My husband views adult material...     Q: I am happily married for 7 years. After 6 years of marriage I found several tapes of adult material my husband had hidden. I was  crushed! Not because of his curiosity in the matter, but because of   my own self conscious reasons. These tapes have bothered me for over a year and knowing that he enjoys looking at other women in    the privacy of our home has affected our otherwise healthy sex life. I now feel inadequate, unattractive and not worthy of his passion. The fact that they were hidden from me for so many years has made me feel as if I've been deceived. Am I being childish? He's offered to  throw them away, but I think that would change nothing.

 

A: Adult material is a predictable side-effect of living in a world that views sex with such conflicting, twisted and tormented views (i.e. Your damned if you have it, and your damned if you don’t). If our society was more open and approving of human sexuality, for procreation and especially recreation (not visa vie promiscuity, necessarily), the taboos would be released, as would a lot of pent up frustrations and secret curiosities, and sales of adult material would plummet.

Until then, however, there's nothing inherently wrong with adult material. Under these circumstances the curiosity and intrigue is easy to understand. Still, when a marriage is involved, ideally there would be enough communication, self-confidence, and trust, between both parties that such interests would be known and understood about each other.

It’s also quite understandable, though far from ideal, that in some relationships, perhaps with a particularly sensitive person, one partner might have “trouble” divulging such secrets with the other if they thought they'd take great offense with such indulgences. This doesn’t justify their behavior,  however it may explain it.