Dear Princess-

This is a hard question for me to answer, and I've said before that pornography made me uncomfortable, but my thinking has changed somewhat and I realized why it bothered me so much.

The Secrecy Bothered Me

My ex-boyfriend had this secretive demeanor about having a subscription to Playboy, about looking at porn on the Internet, about going to strip bars with his friends. He wasn't honest and open about past relationships, about how he felt about me, or about what he'd do when he'd just go to "hang out". I didn't trust him and the women with their big implanted breasts and perfectly groomed "regions" didn't help.

Was It My Hangup?

However, now I am dating someone who is open about all the things my ex wasn't, and I even feel inclined to go to strip clubs with him, or laugh when he tells me stories of what the stripper did at the last bachelor party. So the thing I haven't figured out was whether this was my hang up, or just another way I never trusted my ex. And in your position, add the even more complex problem of abuse (sexual molestation?) and you have some issues.

Pornography Hurts Because We Believe in Love

Yes we believe in love, but so do men.

You ask why pornography hurts so let me tell you what I think. Pornography hurts us as women because we believe in love. It hurts because we are taught to believe that when you love someone, you have no desires for anybody else, so how could somebody who loves us want to see somebody else naked?

Increase our salaries if we got naked

It bothers us because we work mediocre jobs for crappy pay, but could increase our salaries ten-fold if we got naked and danced a bit. We are angry because there are sick people in the world that take everything too far and use pornography as a means of arousal and seek any outlet and can hurt or injure or rape us or our mothers or our sisters or our friends. We want a world of equality, but find that in many cases, a woman with a hot body is respected more than one with intelligent ideas.

Trust Him

I don't care if he gets rid of it now. She should leave him because he was into porno.

Your boyfriend said he would get rid of his magazines, so trust that he will. Try to talk to him about it, and get help for yourself. Maybe someday you will be more comfortable with the idea of it, and if not, there are plenty of men out there who will steer clear of it.

– Alicia