DEAR ANDREA: I've been with my boyfriend three years. Although we get along great and we both think we'll spend the rest of our lives together, I've been having doubts. I discovered he was molested as a child and was forced to wear lingerie. The most disturbing part for me is that he gets off on pictures of men wearing panties. I found pictures on the computer. I confronted him, and after a few days of crying about it I'm still here. He says he isn't gay, that he can't understand why he's "curious" about this. He also said he would get counseling in order to save our relationship, but we haven't talked about it recently. I wouldn't care if he masturbated while looking at naked women, but men in panties – well, it's just a turnoff, and right now I can't even have sex with him. I really don't want to lose him. But if it turned out that this was a big part of his life and couldn't be changed, then I'd have to make the sad decision to move on. I'm trying very hard to be understanding. I want to give him a chance, but at what cost? I hope you can give me some guidance, or at least some hope that it will get better between us. Does this mean he's gay but doesn't want to hurt me by accepting it?

Love, Stymied

Dear Sty: Easy ones first: No, wearing panties does not mean a guy is gay. Getting off on pictures of men (even men in panties) does not mean a guy is gay. Go look at some gay porn and you'll see that very few of the men are wearing anything that could be described as "panties." Manties, yes. Boxers. Tighty whities. Nothing. But no panties. To me, it sounds more like he has some very specific sort of cross-dressing fetish going, but honestly, I don't know what turns your boyfriend on. Only he does.

I have some more news for you, none of which will be exactly welcome. Sorry. Forced cross-dressing by relatives is perennial sex-fantasy material, so popular that I use it as an example when teaching novice sex educators about common masturbation fantasies. I'm not saying your boyfriend wasn't molested, but – how best to put this? – if all you know is "they forced me to wear lingerie," you might want to ask a few questions. What does he mean by "forced"? What does he mean by "lingerie"? I'm not saying he's lying – please don't go telling him, "Andrea says you're full of shit" – I'm just saying his story raises a few more questions than it answers.

Now, about your future. Sit down; we have to talk. I can't tell you it's going to get better, because it's not. He's not going to change. He could get therapy and possibly gain a greater understanding of what happened to him when he was younger and what, exactly, he's getting out of the whole men-in-panties thing. But he isn't going to get over it. There's no magic pill that can pull a guy's fantasy life out by the roots, short of chemical castration, and even that doesn't always work. I'm afraid you're stuck with it.

Since you're not going to be able to change your boyfriend's mind, would you consider trying to change your own? Have you given any thought to why his masturbation material bugs you so deeply? If it's the fear that he might be gay, you can put that to rest. If it's simply that you find it icky, do you think you could learn to find it neutral instead?

People like all sorts of weird things, and not everybody's comfortable with other people's weirdness. I should know – I'm still being taken to task daily for having had the temerity to state a personal preference in my very own column. You have as much right to your opinions and preferences as he has to his, but if he keeps it to himself (and you keep out of his computer files), can you really not manage to overlook it? Put yourself in his shoes. Are you absolutely certain there's nothing about you he wishes were different, even though he loves you just the same?

Love, Andrea