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Mancunian matters of the heart: I found my boyfriend’s man-on-man porn – is he gay?

Bored in the bedroom? Fretting over infidelity? Whatever your love dilemmas are, MM’s agony aunt Kim Reader has the answer.

This week, MM’s very own agony aunt hears from a snooping girlfriend who’s found her boyfriend’s gay porn stash.

If you have a question for Kim, you can email us here.

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Dear Kim,

I was on my boyfriend’s laptop because mine is in the shop being fixed and found a lot of gay porn in his search history.

I haven’t spoken to him about it because I just shouldn’t have even look and he’ll be so pissed off.

It’s been five days since and I can’t have sex with him. It feels weird.

He’s never mentioned or done anything to even suggest the slightest attraction to men before, but… Is my boyfriend gay?

Suspicious Minds

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Dear Suspicious Minds,

Why were you looking through your boyfriend’s search history? Before you make an excuse for yourself, take a breath… and think how you’d feel if he’d done the same to you?

There could be so many reasons for the gay porn but because you’ve been a bit sneaky, you’ve seen it out of context and jumped to a conclusion, and to top it off you’ve already let that assumption impact your sex life.

What happened to trust being vital for a happy relationship? You say you haven’t broached the subject with him because he’ll be cross but he has every right to be annoyed.

And you have to face the music!

All out honesty, open-mindedness and sincere apologies are absolutely the only possible way you can go forward from this point onwards.

Call him straight after reading this, tell him nicely you need him home on time tonight, approach the situation calmly and confess. You are not the one who’s been wronged in this situation.

You may feel like the victim because ‘the man I love is gay and isn’t attracted to me and is keeping secrets and… Oh god, how long have I not been turning him on?’. Yes, that is awful.

I had an ex come out as gay not long after we’d broken up when I was much younger.

I’ll be honest, on top of the sadness about the end of a relationship – as much as we stayed friends (and still are to this day) and as much as I was so pleased he felt he could be true to himself – it was unbelievably hard not to feel like the most unattractive woman on the planet… As if I’d somehow turned him gay. How ludicrous!

That’s not how it works, I know that, you know that. Take a breath and remind yourself that you know that. Right, now that’s sunk in think about this…

If your partner is gay and feels so unable to talk about it or be true to his feelings that he is in a hetero relationship that is absolutely devastating – so much more devastating than a break up.

If this is the case he needs you to be supportive, tell him it’s okay and encourage him to come out because he will be so much happier.

Gay or straight he is still the man you love and you need to do this for him because if he has been concealing something this huge his whole life he is probably incredibly frightened, stressed, fragile and unhappy in himself.

But, and this is a big but, your boyfriend is probably not gay. As I said there could be so many other reasons.

My old housemate was gay and didn’t have his own laptop so used to watch loads of gay porn on mine while I was out working night shifts, but my boyfriend never assumed I wanted a two man threesome, or had a thing for watching gay sex… mostly because he didn’t snoop tut, tut!

Also have you ever been on a porn website? Those million ads, live chats and sometimes full videos that pop-up whenever you click on ANYTHING – who knows what they’re logging in your search history?

Or, perhaps, he is just curious? Men being attracted to men doesn’t necessarily mean they’re gay. He could be bi or just exploring that potential side of his sexuality.

Either way, that has no impact whatsoever on your relationship – he still fancies you, loves you, wants to have sex with you, when you two are together it is you he is thinking about.

It just might be that when he’s on his own he’s thinking about someone else but aren’t you doing the same sometimes when you’re alone? You can’t dictate his thoughts.

If you’ve been aching to turn your fantasy of having a two-guy-one-girl threesome into a reality this could be your perfect opportunity to spice up your sex life and maybe even strengthen your relationship.

Please do bear in mind though that there has to be absolute trust for exploring those routes as a couple to work without making anyone jealous and you, at least, clearly do not have that in him.

This is something else you need to talk about. Just make sure you don’t put it all on him. Some people find it harder than others to trust. This could be an issue you alone have to overcome. Ask him to help you.

Lastly, maybe this is just something he likes to watch and never actually experience. We watch a lot of things and fantasise about a lot of things that might turn us on in theory, but we would never actually want in reality.

If that is the case you really just have to leave him to it. I take it he doesn’t expect you to tell him about what porn you’ve watched or thoughts you’ve had. No? Well you can’t expect that of him either.

Whatever it is I am sure you can work things out with a good, open chat. Don’t forget the sorry!

And, if he’s not struggling to come out, stop rejecting his advances and have sex with your boyfriend!

Image courtesy of Sy Zamaro, with thanks.

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