Just about everyone has had some sort of sexual fantasy. Some persons find their fantasiesspontaneous mental images that evoke certain emotional reactions or thought processes, often called daydreamsto be quite enjoyable. Many persons, however, find their fantasies to be quite troubling; fantasies can lead to repetitive acts of masturbation (genital self-excitation) that ultimately become more frustrating than satisfying, and, if the fantasies have a criminal or anti-social trend, they can trap a person in feelings of shame, guilt, and fear of discovery.
So why should a person be troubled with a desire for something he or she really doesnt want? Well, the answer begins with the fact that fantasies are intellectual products, not acts of will.
OK. Maybe that statement needs some explanation. Consider for a moment that criminologists, for example, often speak about a hypothetically elegant crime. By this they mean that the crime is so brilliantly designed (as in a detective story) that one can actually admire it intellectually. But still its a crime, and no one in his or her right mind would actually want to carry it out. Or so we would hope.
Fantasies occur simply because it is intellectually possible to conceive of them. If you walk past a bank and think of how it could be robbed, you are thinking only of a possibility. The fact that a fantasy occurs does not necessarily say anything about who or what you are as a person.
Now, at the stage of hypothetical contemplation, the crime is nothing but an intellectual product. But to carry it out a person would have to will its execution, and even deliberately overcome any moral qualms about doing so. So you can see that there is a big difference between the intellectual product and the willful act itself.
And this difference between the intellect and the will leads us to another radical concept: sexual fantasies usually have an unconscious intent that isnt even sexual.
We can understand this fact through reference to Freuds concept of infantile sexuality. Actually, Freud missed the point by claiming that all adult unconscious conflicts derive from repressed infantile sexual impulses, because they dont. But still, in missing the point, Freud points to the right thing: infantile experience.
Think about this for a moment. What experience must every infant encounter? Well, its the experience of lying naked and helpless during dressing, feeding, bathing, etc. And in this experience are complex emotions of both pleasure and violation. Part of the infant enjoys the attention and stimulation resulting from its helplessness, while part of the infant wants nothing but the ability to put an end to its helplessness and start taking command of its own life. In fact, making the transition from total helplessness as a mere object to total responsibility in subjective being defines the psychological task of child development.
This total responsibility is also a profound spiritual task that few of us actually negotiate fully. Yes, we stumble through the psychological transition from infancy to adulthood, but still some part of us balks at the idea of taking full adult responsibility to understand and commit ourselves to meaningful life. And so we have fantasies that keep trying to pull us back into that infantile helplessness. The crucial point to grasp here is that as adults we experience these infantile emotional yearnings as adult sexual scenes. Its as if a profound unconscious short-circuit connects our reproductive biology with our infantile need to be seen and accepted.
Many of our adult sexual fantasies depict an experience of being totally and unconditionally accepted, as when we were helpless infants. These sorts of fantasies reveal a deep yearning to gain access to the unknown and to transcend a profound existential lack, a hunger for the ecstasy of a closeness to others and to the divine that is sadly missing in our limited, bodily reality. Thus the fantasies intoxicate us with a euphoric and expansive imaginary fulfillment of the physical sensesas with the hunger of the eyes in lust. Sometimes the fantasies become so euphoric that they can even seem to be spiritual. Nevertheless, by distracting us from our true limitations, the fantasies really cause us to miss the whole point about spiritual responsibility. The governing drive of all these fantasies can be represented as an arrow that, in its deepest unconscious sense, does not seek out another but returns narcissistically to itself, in a desire to make itself seen in the presence of another, and thereby to make itself into an object for its own satisfaction.
The allure of erotic pleasure therefore resides in immediate, tangible gratification. For a man, it can be the thrill of just reaching out and taking what you want, whether it be the body of another person or your own body. For a woman, it can be physical pleasure, or it can be the satisfaction of feeling wanted and protected, or it can be the satisfaction of defying the father who abused her. But, however its experienced, male or female, this common love is just an immediate way of getting something that you want.
Moreover, fantasies such as bondage, rape, and anal penetration betray the dark side of getting what you want. These fantasies pull us away from spiritual responsibility into a realm of anger and self-loathing, reflectingor even compulsively re-enactingthose times when we werent unconditionally accepted as infants or children. The erotic element of such fantasies is directed to getting the feeling of defiling the other, or being defiled yourself, and it derives from the anger of having been made into an objectindeed, a piece of garbageas a child, in which all human dignity was surrendered and defiled. Which is why these fantasies, in their trend toward the anti-spiritual, lead you right into the psychological dead-end of sado-masochism.
Pornography, in its own way, derives from the urge to defile an other. On the surface, it may seem that pornography is simply about erotic pleasure. But when the human body is made into a biological toy, it is stripped of all human dignity, and this defilement is an act of aggression. The hostility may be unconscious or it may be openly violent, but, either way, it has its basis in resentment. And to whom is the resentment directed? Well, as in all things psychological, the resentment goes back to the parents. Deep down, under all the apparent excitement, and despite the attraction to what is seen, lurks the dark urge to hurt and insultto get back atwhat is behind the scenes: a mother who devoured, rejected, or abandoned, rather than nurtured, or a father who failed to teach, guide, and protect.
Thus, in all erotic fantasies you take from the other some sort of satisfaction that unconsciously compensates for the love you did not receive from your parents. That missing lovethat lackis a wound that drives you to fill its emptiness. None of this drive has anything to do with true love, except for the fact that, in all the arousal, true love is missing.
And with this, then, we return to the opening question. If you willfully act out the fantasy with masturbation or in reality, rather than explore it psychotherapeutically, all healing capacity is lost, and you are left with nothing but a perversion that endlessly misses the point.
So why should a person be troubled with a desire for something he or she really doesnt want? Well, the answer begins with the fact that fantasies are intellectual products, not acts of will.
OK. Maybe that statement needs some explanation. Consider for a moment that criminologists, for example, often speak about a hypothetically elegant crime. By this they mean that the crime is so brilliantly designed (as in a detective story) that one can actually admire it intellectually. But still its a crime, and no one in his or her right mind would actually want to carry it out. Or so we would hope.
Fantasies occur simply because it is intellectually possible to conceive of them. If you walk past a bank and think of how it could be robbed, you are thinking only of a possibility. The fact that a fantasy occurs does not necessarily say anything about who or what you are as a person.
Now, at the stage of hypothetical contemplation, the crime is nothing but an intellectual product. But to carry it out a person would have to will its execution, and even deliberately overcome any moral qualms about doing so. So you can see that there is a big difference between the intellectual product and the willful act itself.
And this difference between the intellect and the will leads us to another radical concept: sexual fantasies usually have an unconscious intent that isnt even sexual.
We can understand this fact through reference to Freuds concept of infantile sexuality. Actually, Freud missed the point by claiming that all adult unconscious conflicts derive from repressed infantile sexual impulses, because they dont. But still, in missing the point, Freud points to the right thing: infantile experience.
Think about this for a moment. What experience must every infant encounter? Well, its the experience of lying naked and helpless during dressing, feeding, bathing, etc. And in this experience are complex emotions of both pleasure and violation. Part of the infant enjoys the attention and stimulation resulting from its helplessness, while part of the infant wants nothing but the ability to put an end to its helplessness and start taking command of its own life. In fact, making the transition from total helplessness as a mere object to total responsibility in subjective being defines the psychological task of child development.
This total responsibility is also a profound spiritual task that few of us actually negotiate fully. Yes, we stumble through the psychological transition from infancy to adulthood, but still some part of us balks at the idea of taking full adult responsibility to understand and commit ourselves to meaningful life. And so we have fantasies that keep trying to pull us back into that infantile helplessness. The crucial point to grasp here is that as adults we experience these infantile emotional yearnings as adult sexual scenes. Its as if a profound unconscious short-circuit connects our reproductive biology with our infantile need to be seen and accepted.
Many of our adult sexual fantasies depict an experience of being totally and unconditionally accepted, as when we were helpless infants. These sorts of fantasies reveal a deep yearning to gain access to the unknown and to transcend a profound existential lack, a hunger for the ecstasy of a closeness to others and to the divine that is sadly missing in our limited, bodily reality. Thus the fantasies intoxicate us with a euphoric and expansive imaginary fulfillment of the physical sensesas with the hunger of the eyes in lust. Sometimes the fantasies become so euphoric that they can even seem to be spiritual. Nevertheless, by distracting us from our true limitations, the fantasies really cause us to miss the whole point about spiritual responsibility. The governing drive of all these fantasies can be represented as an arrow that, in its deepest unconscious sense, does not seek out another but returns narcissistically to itself, in a desire to make itself seen in the presence of another, and thereby to make itself into an object for its own satisfaction.
The allure of erotic pleasure therefore resides in immediate, tangible gratification. For a man, it can be the thrill of just reaching out and taking what you want, whether it be the body of another person or your own body. For a woman, it can be physical pleasure, or it can be the satisfaction of feeling wanted and protected, or it can be the satisfaction of defying the father who abused her. But, however its experienced, male or female, this common love is just an immediate way of getting something that you want.
Moreover, fantasies such as bondage, rape, and anal penetration betray the dark side of getting what you want. These fantasies pull us away from spiritual responsibility into a realm of anger and self-loathing, reflectingor even compulsively re-enactingthose times when we werent unconditionally accepted as infants or children. The erotic element of such fantasies is directed to getting the feeling of defiling the other, or being defiled yourself, and it derives from the anger of having been made into an objectindeed, a piece of garbageas a child, in which all human dignity was surrendered and defiled. Which is why these fantasies, in their trend toward the anti-spiritual, lead you right into the psychological dead-end of sado-masochism.
Pornography, in its own way, derives from the urge to defile an other. On the surface, it may seem that pornography is simply about erotic pleasure. But when the human body is made into a biological toy, it is stripped of all human dignity, and this defilement is an act of aggression. The hostility may be unconscious or it may be openly violent, but, either way, it has its basis in resentment. And to whom is the resentment directed? Well, as in all things psychological, the resentment goes back to the parents. Deep down, under all the apparent excitement, and despite the attraction to what is seen, lurks the dark urge to hurt and insultto get back atwhat is behind the scenes: a mother who devoured, rejected, or abandoned, rather than nurtured, or a father who failed to teach, guide, and protect.
Thus, in all erotic fantasies you take from the other some sort of satisfaction that unconsciously compensates for the love you did not receive from your parents. That missing lovethat lackis a wound that drives you to fill its emptiness. None of this drive has anything to do with true love, except for the fact that, in all the arousal, true love is missing.
And with this, then, we return to the opening question. If you willfully act out the fantasy with masturbation or in reality, rather than explore it psychotherapeutically, all healing capacity is lost, and you are left with nothing but a perversion that endlessly misses the point.