Why does my boyfriend’s Gmail account get loaded with nothing but porn emails in his spam folder, while my Gmail account gets none?  My spam is always empty, and he gets up to 30 porn spam emails a day.  They even come into his inbox!

–maxine

The Harvard MBA says:

I suspect you probably already know the answer, but I’ll give my thoughts anyways.

I’m not a spam expert, but searching on the term, “pornographic spam volume” revealed a series of articles dating back to 2007 that indicated that pornographic spam has been on the decline.

For example, in February of 2007, Symantec reported that porn spam had dropped from 22% of spam to just 4%.

It is always possible that the flood of pornographic spam is mere coincidence, but you can’t rule out the possibility that your boyfriend used his Gmail account to register with a porn site at some point, which then sold his email address to other players in the industry.

The more important question is, do you care if your boyfriend uses pornography?  While most of the writings on the topic argue that the use of pornography has a negative impact on relationships (indeed, The Art of Manliness argues against the use of pornography) statistics are not destiny.

If your boyfriend habitually uses pornography, but you continue to have a fulfilling sexual relationship, it’s hard to argue that it is having a negative impact.  On the other hand, if you find that your boyfriend seems uninterested in sex, or worse, is pressuring you to engage in sexual practices that make you feel uncomfortable or even painful, you need to speak up and make your feelings known.

If your boyfriend treats you well, and you have a fulfilling relationship, whether or not he uses pornography is probably unimportant.  If he doesn’t treat you well, and you have concerns about your relationship, you should probably discuss his usage of pornography in the broader context of what you want out of the relationship.