Female here, 30 yo. Back in my single days I used to watch porn fairly frequently. And then I found a good guy and we started dating a couple years back. And then I found his mega shit ton of porn and flipped out. Obviously, a little hypocritical on my part. Anyway, got over it and now I don't really care (with your help..thanks!). But I have a question. So I think one of the reasons it kind of bugged me was that he might be thinking of his Internet skankies while he was doing it with me.

Why would I think this? Because I do it myself with him! There are things that really turn me on that I wouldn't want a guy to do to me in real life and so a lot of times I might be thinking of that while he's going down on me. Which in and of itself really doesn't bother me but then I started thinking that maybe he just doesn't do it for me if I have to think of that stuff to get off. I don't think I've ever gotten off just having a blank mind is what I'm saying... I'm usually fantasizing about something. I can't really ask anyone if that's normal because I don't want to be told that their partner is so mind blowingly sexy that all they have to do is just look at them and they have orgasms. So is this normal? I feel like I'm attracted to my but maybe this is a symptom of not having that total all out animalistic attraction for someone.

Confused In Seattle

My response after the jump...

A lot of people unspool private fantasies in their own heads during sex with a partner—fantasies they want to realize, fantasies they don't want to realize, and even, perversely enough, fantasies they're actually in process of realizing at that very moment. Blame our overactive erotic imaginations. What Jesse Bering wrote about solo-sex on his blog at Scientific American also applies to sex-with-company:

[If] you really want to know about a person’s hidden sexual desires, then find out what’s on his or her mind’s eye during the deepest throes of masturbation.

This conjuring ability to create fantasy scenes in our heads that literally bring us to orgasm when conveniently paired with our dexterous appendages is an evolutionary magic trick that I suspect is uniquely human. It requires a cognitive capacity called mental representation (an internal “re-presentation” of a previously experienced image or some other sensory input) that many evolutionary theorists believe is a relatively recent hominid innovation.

When it comes to sex, we put this capacity to very good—or at least, very frequent—use.

You're not the only person out there, CIS, who employs this "conjuring ability" during sex (pairing your private fantasies with your partner's various appendages); some people do it because it allows them enjoy a fantasy they may not want to act on; others do it because they require the added boost of a very particular mental or erotic image to push themselves over the edge. But lots and lots of people do it.

Instead of stressing about the images in your head, CIS, open up about them. I'm not telling you to act on fantasies that you don't want to realize—all that stuff that turns you on but that you don't want a guy to do to you in real life (at least not yet)—but to imagine how much hotter and more intense your orgasms would be if instead of fantasizing about X while your partner did Y to you, you and your partner were talking up a perverted storm about X while he did Y.

You can safely explore fantasies you don't want to realize by fantasizing aloud about them with your partner. Just make it clear before and after sex—emphatically and unambiguously—that you have no interest in ever actually doing these things, whatever they are, or in having them done to you.

Unless or until you change your mind. Which you might.