DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Long (and I mean LONG, at least ten years) time reader, first-time asker here.�My problem has less to do with my lack of success in dating and romance, though I do have that. It’s more to do with my sexuality as a whole, and whether it’s ultimately holding me back, or even harmful.

I’m a cishet white guy, almost 30, normal-looking, not impoverished but not rich either, and I have what you might describe as a sophomoric libido, which I find kind of embarrassing.

I’ve had two very brief relationships and a single one-night-stand where I couldn’t even get it up, and consequently I fantasize about being in exactly the opposite situation – having lots of sex with lots of conventionally-attractive young women.

I am very much aware that our entire culture has been oriented entirely towards people like me to the exclusion of anyone else for a very long time. But when I read a pulpy horror or fantasy novel by a male author and he starts describing a female character’s body in leery detail (the sort of thing you’d see on r/menwritingwomen), while I recognize it as being something that might make someone who isn’t a straight man uncomfortable, I cannot deny that I ENJOY reading passages like that, to the degree that I actively seek books of that sort out. The result is that I make myself feel ashamed and titillated at the same time on a pretty regular basis.

The same goes for sexualized designs for female characters in video games, heaving-corseted heroines in 70s exploitation movies, and so on. I LIKE seeing these objectified images, and it makes me feel bad, since I know that culture is deliberately trying to move past that sort of thing to make the media landscape more friendly to people who aren’t… well, me. So bad I worry that it might come across as off-putting should any potential future partners or platonic female friends find out about it.

I recently read bell hooks’s book “The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love” (not a flex, it made me feel bad and I didn’t enjoy the experience) and I couldn’t deny that I saw myself in her description of toxic masculine love/lust, and not at all in her vision of a more egalitarian romantic love between men and women.��Is it possible for me to reconcile the fact that I know women are basically the same as men when you get down to it, just people, and the objectifying fantasies I have about them? Do I need to retool my sexuality entirely in order to make myself datable, let alone the good person I want to be in general?

-The Male Gaze

DEAR THE MALE GAZE: OK MG, I say this as someone who has written a LOT about toxic masculinity, the objectification and sexualization of women and trying to be a grown-ass man in the 21st century: put the bell hooks down and back away slowly.

Seriously my dude, you sound a 4channer trying to write a Male Feminist letter for s--ts and giggles. You are overthinking and overanalyzing to the point of absurdity, looking inward so hard that you basically turned yourself into a human klein bottle.

Here’s the thing: fantasies are just that: fantasies. Getting turned on by stuff, even the stuff that feels like “fire-bad-tree-pretty” caveman level of sexuality is fine. If you love some breasty women boobily boobing down the stairs in your fiction, that’s nobody’s business but you and your Amazon wish list. If movies and stories about dames with fishnet-clad legs that go on forever and curves like a stretch of bad road are what get your motor humming, then by all means, down a couple slugs of cheap rotgut and see what that femme fatale has to say for herself. Because hey, what turns you on is what turns you on. Nobody is expecting you to get cranked up over someone lounging around in an outfit that emphasizes her doctorate in theoretical physics or who accessorized her lingerie with the Fields Medal while reading Proust aloud and that’s fine. Nobody’s grading you on what you jerk it to.

Unless that’s what you’re looking for, anyway. I understand there’re folks on OnlyFans who’ll do that for you.

I hate to break it to you, my dude, but this isn’t exactly a deep dark secret that you’re carrying around. Having a thing for 70s era Playboy spreads or dodgy pulps with titles like Lesbian Librarians In Heat isn’t really going to shock or horrify anyone, any more than admitting that you visit PornHub. It’s pretty bog standard, honestly. Some might think it’s a bit immature if that’s all you consume, but getting a thrill from stuff that doesn’t have the Straw Feminist Seal Of Approval isn’t going to get you much worse than a roll of the eyes from anyone.

And really, that’s only if you go out of your way to tell them.

Part of what I think you’re missing is that the issue with a lot of the media you’re talking about is that for a long time, it was the only thing out there. The objectification and sexualization of everyone was constant, the minimization of women to sex-object was everywhere and it was treated as right and good and if you had a problem with it, then you were a scold and a frigid funwrecker.

But as society recognized that hey, the way we’ve been acting is kinda f--ked up and making everything about this very narrow vision of compulsory heterosexuality was even more f--ked up and we’ve broadened our horizons. There’s more material out there that aims to cater to a wider array of gazes, tastes and desires – from the chaste to the depraved, from the buttoned up to the jaw-drop-wolf-whistle-lip-bite and points in between… for all genders and sexualities.

It’s not like the point of the Bechdel Test or the Mako Mori test or the Sexy Lamp Test are markers of whether media is acceptable or not; after all, “Baby Got Back” passes the Bechdel Test. The whole point of them – as well as a host of media criticism about the marketing and selling of sexuality and masculinity – is to ask people to think a little about the media they’re making and consuming and remember that women are people too.

It’s also worth remembering that women, like men and enbies, aren’t just people, they’re also pieces of meat who occasionally want to be objectified. Not all the time, not by default and not by everyone, but it has its time and place and person. And sometimes that objectification is going to be happening strictly between your ears during some private time, and what goes on there is nobody’s business but yours.

Now, I suspect that the embarrassment and shame is part of the pleasure of it all. Shame and arousal are close cousins and there’re few things quite as arousing as the taboo. Feeling like what you’re doing makes you a naughty naughty boy may give everything an extra bit of spice. But honestly, nobody you meet who isn’t a Victorian time-traveler is going to be surprised that you get a semi for boobs and butts. Some might judge you, but honestly, most of what you describe is kind of basic. You’re hardly reading The Story of O, spanking it to Salo or touching yourself to 100 Days of Sodom, here.

And the Victorians, I might point out, were kinky as s--t behind closed doors. Some of the books that were published during the height of memetic prudery would make you pop your monocle.   

And hey, maybe it would do you some good to explore a little of what women read and watch to get turned on. The varieties of smut out there for women are wide and varied, and some of it is just f--kin’ weird. There’s a reason why monsterf--ker is a genre now. Fun fact: women tend to be more into tentacle porn than men.

The fact of the matter is that people fantasize, watch, read and masturbate to things that they would never do in real life, even things that would seem antithetical to their lived values. Because it’s not something they want to do in the real world, it just happens to be a thing that turns them on and gets them off. They just compartmentalize and recognize that fantasies are just that: fantasies. In phantasia veritas, except sometimes the truth is just “yeah, it makes me orgasm extra hard.”   

Now the bigger question would be: the more objectifying stuff is what you jerk it to, but how are you treating the women in your life? Are you doing your best to be as equitable as possible and behaving as though the women you interact with as human beings? If you’re not acting as though women are sexual objects who are just there to be consumed, I think you’re going to be ok.  Because, quite frankly, that’s going to mean a lot more to your friends and potential future partners than what’s in your spank-bank.

Feel free to keep on enjoying some Russ Meyer films. Just, y’know. Don’t make ‘em your whole personality.

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: I’ve been reading your column for a while and I’ve got a question that I don’t think I’ve seen you cover yet. You’ve written a lot about The Friend Zone (yes, I know, I read that part too) but not what you do after you shoot your shot and miss.

OK here’s the deal. I’ve been close friends with “Sarah” (names changed to protect the innocent) for about a couple years now. We met during our first year of college, and our friendship has been nothing short of amazing. We were friends pretty much instantly, spent almost all of college being completely inseparable and we are so in tune with one another in terms of what we like and what we’re into that it’s like we’ve known each other all our lives. We’re closer than family and she’s incredibly important to me and until now I’d say the feeling was mutual. Honestly, I can’t imagine my life without her.

As time has rolled on, my feelings for Sarah have evolved into something deeper. So, with a combination of nerves and excitement, I decided to lay my cards on the table, tell her how I felt and asked her out on a date. Sarah was kind about it, but she told me she didn’t feel the same way and valued our friendship too much to change its nature.

And thus, I’ve landed square in the midst of the dreaded friend zone.

I’m doing my best to not let this change things for us, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t really hurt, and a part of me that I really don’t like that is kind of angry about it. I don’t even know if I’m angry at her or at me or just angry. I’m doing my best to ignore that part and there’s the part of me that can’t help but feel a mix of rejection and sadness and the rest of me trying to act like nothing is different. But I don’t know if I’m doing a good job keeping this to myself and managing these emotions while trying to maintain our friendship is proving to be a complex dance.

Since then, things have felt weird and off. I don’t know if it’s real or it’s just me overthinking things and reading into stuff that isn’t there. That’s not helping with my wanting to move forward and I’m worried that maybe I did everything wrong and ruined things. And then there’s the rest of me that worries that maybe I’m not holding my anger or frustration back enough and she thinks I was just doing the nice guy thing and was never really her friend.

So here I am, reaching out to you to ask: how do I navigate this situation? How can I handle my feelings of rejection while continuing to be a good friend to Sarah? Should I take some distance to heal or is there a way to adjust my expectations and feelings while still being close?

Your insights would mean the world right now.

Looking For A Compass In the Friend Zone

DEAR LOOKING FOR A COMPASS IN THE FRIEND ZONE: That’s rough, LFCFZ. It always sucks when you put yourself out there like that over someone you care about and find out that they don’t feel the same way. You should give yourself some credit for actually having the courage to try, as well as not just doing the standard feelings-dump. I’m a big believer that it’s much better to ask someone on a date, rather than just drop your feelings in their lap and ask them to do something with it. A date, at least, would mean they have something to say “yes” to that isn’t “ok and now we’re a couple”; at the very least, it’s an opportunity to see if what you have is going to transition into more than just platonic affection.

But as the sage says, it’s possible to commit no errors and still lose. That’s just life. It sucks, to be sure, but it’s just how things are. The only thing you can really do is accept it and look to the future instead of dwelling on the past.

The problem is, as you’re discovering, getting through the present.

So, I’ll tell you what’s likely going on and what to do about all of this, but first things first, let me give you this: if you two were as tight as you say and as close as family, then this isn’t going to “ruin” things. Take a deep breath and trust in your friendship. Things may feel a little strained – which doesn’t mean that they are strained – but if you two are that tight, then you should be able to weather this particular storm and come through on the other side.

Right now, however, you’ve got some stuff to process while you wait. And you’re going to need to process it on your own.

Now, I’ve been there and done this more times than I care to count, so I know damn good and well what you’re doing. But hey, that also means I know what you should do, so you don’t make the same dumbass mistakes I did and prolong things to the point of absurdity.

You’re making a classic mistake of trying to pretend you’re not hurting and that you’re not angry because you don’t feel like you have the “right” to be angry about this. And that’s not strictly true. You feel the way that you feel. Your feelings are real, and that includes the anger you’re feeling and it’s ok to feel it. It’s not necessarily fair to be angry at her – she didn’t do anything wrong – but feeling angry is understandable. It’s just the part of you that’s in pain and looking for a place to put those feelings. You aren’t more mature or sensible or whatever for trying to force yourself to not feel.

Now notice that I said it’s not fair to be angry at her. You are almost certainly feeling it anyway, and feeling guilty about it. That’s understandable and that’s natural. The key is to recognize that your feeling angry at her doesn’t mean she did anything wrong here. She didn’t not-fall-in-love at you or lead you on or trick you. It’s not even that she doesn’t love you; she may not love you the way that you’d wish, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love you a lot or as best she can. So while you feel angry at her, you don’t want to blame her or take it out on her or otherwise make it her problem. These are your feelings, after all.

But those feelings aren’t going to go away just because you’re trying to not feel them or that you feel bad about feeling them. Trying to push it all down just compresses them, makes them more intense and more likely to leak out the sides and through the cracks. The same with the sadness, the fear and all the rest.

The key is what you do with them and how you express them. So the first thing I would suggest is giving yourself permission to go some place and just let it out. Go out some place and just scream for a second. It doesn’t need to be anything other than just pure emotion as sound, letting out the pressure that’s built up over all of this. Let yourself feel it, name it and pay attention to it. What is the shape and texture of that feeling? Where are you feeling it? What does it feel like? As you feel it and name it and express it out into the night air… just let it evaporate. Then take a walk and give yourself time to cool down. If you’re going to ugly-cry, then do that while you walk. Let the tears flow; it’s how you clean the wound and jumpstart the healing. Then, as the tears dry and you feel a little numb and empty (which will happen faster than you expect), give yourself some forgiveness. You did a brave thing and it didn’t work out and that’s ok. You’re allowed to feel sad and hurt about it. It’s the fact that you’re trying to pretend that you don’t feel it that’s causing you most of these problems.

It’s almost certainly obvious to everyone around you that you’re hurting, and even more obvious to Sarah that she’s the proximate cause. It’s not her fault, to be sure. But knowing that you’re hurting and she’s why is likely making things awkward. And if she cares for you like you say – and we have no reason to believe otherwise – then she doesn’t want to make you feel worse. So it’s likely that she’s keeping her distance, partially because it’s awkward now, but mostly because she doesn’t want to make you hurt any more than you already do.

Giving yourself a little time to feel the f--k out of your feels is a good idea. Doing so away from Sarah is also good. These are your feelings and she doesn’t need to manage them for you, and any desire to try to help or reassure you likely isn’t going to be helpful at this moment. But a little time doesn’t mean forever. Hell, it doesn’t even mean very long; just long enough to let things pass and get to the acceptance stage of it all.

What I would suggest is to tell her that you need a little bit to deal with this – that you want to give yourself some time to just process and have a sad and you’ll be back soon and this won’t be a big deal. Give yourself a week to wallow and then a week to work on getting back on your feet by giving yourself other things to focus on. Work, exercise, even just giving your dorm room a major cleaning – things that will occupy your body let you just zone out a bit, so you don’t have to think. If you do think and you experience those painful thoughts, just note them, name them – “that’s my anxiety that I may lose my friendship with Sarah” – and gently redirect your attention to something else. The feelings will pass if you let them, instead of trying to ignore them or dwell on them obsessively.

Then, when you’re ready, hit up Sarah and ask her to come do something that you’d normally do. Grab lunch, hang out on the quad and read, whatever; let things go back to normal. That doesn’t mean pretend that nothing happened, just that it didn’t damage your friendship or change it for the worse. This was a thing, it was weird for a bit but the two of you have powered through it like adults and you’re back to being friends again.

Because here’s the thing: if you really are her friend and she really is yours, then this is just an uncomfortable moment. It would take a lot more to damage the friendship than this. If you were to make your feelings her problem, have a tantrum whenever she starts so much as glancing at another guy or every aspect of your friendship about why she doesn’t want you or whatever… that would damage things. But just saying “hey, I have feelings for you”? The only way that would ruin things is if you were lying about being her friend in the first place.

Now that being said: while I wouldn’t tell you to avoid the topic, I don’t think talking it out is going to be a good idea just yet. Giving yourself time to move on is going to be important, especially since you’re going to be raw for a bit. It’s not going to do you any good to try to talk about this when it’s going to feel like sandpaper to your soul. I understand the impulse to want to get it out in the open and over with as soon as possible, I really do. But there’s necessary discomfort and unnecessary discomfort, and right now I think you’d be doing more harm to yourself than good. Think of it like rehabbing a torn muscle; just because it’s not hurting as much doesn’t mean that you’re ready to leap back into the race just yet.  You need to give it time to heal the rest of the way, so you don’t re-injure yourself.

But a time will come – sooner than you might expect –  when you and she are both going to be ready and able to discuss it without fear of it hurting or reopening the wound. And that’s when you’ll know for sure that while things didn’t work out the way you hoped at the time… it worked out for the best. For the both of you.

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: Good morning,

I’m truly struggling with how my husband and his parents have dealt with his exes over the history of our relationship and marriage..

He was married before and cheated on his ex-wife with a woman whom he ended up living with unmarried for 8 years. This woman remained friends with him on social media while he and I were dating. She ended up messaging him for an entire weekend, begging him to get back together with her after he posted a pic of him and I at a baseball game together. During that weekend, he treated me differently and was very different, but he told me about it by Monday. He explained that he told her he would not be with her. I appreciated his honesty; however, I was hurt by him continuing to talk to her as long as he did.

He continued to be her friend on social media and his parents would “like” and comment on her pictures. On my husband’s (then boyfriend’s) birthday, my mother in law posted pictures of him, and his ex commented about his tattoos and how he looked good. He and I got into a bit of a bickering match where I asked him to remove and block her and asked him to have his parents do the same.

The end result was that he deleted her angrily, but would not block her, he still follows her business page to this day. He said he won’t tell his parents who they can or can’t talk to. My husband continues to keep pictures of her on his social media that continue to pop up on his memories annually and won’t delete those either. We’ve gotten in many fights about this. I try to space out when I ask him to do this as well by putting several months in between asking. I’m insecure because this woman was able to wreck his first marriage and I keep imagining she will do the same to mine. His parents continue to communicate with her., which also bothers me.

On top of it, my husband continues to be friends with his gf from sixth grade. He says he lives vicariously through her life and cares about her and she’s helped him through some things. My husband’s mom also follows her and likes all her pics on social media. This woman also comments on my mother in law’s post.

On top of this, I also struggle with my in-laws continuing to talk and go to barbecues and events with my husband’s ex-wife and family. They keep my husband and his ex-wife’s wedding picture up in their house. Whenever I ask my husband if he can confront them about taking it down, his answer is “it doesn’t bother me! You ask them.” Or, it turns into a fight. There was even a time when he and I were dating, that he had a picture of him and his ex-wife together as his contact picture for her. Every time she called (because they have kids together), I had to see the picture of them together. He almost broke up with me the day I asked him to remove that.

On top of it, my mother-in-law wants him and his sons to come to her house to visit and, in her words, “leave his family he sees all the time” to come see her. We see the in-laws almost twice a weekend EVERY time his boys are here. But, I don’t understand why him and the boys seeing them have to exclude my children and I. I never invite her and tell her she has to leave my father-in-law behind.

He continues to hammer me about my insecurities whenever I ask him to change these things. I’m okay with hearing if I am wrong for worrying. But, my heart and head are filled with so much worry. It makes me sick, and sometimes I get angry. Not outwardly, but inwardly.

Please help me! Thank you for your time and the blessings you have given to others through your advice!

Exes and Oh-Nos

DEAR EXES AND OH-NOS: OK, so there are layers to this letter that we’re going to have to dive into.

Let’s start with your husband’s relationship with his exes. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m not seeing anything egregious here. In fact, this is the sort of thing that I would (mostly) say is more of a “you” problem than a “him” problem. Specifically, you seem to be making your insecurities everyone else’s problem.

Part of the issue at hand is that he… seems to still be on good terms with his exes. Most of the time, that’s actually a good thing. These are people who he shared a significant part of his life with and – seeing as the relationships didn’t end in blood and fire (metaphorically and literally) – having a good relationship with them tells you a lot about him as a person. The way a person acts with their exes tends to be a good measure of who they are and how they’re likely to handle your relationship. A guy who has exes who are all “crazy” or “unreasonable” or whatever is someone who’s waving a warning sign. If someone has a “crazy” or “toxic” or “evil” ex, then they had a partner. If all of them are “crazy” or “evil”, then he’s telling you that he’s the problem.

Now, the times when it goes wrong is when someone is not actually over their ex and is holding onto that friendship because they’re hoping to get back together…eventually. Somehow. Details to be filled in later (when they’re actually feasible). The folks who are pulling this move tend to be one-foot-out-the-door already and are just looking for a reason to fully commit to the exit and are treating their partners like a place-holder. But the way you describe things, it seems like the only person who’s behaving badly here is your hubby’s ex, not him. 

The fact that he cheated on his first wife with her definitely gets some side-eye. Cheating hurts relationships, sure, but I’m firmly of the opinion that infidelity isn’t the worst thing that someone can do in a relationship. I also believe that cheating is often more nuanced than many want to acknowledge. In your case, the fact that your husband ended up living with the woman he cheated on his first wife with for eight years – married or not –  is an example of this to my mind. A person with a bad case of “can’t keep it in his pants/commitment is something that happens to someone else” generally doesn’t end up committing to their side-piece for close to a decade. 

Similarly, the way he’s acting about her begging him to come back tells me that he’s pretty well done with that aspect of their relationship. It would help if you said just how he was acting ‘differently’ after she messaged him and said she wanted him back, but from the sounds of it, he laid down a firm boundary about it and it hasn’t been a problem. If she’s respecting his boundary and knocked off the line-stepping, I’m not shocked he’s remaining friends with her. If her friendship is important to him – and it sounds like it is – then not throwing it overboard immediately is a relatively mature thing to choose. ��Yeah, I know there’re folks who will feel that this is the sort of thing that requires kicking a person out of the friend circle immediately. Personally, I think there’s a benefit to giving people, especially folks we know well, some grace when it comes to times when one fails one’s wisdom save against dumb choices. Giving someone some space to save face after making an ass out of themselves without hanging it over their head for all eternity is part of making a friendship work. 

I’m also not terribly shocked that his family still has a relationship with her. She was with him for nearly a decade and has been a close friend since. Since it seems like the break up wasn’t a particularly dramatic or serious one, the fact that his parents are still friends with her is entirely reasonable to me.

The same goes with his ex-wife. The fact that his family, your in-laws, still have a relationship with her is entirely unsurprising; she is the mother of their grandchildren after all and they seem to be splitting custody. Even if it were just a “staying civil for the grandkids” situation, it’s not that much of a surprise.

It sounds to me like your issue here is that his exes didn’t vanish into the ether once they broke up, taking all traces of their existence with them. Getting upset that he’s still friends with someone he dated in the sixth grade is, quite frankly, getting to a level of absurdity that I think says more about where your head is at than his. The same goes for his family spending time with his ex-wife and her family. They’re all adults, and they’ve got every right to be friends with whomever they please and to put up whatever pictures they choose.

Who they interact with, in person or on social media, incidentally, is also very emphatically none of your business.

This is why it’s honestly a little concerning– assuming I’m reading things correctly – that you’re monitoring his family’s relationship with his exes and making demands of them, not just of your husband. Not only is that a bit obsessive, it seems to me that this would be counterproductive to dealing with your feelings of insecurity over this. If his exes’ continued existence is like sandpaper on your nerves, it would be much better for you to block them on social media and let yourself be blissfully ignorant about other people’s business. I understand that you may feel like you’re monitoring for signs of shenanigans or impending crisis, but this isn’t the way to go about things. At best, all you’re doing is making yourself miserable. At worst, you’re spinning yourself up by feeding your anxieties and insecurities and giving your worst fears oxygen by giving into your confirmation bias.

Now where things get a bit weird is in his family asking him to come see them with his kids but without you. This in and of itself is… honestly, rude as f--k if not actively disrespectful. However, based on what you’ve written so far, I’m wondering both whether this is precisely how it’s happening but also if there isn’t a reason for it. If you’ve been making a fuss about his parents’ relationships with his ex-girlfriends or (and I can’t stress this enough) the mother of his children and their grandchildren, they may be tired of fielding demands from you over their relationship with other people.

Especially if the crux of the matter is that he and they still has a platonic relationship with people who’ve been a part of their lives for literal decades.

Regardless, as I said, this is very much a “you” issue. Your insecurities are running amok and they’re not just causing you pain but actively damaging your relationships with your husband and his family. It doesn’t matter that you “space out” the times you make these requests, because the issue is less about how much time you let pass between them and more about the fact that you aren’t dealing with your side of this. If you’re willing to be told that there’s nothing to worry about, then you also need to be willing to accept it. That comes down to a very simple matter: do you trust your husband or not? Because right now, despite what you say, the evidence suggests that you don’t. Even if his ex-girlfriend is some home-wrecking Jezebel, it takes two to tango; she can long for him all she wants, but he still has to be the one to take her up on it. She can’t exactly impose her will on him.

Honestly, it sounds like the metaphorical calls are coming from inside the house and it’s making things so much worse for you and your husband. The best thing I think you can do is start addressing these problems on your end. You’re asking other people to manage your insecurities for you and this is very much an abdication of your responsibility to yourself.

Take care of yourself and look into finding ways to manage these insecurities. I think you’ll be much happier over all… and it’ll make the difference in the overall longevity and success of your relationships.

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