There are certain subjects we still whisper about, even in a world that appears endlessly open to peering into the private lives of others and sharing ours on social media. Sexual fantasy is one of them. As a psychotherapist, and most importantly as a woman, I can tell you this: almost everybody has fantasies. Quiet ones, wild ones, romantic ones, strange ones, aggressive ones, and sometimes, favourite recurring ones.
Misconceptions About Sexual Fantasy
One of the biggest misconceptions about sexual fantasy is that it means something is wrong in a relationship, or the person having it is sexually unsatisfied. However, it is mostly not about what is wrong, but it is all about giving our minds the permission to explore. Fantasy is linked to imagination, curiosity, novelty, and the mind’s ability to wander beyond everyday routines. It can provide us with a temporary escape from our responsibilities and routine, and allow us to fantasise about situations we are curious about, but maybe would never want to experience in real life.
Fantasy can often represent freedom, excitement or emotional intensity, with no literal intention to act out.
Fantasy World Of Desire
Interestingly, more of us become drawn to sexual fantasy in midlife.
Fantasy can reconnect us with desire, vitality, and parts of ourselves that we feel we have forgotten. As women, we are often culturally de-sexualised as we age, despite us becoming more emotionally and sexually self-aware in our midlife. Again, this is where we need to push against these cultural biases and purposefully nurture our sexual self. I see sexual fantasy as a vital energy that can stimulate us, and also allow us to explore desires that we feel drawn to experience. In our fantasy world of desire, we can visit that sex party, or join that threesome, or be the dominatrix with the power to tease.
Suddenly, we have allowed ourselves to use the most important sex organ in our bodies – our minds!
Create Your Own Sexual Adventure
By allowing yourself the freedom to create your own sexual fantasy, you unlock the power of your mind, and your sexual adventure is yours to write. Exploring our sexual self through fantasy, imagination, or curiosity can help us stay connected to feelings of youthfulness. Not the youthfulness in the pursuit of youth, but in the deeper psychological sense of remaining engaged with pleasure, possibility, creativity, and the vibrance of being alive.
Maybe some of you will have a sense of guilt in creating a sexual fantasy, but fantasy and love do not always operate in the same part of the brain, and can be held quite separately.
A Mind That Refuses To Be Ordinary
A person can deeply love their partner while still having a rich, imaginative inner life.
The danger is not fantasy itself.
The danger typically is secrecy, shame or using fantasy to disconnect from real intimacy. Some couples will find discussing fantasies to increase their intimacy and add a playful aspect to their sexual lives. Other couples may find it exposing or uncomfortable, and that is where knowing your relationship’s parameters is vitally important. We should respect that there is no universal rule, and not everyone is going to want to engage in this imaginative playground. But for those of us who choose to engage, this is where writers like Jilly Cooper tapped into something timeless that fantasy allows us to temporarily escape from duty and routine. Importantly, it connects us to spontaneity and emotional vitality.
Perhaps fantasy is simply the mind refusing to become ordinary.
Jilly Cooper Knew Fantasy Made Us Come Alive
In truth, I have become entranced by the TV production of Jilly Cooper’s novel Rivals, or as it’s been aptly named, the ‘bonkbuster’! Perhaps I am even more in awe of Jilly Cooper, this deliciously vibrant woman. Her ability to understand something about human nature in tapping into our sexual appetite through the scenes of nude tennis and the two largely endowed twin polo players stripping off, and revealing absolutely all!
However, her novels were never really about sex. They were about longing, chemistry, flirtation and the intoxicating feeling of possibility. She recognised that beneath the glamorous chaos and outrageous affairs of her novels, there was a deeper understanding of desire itself and how fantasy keeps us more alive. She realised that fantasy did not replace real life, but helped people be more awake within it. The truth is, most people’s fantasy lives are considerably more glamorous than their real ones. I have adopted Rivals (Victoria Smurfit) character Maud, described as being ‘’made of two parts whiskey and one part devilment’’, as my femme fatale alter ego! Although I am highly unlikely to run off to Gloucestershire to enact the part, it is a fun place to imagine myself there.
The Real Power Of Sexual Fantasy
This is the real power of sexual fantasy; it is not about changing our lives, but momentarily reawakening the parts of ourselves that routine can send quietly to sleep. It can open up a rich private inner world full of longing, curiosity and imagination, and embrace what is simply part of being gloriously human.
In ending this article, I would like you to remember that ‘desire begins in the mind long before it arrives anywhere else’, and as I drink my fantasy whiskey, I say bottoms up to you all!
