded over your respective dating woes, sure, but that was the catalyst for the connection. Maybe what you’re missing isn’t someone who’s in the same hole as you but just that close, open and emotionally intimate connection with another person. Now that she’s dating someone else, you’re worried that this connection is in danger and you aren’t going to have someone that you can be vulnerable with.

I suspect that this ties into your effort to be more social and make more friends, more than your success in dating or lack thereof. A lot of straight guys, quite frankly, don’t have close friends. In fact, we’re especially prone to loneliness and emotional isolation. Straight men are actively discouraged, both subtly and overtly, from having close, emotional friendships with others, especially other men. We’re only “allowed” to have it with people we might potentially f--k, and even then it gets a bit of side-eye from folks. Chalk it all up to toxic masculinity s--tting in the punchbowl again.

While I’m certainly cheering for you to improve your dating life, I don’t think that’s necessarily the answer to the problem here. I don’t think that having more dating success would resolve the feelings you’re feeling; I strongly suspect that you’d find yourself in a similar boat, just with someone you were dating, instead of a friend. I think what you need more than anything else, are more friends, and closer ones.

Fortunately, you’ve already got a head start there; you found a pretty cool group that you hang with. You have opportunities to become closer with other people in the group. Sure, circumstances lead to your closer bond with one person, but honestly, this proves you can do it in the first place. I think, if given the time and opportunity, you could become closer with others in the group as well. That, I think, would be a good use of your time.

Now, what I don’t recommend is focusing on bonding with other folks over relationship struggles. While yes, that shared point of reference can be an easy way to bond with them, bonding over negatives has an amplifying effect. It’s been my experience that when the point of your connection is “well, we’re all stuck in this hole, but at least we’re stuck in it together”, this creates a sort of learned helplessness. The friendship becomes less about being stuck in the hole, rather than getting out of it at all. Then, when someone actually starts trying to get out – or worse, succeeds – it threatens the rest of the group’s self-identity as being stuck. Then you get the crabs-in-a-bucket effect, as everyone tries to drag that person down and reinforce the idea that you’re stuck and there’s no way out.

And if you let that go on long enough, the whole thing curdles and becomes toxic. And it’s not like we haven’t seen where that ultimately leads.

The other thing I would suggest is that you actively continue to be friends with your no-longer-in-the-struggle buddy. The fact that she’s dating again doesn’t nullify your friendship; your mutual travails were simply what brought you together in the first place. If you have enough mutual interests and (platonic) chemistry, then the initial catalyst doesn’t need to be the only thing that you base your friendship on. If you can see that her dating success doesn’t take away from your efforts, nor does it actually threaten your relationship, I think you’ll find that sense of jealousy will start fading away.

But again: that’s in addition to working on making closer friends and continuing to improve your dating life. The whole “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” thing may be a cliche, but its a cliche for a reason. Having a wider foundation of support is invaluable and leads to stronger, sturdier relationships over all.

So work on building that foundation, ITE; I think you’ll find that it makes everything in your life better, not just these complex feelings you’re having.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com