Sexual Fantasies and Playfulness, Antidotes to Routine
Dreaming, imagining, fantasizing are capacities we’ve had since we were very young, activating our minds and boosting our creativity.
Sexual fantasies appear in puberty and have been present in our culture since the earliest artistic manifestations of humankind.
However, despite this, there are still people who censor themselves for having fantasies or who are ashamed to admit them, either because their content is not “socially accepted,” because they feel they are “cheating” on their partners, or that they are perverse or even “depraved.”
Or because they confuse sexual desire with fantasy. That is, a fantasy doesn’t necessarily have to be something we want to put into practice, or it could even be something we would dislike or be terrified of happening (for example, some domination fantasies). Desires, however, are ideas that struggle within us to be realized and can cause us suffering. But bringing sexual fantasies into real life would depend on other factors, and that would be another topic to discuss.
Be that as it may, there are no correct or incorrect fantasies. There may be more or less socially accepted fantasies, without this being a symptom of psychological pathology.
Below I list some of the most frequent beliefs about fantasies that limit and inhibit our free expression of sexuality:
- Sexually “normal” people do not use (or very sporadically) fantasies.
- Having sexual fantasies during sexual intercourse with your partner is wrong.
- Having sexual fantasies is synonymous with not loving or not desiring your partner.
- Fantasies are only for people who do not experience a pleasurable sexuality.
Fantasies as a means to enrich the sexual relationship
Far from these beliefs, fantasies can be another tool to enhance, enrich, and complement a full sexuality. Having fantasies and/or communicating them to your partner is not an obligation, but another option within the wide range, to foster communication and sexual play. These are used in sexual therapy as a therapeutic strategy in some cases of low desire or lack of arousal.
But creating fantasies is not just about the mental activity that occurs while making love, nor does it necessarily have to be represented exclusively through a mental image. Fantasizing, in the broadest sense, has to do with our active or spontaneous capacity to create, imagine, and play, with all senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste).
However, as Georgina Burgos says in her book “Mind and Desire in Women,” “Some people try to awaken their sexual fantasies during hours of frantic searching in magazines, chats, the Internet, movies, etc. All of these are legitimate options, but generally, this flood of fantasies does not always help improve sexual life due to a lack of personal elaboration, being a mere passive and impulsive contemplation.”
Advantages of fantasies
What are the advantages of allowing sexual fantasies within a couple’s relationship?
- They foster creativity and playfulness.
- They break with routine and promote a sexuality less focused on coitus (as the main objective of the sexual encounter).
- They increase desire and arousal.
- They can strengthen the couple’s bond, foster communication, and mutual trust.
- They promote a freer and more permissive sexuality.
- They are a source of sexual self-knowledge.
- They promote foreplay, sensuality, and eroticism.
Raquel Ballesteros
Professor of the Master in Clinical and Health Psychology, and the Master in Sexual and Couples Therapy at ISEP