Bad Nudes Bared

Yesterday, I looked in the backpack of my live-in boyfriend of two years and found two pictures of women which I'd describe as pornographic. I was really upset and angry because his pictures weren't of me. Also, they were pretty unattractive women, so why would he want to look at them? I confronted him and told him it was over. He wanted to know why I searched his bag in the first place, and complained that I didn't know where the pictures came from, etc. He then returned my key and left. Now, I went through his backpack out of pure curiosity; I trust him completely and I still don't think he's cheated on me. But, now I think maybe he lusts after someone else or has a thing for pornography. I just don't know. Did curiosity kill this relationship?

--Over And Out

THERE'S A special kind of man who never looks at another woman: One who walks down the street tapping a long white cane with a red tip on the end.

Men like to look. They've always liked to look. Centuries ago, some cave chick found rock slabs with some other cave chick's pictures on them in her cave dude's loincloth drawer, pitched a hissy fit, and threw him out. Prehistoric life being what it was, she was probably quick to relent, since he was the one bringing home the bison that prevented her hairy little children from starving to death.

Much has changed since then: Women now bring home the bison, and generally have a few weeks' supply of it in their Sub-Zero refrigerators. Beyond that, everything's pretty much the same: Men still like to look...and in volume whenever possible.

Don't blame them. Biology makes them do it. Back in cave days, kids died off long before pricey graduate schools came into the picture. For a man, being a cave-stud was a fun, low-cost way to see that his genes got to swim in the gene pool of the future. The genes selected for survival weren't those of the one-woman man who stayed down in the cave watching reruns of "Little House On The Prairie," but those of the knuckle-dragging sex machines who convinced a wide range of cave girls to rock the prehistoric station wagon out behind the prehistoric disco.

These sex-machine genes wire modern men to be on the lookout for boff-abilities at every turn. When a woman's present -- just about any woman -- the guy present is likely to be imagining what it would be like to bend her over the piano. Still, we can overcome our biology. Men do it by not having sex with everything in sight. (Well, most men.) Just because the thought flits across your man's mind doesn't mean that he acts on it or that he loves you any less. It simply means that he's a man.

Accordingly, it's unlikely that he was cheating on you with a bunch of haggy porn stars. So who were those ugly naked chicks? If you hadn't behaved like such a nut-bag, you might know. For the future, you'd best get it into your big inquiring head that being in a relationship with someone doesn't allow you to strip them of all privacy. Also, when you jump to conclusions, you're bound to break something. Do get some help so you don't repeat offend. And, last but not least...do let us know if he comes back to you so we can pray for him.