My Husband has to draw a Nude woman for his University degree.

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.

I'm also married to an artist. I feel exactly the same. but its gets worst since he brings them to my home and he's alone with them. They're very young and willing to pose in the nude. I hate it.

Sorry, I have one more thing to add :P (original poster here again)

To the two people who wrote very judgemental critical responses. I feel you need to be more aware of the fact that you do not know who you are talking to. For all you knew I could have been someone on the verge of self harm or worse, and this could have been the final straw.
On Such a public forum you do not know who will read your comments or how they would be taken. Comments as candid as yours should be reserved for people you know very well so you know they will be taken appropriately!

Your responses show a serious lack of maturity and forethought, and I think you need to keep that in mind when posting to others!

(from the original poster)
Thank you so much to the NYC art school model.

I would just like to say to the previous two posters, Your judgement and criticism was in no ways necessary or constructive.
I already knew in my head what I should feel but my body was feeling things I did not understand.
I had recently had a baby, and I was still loosing the baby weight and the tummy, and I didn't feel sexy at all. I didn't want to blame this and that is why I didn't include it in the first post.
I have now become more comfortable with his art classes and I think it is due to my realisation that I was not seeing myself as a woman any more. The people he was drawing in art class were slim and beautiful and I felt they were sexual women in a ways that I wasn't, I was now a mum who was out of touch with her body.
All of that aside, my body was reacting with that gut feeling, even though I didn't think I should be uncomfortable with it.
Also, I in no way said I thought nudity was shameful! You are spinning my words. I felt that me and my husband have a special relationship that calls for monogamy, and a part of that is not gawking at other women. There is a difference between seeing a person (nude or clothed) and saying wow they are beautiful, or wow they have lovely legs, or wow their boobs look great in that. As opposed to, wow I wish I could go home with her, and thinking about another person while you are with your wife. Fantasies for interests sake are one thing, fantasies because you are missing something and desiring something different to what you have are another.
Also, I have never seen a nude man other than my husband in person, and the only woman I have seen is my mother. Me and my husband started dating very young as I mentioned and I suppose this had meant that I have not had the chance to put nudity into it's context (but this is not reason to say "I'm repulsed, to be honest" about my insecurities!!!
I came on here to find help putting this into context, not to be attacked because at the time I couldn't!!!
Also about nudity being natural, yes if we all walked around every day naked, I can see where you are coming from. But this society tells us to cover up, so there are not only conflicting but confusing views out there and we all need to work out what we as individuals are comfortable with (no one person has the right answer!!)

I have worked through this as I read the course description and now understand the purpose of the life drawings. It was not so he could make a living of drawing nudes. He is doing animation and needs to be able to create realistic looking humans with realistic clothes on their bodies (you need to understand what is underneath to draw the top layer)
However I still feel paintings with beautiful women are meant to sexualise them, the human body is beautiful and desirable and there is nothing wrong with that. But am I crazy if I want to be the woman of my husbands dreams?

Thank you to everyone with constructive posts :)