I saw what my friend was looking at on Reddit. I’m floored.

How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Do you have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!

Dear how do you do that,

My boyfriend and I have been together for two years. He loves and supports me, and he also really likes me as a person and says he finds me incredibly sexy, which he shows every chance he can get.

I have had major self-image issues about my weight since I was a teenager. I finally got control of it this past year through aggressive exercise and Ozempic, and I feel so much better about myself now that I’ve lost 50 pounds. My boyfriend was supportive, but tries to be diplomatic (think: “You’re sexy no matter what you look like”), which I always thought was sweet. But recently he left his phone unlocked on his Reddit page and I saw his porn feed. They are all big women. I would say: fat to morbidly obese. The smallest is perhaps as tall as I was when I met him.

This has brought up a lot of feelings for me, and I’m not sure how to approach him or myself here. It makes me feel like he liked a part of me that I hated, and his diplomacy is duplicitous. But those are just feelings that aren’t supported by anything he’s ever said or done, which makes me feel like it’s just my own self-esteem issues coming back. What should I do here?

– Feeling too small

Rich Juzwiak: Well, I think this is probably an issue that requires a bit of introspection on the part of the letter writer. Perhaps we can provide a reason or rationale to help her think about this.

First of all, part of the problem is that you come into contact with this content and think, “Oh, my boyfriend has been fetishizing me this whole time.” Is that part of the revelation and downside here? I understand why that would be difficult.

That said, he supported the weight loss. He didn’t say, ‘Oh no, Ozempic has side effects. We don’t know what’s going to happen. People haven’t been at it long enough. Who knows? And it gives you diarrhea.” There are many things people say to discourage others from using Ozempic for nefarious reasons and perhaps for well-intentioned reasons as well. He didn’t. So that immediately tells me that even if there was fetishism, he is willing to forego it for the happiness of his partner. To me, that is a sign of a giving, generous partner.

Jessica Stoya: Yes, while it doesn’t sound like fetishization is happening here, the fear of it is very valid. It is a form of dehumanization. It feels bad because it denies your humanity and wholeness, and you value one aspect that you can or cannot control, or something that you are happy about. But either way, anytime fetishization happens in a non-consensual way, it feels bad because it’s bad, right?

Rich: Right. So definitely consider the possibility that some of the negative feelings are coming from there.

jessica: But when you drill down to the details, this is essentially a question we’ve heard over and over again. My partner looks at one body type and that is not me. And when we encounter this, we consistently say that what people look at is one thing, and what people value about their real-life partner with whom they are in a relationship and have physical sex with is another. There’s either wiggle room for what their partner looks like, or by the time you’re two or three years old, your attraction to them doesn’t have much to do with what the person looks like.

Rich: That is very true. At some point, humanity replaces aesthetics in certain ways. It depends of course, but that is a possibility. I would also caution that even though the Reddit feed seems quite scathing, this is just one way to consume porn. It’s not one person’s entire porn experience. This could be his way of getting images of bigger women. There could be a lot more going on in his porn consumption than just this.

People may have preferences, but that doesn’t mean they only like what falls within those preferences. So if the fear is, “My boyfriend likes one thing in porn, then that thing isn’t me.” Ergo, this relationship is doomed.” I’d say you don’t have enough information yet to draw that conclusion.

jessica: Anecdotally, it also appears that porn use is escalating in many people. Whatever they like, they want to see more of it. Then they want to see it bigger, they want to see it more intensely. The more porn they consume, the more intense what they are watching tends to become.

So it’s possible that she met this guy and she was one mate and he either inherently liked it or it was a new turn on for him. Maybe he sought out such porn. And maybe it’s become his thing now, and his algorithm could have adapted to that by showing him more of it. So there are many reasons to take a deep breath and not panic if you come across this Reddit feed.

Rich: I also think it’s a good omen that it wasn’t until she discovered something on his phone that she realized something was wrong in her opinion. That means nothing went wrong with their sex life. She lost 50 pounds and she doesn’t write, “I lost 50 pounds and now my boyfriend won’t have sex with me and I found out why.” She lost 50 pounds, her boyfriend supported me, and then she discovered porn.

So I would say, to keep things practical, think about the actual practices that are taking place. Has she seen a difference in her sex life? I would assume not, because she wrote about sex advice in a column and didn’t mention it. So you have to ask yourself: how big is this problem? To be honest, she seems to be wondering that too.

As someone who is pretty consistently rational when it comes to people’s emotions when they’re emotional, I know that always teasing things out as I see them logically isn’t the best recipe. But I do think that over time you can think about these things, you can weigh the feelings against the facts, and you might start to feel a little better about things.

jessica: Well, of course I’m in the opposite camp when it comes to the spectrum of reason versus emotion. I would say don’t talk to your boyfriend right now. But find a good friend, a therapist, or a journal, or go for a walk or think in the shower – whatever you want. Lean into those feelings and look specifically for what those feelings are telling you.

Wallow yourself in it. Let everything come to the surface. Say, “Okay, this thought here feels like it’s about my own self-image. If I changed my image through practice and Ozempic to get closer to what I wanted to look like, why am I not happy with it now? How do I decide what I want my body to look like? Does it come from other people? Does it come from specific other people? Is it because of how I think about my body? How much of what I feel about my body is based on what it does and how healthy it is, and how much of that is based on how I look? Is that what I see in the mirror? Is that what other people see when they look at me?

Sit down with all those questions and follow the discussions that emerge. And then she will get more answers about where her reaction to this comes from within.

Rich: This will make you better prepared for the conversation that will eventually take place with your friend. I hope the logic and reasoning we’re talking about would at least prepare her for that conversation. Even if she doesn’t agree, even if she can’t ignore it, well, now you have talking points. What can he say that will provide clarity?

I think it’s really interesting to get to this point where you’ve changed so much. You have had self-esteem issues. You’ve worked on it, and yet there is still work to be done. That’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. You indicate what you should continue to do to live a happier life. The pounds are off and she gets to work on the actual work that needs to be done. So I think there’s a positive way to look at this Good.

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