WomanSavers.com Forum / ASK SANDRA BROWN, M.A., PSYCHOTHERAPIST, RELATIONSHIP COUNSELOR & AUTHOR / not sure what to think

i have been dating this guy named ben for about 4 years now.  he is a great guy.  kind, loving, great with kids, loves my dogs, and gets along great with my parents and friends.  he doesn‘t insult me, and he doesn‘t hit me.  i love him and he loves me.  we got engaged last year and he is helping plan the wedding.

but my problem is that he likes something weird.  he likes me to be naked.

it started out about a year after we started dating.  we were driving to seattle so he could meet my parents.  we had been having sex for several months at this point.  we had been driving for a while and it was getting dark, but we still had several more hours of driving before we got to the hotel we had reservations at.  we stopped at a rest stop for a break.  he said i should use the bathroom before we started driving again, but i told him that i didn‘t need to.  he laughed and asked if i wanted to make a bet out of it.  i was sure i could do it so i said yes.  he bet be that i would have to use the bathroom before we got to the hotel.  he said that if i won, he would do all the driving until we reached seattle, and would give me a foot rub every night for a week.  if he won, i would have to get naked and drive the rest of the way to the hotel.  i told him he was crazy, but he said that if i was so sure i could do it, then it didn‘t matter what i bet.  so i bet him.

about 30 minutes later, i had to go.  and it got worse and worse.  i thought i was going to explode.  i told him that he won, so just pull off at the next rest stop.  but there wasn‘t a rest stop.  so he pulled over so i could go behind some bushes.  when i got back to the car, he was in the passenger seat.  i told him that i wasn‘t going to drive naked, and he said ok.  but he looked so dissapointed and sad.  so i said ok, i would do it.  i was so embarrassed to do it.  i was nervus and i thought i would die if someone saw me.  but he said it was dark, and nobody would see me but him.

it took 3 hours to get to the hotel and i thought that all the headlights were shining at me, and everyone in the world saw me.  but we made it there ok.  he ran in to get the keys, then we parked in front of our room.  he opened the door, and then carried me naked from the car and put me on the bed.  i was so mad at him for having me drive all that way naked, but he kissed me and told me that it was the sexiest thing he had ever seen, and we had sex.  the best sex we had ever had up til then.

afterward he told me that he really liked that sort of thing, seeing me naked where there was a risk of getting caught.  i have done it for him a lot since then.  not just driving, but in other very public areas. i am always embarrassed by it, but he is very careful about it, and i trust him.  and the sex afterwards is always great.  don‘t get me wrong, sex with him is always good, but after i am naked for him it is amazing.

when i told my best friend about it, she thinks that what i am doing is sexual abuse.  she said that if ben really loved me, he wouldn‘t want me to risk myself like that.  i am not sure what to think.  i love him and trust him, but she is my best friend.  i don‘t think she‘ll be my friend anymore if i marry ben.

i told ben what she said and he asked me if i felt i was being abused.  he said that if i did, that i should just tell him.  he said he wouldn‘t be mad and he would still love me.  it was just a weird kinky thing he liked, and he would still love me if i didn‘t want to do it anymore

is she right?  am i being abused an not know it?  i know its sort of a weird question, but i am totally confused

i tried what you said and told him that i was humiliated by being naked where others could see me, and that i wasn‘t doing it anymore.  he said he was sorry for making me feel so bad, and i could tell he meant it.  but a few days later, he asked if i would do it one last time, so he could take pictures of it, and then he would never ask me to do it again.  i thought about it for a while, but i said yes.

he took the pictures he wanted in a parking lot for mcdonalds during the lunch rush.  he had me get naked and stand on the hood of my jeep and pose for about a minute.  he got about 20 pictures in all.  a lot of people saw me.

the sex was good that night.  but we have only had sex twice since then, and both times he lost interest before he finished.  but he has kept his word and hasn‘t asked me to get naked.

other than not having sex, the relationship is the same.  but i am not sure what to do.  i am afraid that he will come to like the pictures of me more than the actual me.  it hasn‘t happened so far, but when he goes in to his computer room and locks the door, i know what he is doing, and i am afraid i will lose him.  i asked him about it once, in a casual way, and he said that i had nothing to worry about.  he said that he loved me and wasn‘t going to leave me.  and i am not sure how to bring it up again without sounding like a nag.

i finally left him.  he was growing distant, and we never spent any time together.  he never wanted to talk about it, because he didn‘t think we had a problem.  i called off the wedding and gave him back the ring.

but now i have a new problem.  we had made a list of everyone we were going to invite to our wedding.  he sent the pictures of me to everyone on my side the list.  my mom and dad, my brothers, my grandma, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, all my friends, even some of my co-workers all got pictures of me naked.  he even put them on my myspace page and yahoo profile and changed the passwords so i couldn‘t remove them.  he put them on several popular message boards as well.

i called a lawyer  and she said it would take months to get the pictues removed.  months!  already one message board has had 12000 people view the pictures, and it has only been 4 days.  what can i do?