Perhaps i am too late to weigh in on this, but here goes anyway. I am an artist, i have been an artists model and i am married with children...just so you know where i come from....
I do understand how you have been feeling about all this...the feeling that looking at naked women might be pleasurable for your husband when you want him to look only at you with those feelings...your discomfort with your own body and sexuality and desirability ( and this is an issue for many people even if they have not just had a baby)...all of the things you have been feeling are quite natural...what you have to understand, though, and i am not saying it is easy, is that men or women looking at each other naked does indeed have sexual overtones and feelings..how can it not, when we are sexual beings???..but it is what you do with those feelings that is important...when you are in the life drawing class..those feelings help inform your art with humanity and an appreciation for the body that then allows you to be a better artist. You go past the sexual to the lines, shapes, curves...the play of light and shadow...the things that make every body..thin, fat, old, young, hairy or hirsute...beautiful. Nakedness does not mean sex..it is sexual and sensual but it does not mean touching or acting on the natural feelings that may or may not occur, depending on whether the artist or student finds the model attractive. Finding someones body attractive does not mean finding them attractive, either, as attraction also includes the brain finding the person attached to the body attractive. Life drawing is essential to any artists training, just as they must study the anatomy of trees and animals if they want to draw them..understanding what lies under the fur or feathers allows you to understand the way a body, human or animal, moves and works..if you don't understand what lies underneath you will never get the rest right. please do not be disturbed by your husband seeing other women naked..or men..models come in every shape and size, every age and colour...unlike movies and fiction, life models tend not to be hollywood starlets or playboy playmates, and even if they were...it isn't a threat to your happiness as not everyone finds those types attractive other than superficially. My husband has an appreciation for other women that disturbed me for quite a while, until i realized that he has ideas of beauty and attractiveness that include all kinds of women, that he can look and appreciate them, but would never act on any of those feelings, because he finds me attractive and beautiful too(even if i don't a lot of the time). He has helped me to realize that i am more desirable than i had ever thought, because if i am included in his estimation of what is lovely and sexually interesting, then even if i don't think i measure up physically...he does, and that what i have that they don't have is the emotional and spiritual connection with him that keeps him here and keeps him wanting me...not them...I spent a lot of my life feeling unattractive.........strangely, the appreciation he shows for other women has made me more confident in my self and with him...our relationship is now more based in reality than in worry and uncertainty.
I think that you have to become more comfortable with your own desirability, and with the fact that men and women do look at each other, clothed or not, and do sometimes find others sexually attractive. That certainly does not mean that they act on those feelings. your husband may or may not enjoy looking at other women, but he loves you and i am sure, even during and after having a baby, he loves your body and you and finds you attractive, fat and pregnant or not, because it isn't just the physical part of you he loves and lusts after..it is the person, the brain, the mental and emotional connection with you that he loves and wants. he sounds like a really good guy..try not to doubt him and try not to feel that other women are a threat to your happiness.
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Perhaps i am too late to weigh in on this, but here goes anyway. I am an artist, i have been an artists model and i am married with children...just so you know where i come from....
May 22, 2010 - 10:12amI do understand how you have been feeling about all this...the feeling that looking at naked women might be pleasurable for your husband when you want him to look only at you with those feelings...your discomfort with your own body and sexuality and desirability ( and this is an issue for many people even if they have not just had a baby)...all of the things you have been feeling are quite natural...what you have to understand, though, and i am not saying it is easy, is that men or women looking at each other naked does indeed have sexual overtones and feelings..how can it not, when we are sexual beings???..but it is what you do with those feelings that is important...when you are in the life drawing class..those feelings help inform your art with humanity and an appreciation for the body that then allows you to be a better artist. You go past the sexual to the lines, shapes, curves...the play of light and shadow...the things that make every body..thin, fat, old, young, hairy or hirsute...beautiful. Nakedness does not mean sex..it is sexual and sensual but it does not mean touching or acting on the natural feelings that may or may not occur, depending on whether the artist or student finds the model attractive. Finding someones body attractive does not mean finding them attractive, either, as attraction also includes the brain finding the person attached to the body attractive. Life drawing is essential to any artists training, just as they must study the anatomy of trees and animals if they want to draw them..understanding what lies under the fur or feathers allows you to understand the way a body, human or animal, moves and works..if you don't understand what lies underneath you will never get the rest right. please do not be disturbed by your husband seeing other women naked..or men..models come in every shape and size, every age and colour...unlike movies and fiction, life models tend not to be hollywood starlets or playboy playmates, and even if they were...it isn't a threat to your happiness as not everyone finds those types attractive other than superficially. My husband has an appreciation for other women that disturbed me for quite a while, until i realized that he has ideas of beauty and attractiveness that include all kinds of women, that he can look and appreciate them, but would never act on any of those feelings, because he finds me attractive and beautiful too(even if i don't a lot of the time). He has helped me to realize that i am more desirable than i had ever thought, because if i am included in his estimation of what is lovely and sexually interesting, then even if i don't think i measure up physically...he does, and that what i have that they don't have is the emotional and spiritual connection with him that keeps him here and keeps him wanting me...not them...I spent a lot of my life feeling unattractive.........strangely, the appreciation he shows for other women has made me more confident in my self and with him...our relationship is now more based in reality than in worry and uncertainty.
I think that you have to become more comfortable with your own desirability, and with the fact that men and women do look at each other, clothed or not, and do sometimes find others sexually attractive. That certainly does not mean that they act on those feelings. your husband may or may not enjoy looking at other women, but he loves you and i am sure, even during and after having a baby, he loves your body and you and finds you attractive, fat and pregnant or not, because it isn't just the physical part of you he loves and lusts after..it is the person, the brain, the mental and emotional connection with you that he loves and wants. he sounds like a really good guy..try not to doubt him and try not to feel that other women are a threat to your happiness.
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