My $0.02 is that I happen not to think there's anything wrong with keeping pics of people one knows for masturbatory uses. And this includes people one's partner knows.
That said, if my wife told me that she was uncomfortable with my doing so, and asked me to get rid of the pictures, I would do so. I would probably also want to be in process with her, to help her feel better and more comfortable about it, so that I could get some more pictures and begin using them. But I would not do so until she was okay with it.
There is a balancing act that has to happen: a guy needs to be willing to really commit to the process of relationship, and establish compromises for comfortability with his partner, and sometimes that involves restraining ourselves in ways we might not otherwise do. But at the same time (speaking now of hetero guys, since that's what I am and know best, though I assume similar principles apply to gay dudes), we're guys: we tend to look at all women. We tend to fantasize about anyone or everyone female. We will wank about anyone female we are legally able to have sex with, and sometimes females we're not legally able to have sex with. None of it means that we would actually have sex with anyone but our girlfriend/fiancee/wife. It just means we're still alive. And our girls have got to make room in their compromises for that.
To be honest, I don't mind when it runs both ways. I know that some of my exes were scoping my friends and relations and flicking the bean about them later. I don't think they kept pics, but I presume that's only because women often seem to relate to pics differently than men do, and are better able to keep mental images in masturbation. But hey, if you want to scope my pals, or even keep some pics of my pals in order to make your dip-and-swish better...I say go for it.
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Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.
(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)
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