I'm not making excuse for him... but I will say that there is a big difference between "sex" and "masturbating". Heck, there are differing... dare I say VAST numbers of differing degrees of sex... from quickies to long, drawn-out marathon hump-fests.

My point is, don't confuse your lack of sex while he still finds time to masturbate as "Him still wanting sex, but just not with you".

You very well MAY have issues that are coming into play... I don't know that for a fact, but I do know that even though I enjoy a VERY healthy and fulfilling sex life... I still masturbate. Regardless of how well things are going.

There are even nights that she wants to have sex, but I'm just not "up for it"... but I still masturbate to get to sleep (with her blessing & help... heheheh). When I'm emotionally drained, sex is difficult for me, because I am an emotional person. Sex (for me) needs passion... yes, lust is a form of passion as well as love. If I just don't have the capacity to have that passion, it feels "mechanical" and unsatisfying... but masturbation needs no mental preparedness. It IS a mechanical process. A means to an end.

Yes, I think you need to work this out because it is obviously effecting you both... but I'm not sure that it's the masturbation that is the problem. I wish you both my best.

Peace.

DELETED

I HAVE KNOWN  FOR A LONG TIME MY HUSBAND MASTERBATES. I DON'T LIKE IT, WHEN I FOUND OUT HE DID IT WATCHING A  FOOTBALL GAME SINCE HE KNEW I HAD WANTED SEX FOR 2 HOURS. AND WHEN I AM AT WORK, EVERY WEEK END FOR A LONG TIME HE DID IT.
WE'VE BEEN TOGHTER FOR 19 YEARS AND I DON'T KNOW WHY I STAYED. JUST BECAUSE THE SEX IS GOOD WHEN WE DO IT. AND AFRAID OF STARTING OVER.
HE IS 48 AND I AM 43. HE SAYS IT'S HIS AGE BUT THATS BULL. WHEN HE CAN MASTERBATE WHEN I AM GONE AND LIE ABOUT.
IT WOULD NOT BE SO HARD IF IT INPROVED OUR RELATIONSHIP.. BUT DOSEN'T..I JUST FEEL MORE REJECTED AND WORTHLESS..

Damn! All this talk of porn... now I need to masturbate.

Isn't it weird how we women react to porn? I quite enjoy using it with my partner, or choosing a magazine or DVD for him, but I feel devastated whenever I find a new Playboy hidden somewhere, as it has been kept as a dirty secret rather than out in the open.

I find that Playboy is worse than hard core (which my bf doesn't do - is he just really innocent (he was a virgin when we met five years ago) or is he scared it will upset me more?) as the women are so much more attractive. The things the guys have posted on here helps, that the women are objects rather than perfect partners... but when I know he has personal favourite palygirls to look at I feel so unnattractive - I'm not ugly but I know I'll never have a perfect peach of a butt, however much I diet. It's knowing that I cannot ever match up to these girls that hurts, the masturbating isn't the problem.

Maybe it's our own self-image that needs working on. If only men would compliment us more on our own good features...

Of course, being 8 months pregnant, I don't think I would believe a word of any compliment if he did give me them!

Hence the (at one point) #1 book for a while: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. You would think we really WERE from different species at times. So similar, yet polar opposites on so many things.

Just as you cannot understand some of the driving forces behind men... we are just as puzzled when it comes to certain things about women. Part of ANY relationship is trust. Part of a long-lasting relationship is letting-go the idea of "fully understanding' the other person and learning to trust them.

I know you'd like to feel better about this, and you can if you learn how to accept what you don't fully understand. Trust him when he says he loves you and know that his self gratification is just that... short-term spurts of reaching orgasms. (wow, no pun intended)

In all seriousness...? Maybe you should pick-up a paper-back copy of the MAFM,WAFV book and just read some of it. You'll start to understand just HOW DIFFERENT the two sexes view and interpret the world around us. Not that EITHER is right or wrong... just intrinsicly different.

I hope we've helped at least a little.

EDIT: spelling errors

I agree that the above post was a great way to explain things. I think as women we are very emotional and we love our men regardless of the physical appearance. We don't (or I guess I should speak for myself) get sexual satifaction from looking at men in various poses/

What excites me is the whole package. The intellectual conversations, the hand holding the back rubs. It just damages the mind to think that your man, the light of your life, can look at strangers and reach the same physical peak that you cherrish so much in your relationship.

I think that women can be told over and over that this is not a threat to them and it is "a man thing" but the truth of the matter is that we will never understand the disconnect between the sex and and the emotional tie.

I personally have been dealing with this for a few years and we have had many open conversations about it and I am being told the same thing at home that is on this post so I guess I need to just listen to the guys here and let it go.

Thanks for the insight.

I try.

The above is probably the best post on the subject that I've seen.

Let's keep things in perspective.

There is a WORLD of difference between a sexual act between two people in a relationship, and self gratification.

Keep in-mind, men & women are ruled by different parts of the brain... while you view this as something emotional... for a guy, it's just the mechanics of it... a means to an end. The visual stimulation is merely an aid in achieving the end-result... an orgasm. No emotion, no doubts of commitment... just a process in which to arrive at the pleasurable orgasm.

This might help: Let's say you love backrubs... it's something the two of you do together all the time... he rubs your back... you rub his... now, let's say that you are generally a tense person all the time, and you would have no problems ALWAYS getting a back rub.

Let's now say that there are often times that you just need to rub your own neck because it will make it feel better... you even go into another room and put on relaxing music and dim the lights to relieve the stress.

Now... in that scenario... do you feel that your partner should feel insulted that you're rubbing your own back, even though it's no big deal...?

The reason that I use that as an example is, we - as men - think of masturbation in the same way... it's just scratching an itch... it's rubbing that sore shoulder... it's NOT a reflection on anything in the relationship. The visual stimulation is just a helper to scratch the itch... if you will.

It's purely a mechanical process to get to the desired result of 'releasing'. It's not emotional... it's not personal...

We're simple creatures. The truth of it all is, I bet MOST of us wouldn't WANT the actual women in those movies or magazines... sure, it looks great and can give ideas and get the hormones flowing... but I can tell you that there's no-way-in-HELL I'd want to ACTUALLY be with one of those porn stars. It's all fantasy... and not even a "Boy, I wish I had HER" thing, it's more of a "I don't care who the heck it is, just get me close to orgasm" thing.

Trust me... you're in no trouble here.

First of all I'd like to thanks this site for all the wonderful info and insight.

To address this topic. I've been in a relationship for 4 years and we used to watch porn together occasionally when having sex. I still continue to watch porn when I mastubate, but I don't matubate as often as I used to. I think the change can be attributed to how open my girlfriend is to trying new things. I have a lingerie fetish. So I buy her things I like to see her wear, she wears them and also feels sexy at the same time. Good for the both of us and fulfills one of my fantisies.

Fantasies are what drive men to mastubate to porn. I have no problem mastubating to naked pictures of my girlfriend, but the pictures I have tend to be more her posing, with no penetration. I think guys like to see that hard core fetish stuff like penetration and the like. I do. I enjoy watching home videos that we've made. It's an addition bonus that she is willing to make videos and we share them together.

Fantasy also extends to the taboo. Some men like and/or are fascinated with anal sex and other forms of sex. That's why some men indulge in mastubating to porn. I agree with all the previous suggestions. Find out why your man likes to look at porn and see if you can mutually benefit. He may get bored and stop the consumption of porn altogether if he has the right motivation. Then again, he might just enjoy the act, and the visual stimulation is helping him "get there." Again, communicate and find out what both your needs are.

Everyone has fantasies, I'm sure you have some yourself. Thats all they are. I've come to learn that they like to look and play with the porn...but at the end of the day he's doing you 5 times a week! So unless it's instead of sex with you or it becomes an obsession, just look the other way and go buy some porn of your own!
Live life.
Good luck.

It bothers me when my boyfriend looked at porn.. only after we started doing anything.

I don't think it's so much a matter of "the grass is always greener." It's just simply that sometimes when you're masturbating you want an object to focus on, or to tie into whatever fantasy you may be have. Personally, I don't want to objectify someone whom I care for.

Berry: Something like ratemenude.com may be down your alley. I've never really looked at the men there though...

cool macs, thanks for your reply. Sometimes insite is what we need. Question for you, do you happen to know any free web sites of nice looking men (not necessarly "porn" type, just healthy)? Maybe I need something fresh to excite me also.

A naked female body arouses men, and no matter how attractive the one you have is, the grass is always greener on the other side. People are driven to have what they can't, and once they have it, they don't care anywhere near as much, its just human nature.

Since this is a game you CAN NOT win, I suggest joining him... Get a couple mags or erotic story collections of your own (whatever turns your crank), and see what his reaction is... If he gets cranky about it, you can tell him you know where he is coming from, and you feel inadequate, as well, when he does it.

Your situation is not likely to be resolved, unless you start dating a guy who doesn't like porn, perhaps an eskimo or die hard religious nut.... I suggest you learn to accept his behaviour as innocent fantasy time... He loves you no less, he just needs something fress to excite him...

I totally understand how you feel. I actually found this site today to get an answer to almost the same question. I am in a 6 year relationship and my bf is registered to a porn site which he seems to visit daily. We do not live together, but when he stays over or when he is here and I am at work, he looks at the girls (divided into "topics") for hours. I checked the history on the internet before I said anything and he now deletes the history not knowing that you can still bring up sites visited in other ways. I don't want to take over your post, but I really wanted some advice on this same topic. I am 50 and he is 36. Before the eyebrows go up, I spent two years adjusting to the age difference and it has truly never mattered to him. I'm young for my age, 130lbs. 38- 26-37- thanks to implants, and I live at the gym. So that is not an excuse.
Guys out there, please give us some insite. How can a man looks at airbrushed super-girls and jerk off and still be turned on by ordinary women even if we do look great to other guys?
I am about to end this relationship because I just don't know how to deal with it. And yes, he does jerk off- in fact last night was just about the last straw for me. I personally feel that I am not exciting enough nor adventrous enough and neither is true. I do it all and have the "clothes" to go with the act. Please enlighten us.

Yeah, we're pigs.

Men need a lot of mental stimulation. Fantasies, kinks, fetishes, whatever. They should enhance desire, not detract from it.

Your post doesn't read that his desire is lessened by jerking off, just that he takes longer to cum when he does it. That's usually not a bad thing.

There's a lot of other things you can do besides vaginal penetration. Oral sex probably won't hurt.

Jerking off instead of doing the laundry is kind of lame.

Why did you freak out about the magazines? I sort of agree with your bofriend that Playboy's not good stroke material. Magazines run the gamut from Playboy to really sleazy stuff, just like men's fantasies. Different strokes for different folks. (I know- too easy ).

Watching the videos together is great. My wife and I enjoy that but I do have to admit that some time alone with myself once in a while is great- after the laundry's done .

Try to talk with him about it and try to understand that he will jerk off once in a while without you.

I don't really know.. if I had nude pics of my girlfriend I'm not sure I'd want to masturbate to them. I kind of feel like I owe her a little more respect than that.

Have you talked to him about it? If not, I'd say he probably doesn't realize how much it upsets you. Have a talk about it; while there is the possibility that he may just try to hide it like sexykitty said, he'd probably willing to make some sort of compromise at least.

Take no offense Sweettuth. It's all about fantasy. Completely normal and it shouldn't cause you any anguish. He doesn't need to masterbate to your pictures because he has you in real life. There's no reason to feel insecure about a one dimensional piece of paper. No worries.

I think it's normal for you to have these feelings. While most women know that men masturbate, it kind of smarts when you know for sure and you know that they are using someone else to excite them. My husband and I both look at porn on occation, however, I have never seen him masturbating to it, and he doesn't admit to doing it. Whether he does or not I don't know. For me it is just a curiosity thing, and makes me horny for him, not for the naked men in the magazines.

You certainly have every right to find out what it is about the magazines that makes him want to masturbate to them, and you have every right to tell him how it makes you feel. Unfortunately, if he senses you are upset with him for it, he may hide it and it could turn out to be more of a problem than it originally was.

Maybe some guys on here could enlighten us women on why men do this. My guess is the answer is "we're guys".

I agree with Mike. It would be kind of gross to masturbate to my wife's naked pictures. Men "objectify" the pictures we use to aid masturbation. They're not generally someone we know.

I actually have an album of our naked and sex pictures stored in the closet. We use them for our mutual enjoyment- just like pictures from a great vacation.

I have to agree with Juno! He may be looking at the porn and I know if its all the time then it does get annoying but look at the brightside, in the long run, you are reaping the benefits!
With some, not all men, being able to play while looking at playboy gives them an ego boost. It makes them "feel" as sexy as the pictures.
I had this same problem with my husband at the beginning of our relationship, then over time I realized I was getting the best part. He was with me, not her or anyone else. So what happened? I went to the store and bought him a playboy myself.