She's an Exhibitionist

Visitor's Question from a 21-30 year old Male
My girlfriend likes to take self photos of her in provocative poses in her underwear. She posts it to her live journal (on-line) and people (mostly other men) write to her. I have talked to her about this before and she swears that "its just for fun" and that she gets no sexual gratification out of doing this.

I don't belive her! She knows doing this upsets me, but she continues doing it. She told me "what's the big deal? its not that I am cheating on you!" I feel that in a way its the value of trust and commitment that is being lost here. She told me she would stop if it affects me too much. I just don't want to look like "the bad Guy" in this situation and I couldn't find the right way to state my feelings.

PLEASE HELP! how could I put this?, so that she could understand my feelings better. Is Posing in underwear on-line a misuse of commitment? or am I just being too jealous?

RomanceClass.com Advice
Some people are exhibitionists and love attention. She loves having all those guys appreciating her body, ogling her nakedness and the feeling that they are all getting sexual gratification while looking at her body. It's like feeling appreciated and wanted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The problem with her building up this "fan club of strange guys" is that obviously by having more and more guys write her, she has more and more risk of finding someone else she'd rather date. One of the keys in any relationship is honesty, trust and loyalty. You should be committed to your partner and NOT actively encouraging other attentions. For her to be out there encouraging other guys to pay attention to her, to be sexually interested in her, is just about the exact opposite of what a loyal girlfriend SHOULD be doing. She can say "Oh but I don't want to date them!" But the point of emotions is that you don't necessarily CHOOSE who you fall for. That is the whole point of temptation. If you care about the person you are with you shouldn't put yourself in a situation where you COULD be tempted. If you are dating someone, for example, you don't go out dating other people! You shouldn't be in situations where you COULD find someone else to form emotions with - because you're supposed to be dedicating your energy on the CURRENT person.

Also, she may think this is fun and games, but LOTS of women who do what she is doing end up being stalked. You don't choose who comes to your website and there are many not-sane men out there. They deliberately look for websites like this to find girls who want attention - because then they start writing those girls and giving them attention. And then they get more and more intense and suddenly they are stalking the girls and showing up on their front porches. Your girlfriend shouldn't fool herself that she is "anonymous". On the web, it is incredibly easy for any of those guys to find out exactly where she lives and to show up on her doorstep for some "personal attention". And because she was so "giving" on the web they might not be ready to take no for an answer.

Finally, she may think this is a fun lark now when she's young. But in a few years when she wants to get a job and have people respect her, it can be HUGELY damaging for photos like that to be around. What happens when she's in her work and wants people to listen to her, and the guys are all laughing at her because they have semi-naked photos of her that they pass around? What happens when the women she works with treat her like dirt because she acted like that?

She can says she won't care. But when she is trying to earn money to pay for her apartment and car, and when her work environment *sucks*, it can be pretty miserable. Never mind if she does want kids someday and her kids are harassed in school because "your mommy was a porn star". You can't shut other kids up and if your own kids are bullied, suddenly it doesn't seem like such an innocent thing any more.

It's a lot of damage for her to cause herself just because she wants attention ...

-- from Jenn
One of Your Friendly Advisors at RomanceClass.com

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