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Sex fantasies - good and the bad
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Sex fantasies - good and the bad Came across this article from the Philadelphia Inquirer's sex columnist (now there's a job- just like Carrie Bradshaw!) How often do you find yourself drifting off at work or home, and thinking about some wild sexual encounter? Apparently, it's normal and healthy. I thought the sex therapists quoted had some interesting things to say, e.g. that our fantasies come from the dark region of your brain. Also some of the psychological explanations for some fantasies/fetishes are fascinating (esp. see the beard and powder ones!). Carnal Knowledge | Sex fantasies - good and the bad By Faye Flam Inquirer Staff Writer Why do people engage in sexual fantasy? It's obvious on the surface, yet it brushes against the edge of scientific understanding. Of course sex is one of humanity's common denominators, etched into the human psyche by eons of evolution. So it's not surprising people's thoughts drift to sex. But why drift at all? Neuroscience can't explain how, exactly, a three-pound organ can endow us with a personal universe, let alone why we take such fanciful trips within it. Interpreting these things is as much art as science. Brain-imaging experiments do show that certain "dark regions" of the brain start working when the mind isn't otherwise engaged. The mind defaults to the daydream world, where we roam around into the past and future. Sometimes that world gets a little X-rated, which sex therapists say is nothing to worry about. Fantasies are essential to sexual function, says Sabitha Pillai-Friedman, a Philadelphia psychotherapist and couples counselor. If you're in a long-term relationship, you might remember a time when your partner almost always starred in your idle thoughts. But as years go by, she says, other people you meet or see in movies or television might work themselves into your daydreams. But many fantasies swerve far from the course of ordinary sex. Unusual fantasies can be rooted in very early childhood memories, and subsequent experience can continue to shape them, she said. "It's like a jigsaw puzzle." Psychologist Steve Pumphrey says recurrent fantasies can offer clues to the emotional voids in our real lives. As clinical director of LifeSTAR, a sex-counseling program in Southern California, he's heard some of the stranger ones. Some people fantasize about humiliation, says Pumphrey. One male patient was obsessed with the thought of his wife having sex with other men. He neglected to tell her he'd put an ad out on the Web, Pumphrey says, so she was surprised when 500 men called to volunteer to join her and her husband in bed. Pumphrey said people with humiliation fantasies often suffer from lack of power in their personal lives and express a sense of insecurity in counseling sessions. People who fantasize about being tied up or ordered around, on the other hand, often lacked freedom when they were growing up. "Imagine, say, that you couldn't just go to the refrigerator, because your mother said you could only eat at 8 a.m., 12 and 6," he said. Other fantasies can signal confusion over sexual orientation. Describing a case I still find hard to believe, Pumphrey said a man fantasized about watching his wife shave. That could be a slight imposition if she normally goes for salon waxing, I thought, but, no, the man wanted her to take male hormones until she grew an actual beard. Not too surprisingly, the relationship didn't work, even though the woman allegedly took the hormones and grew the beard. Some fantasies reveal fears people have about expressing themselves sexually, said Pumphrey. One man asked his wife to cover herself with powder and pretend she was dead, which seems quite reasonable compared with growing a beard. Most fantasies remain in the realm of daydreams, however. But in some cases, people seek treatment because they find it hard to orgasm without a particular fantasy, said Pillai-Friedman. But purging an unwanted fantasy can be difficult. Psychiatrist Salman Akhtar from Jefferson Medical College says that it's not what you fantasize about that matters but whether the fantasy interferes with your ability to function. A<b> foot fetish </font></b>can be cute and fun, but if you're so obsessed with feet that you neglect your wife from the ankles upward, for example, she might get impatient and leave you. Pillai-Friedman said too many patients suffer guilt over their fantasies, while others feel too much need to share them with their partners. That doesn't always bring a couple closer. "If I have a fantasy with a faceless person, I might share that with my husband," she said. "But if it's a guy at the gym, he's going to hate me." In other words, we're entitled to inhabit our own private worlds and aren't always obligated to act as our own thought police. As the Bob Dylan song goes, "If my thought-dreams could be seen, they'd put my head in a guillotine." Luckily, there's still no way to do that. |
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Interesting post. I have to disagree with the premise that someone who experienced lack of freedom or was humiliated as a child has fantasies of bondage or humiliation now. Of course I can't speak for all but in my case I feel I fantasize of being dominated because I've been dominant all my life. As a child I tended to dictate what games we would play and my parents would require me to make decisions on things a child had no buisness deciding. Now I make decisions at work even for my superiors and have always been dominant in my relationships so it dosen't supprise me that my fantsies tend toward me being tied, forced and otherwise dominated. Thanks for the post,
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You're welcome. Just posted another article re a spanking study...
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Hmm sounds like a question for a shrink. I've always wanted to be a sex therapist...come lie down on my couch hon 
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