I didn’t, although I do have times when I have to step back and get a perspective on what I was thinking about and how much of my time I was spending doing it.
But the most important thing is to recognise that fantasies are exactly that, fantasies. They aren’t real, because you think about them doesn’t mean you want it, it’s just a way of getting yourself excited and aroused.
In survey after survey one of the top fantasies for women is non-consensual sex, yes, rape fantasies. Is this because women want to be raped? Of course not, it’s much more complex than that. It’s because our fantasies are about much more than sex and go much deeper than the surface interpretation.
The reason that’s the most popular fantasy again and again is because for millennia women have wanted a freedom and abandon in sexual pleasure that society has said they weren’t allowed, and so the only way it’s ‘okay’ to think about such wild, unrestricted passion is when someone else is forcing you to experience it.
Now, those explanations still don’t particularly help your situation, although hopefully it does give some more context to it. Many people have extraordinary fantasies. It means you have a good imagination and are curious and kinky, it does not mean you want to do those things or that you’re a bad person.
So you’re not fucked up, or disgusting. Actually the fact you’re even worried about it or asking for advice tells me completely the opposite.
However, if it’s causing you a problem then it’s real, it’s an issue you need to deal with. Stealing a summary from the book ‘Private thoughts: Exploring the power of women’s sexual fantasies’ which was the most pertinent I could find on the topic, they describe a few ways of dealing with it:
- Analysing the fantasy to figure out what lies behind it and so coming to terms with it and possibly looking to deal with the deeper needs it represents (as in the example I gave above)
- Reducing the need for it – give more time to sexual experiences, actually find sexual experiences, focus on intimacy and closeness as ways of being fulfilled
- Disrupting the fantasy – stopping playing as soon as you think it and only resuming when you’re thinking something else
- Transforming the fantasy – slow swap out negative bits of it to things that you’re comfortable with or even silly ones to take the power away
I stole all that from here, you can read it in more detail.
If you’re seriously worried about where your thoughts are leading you though, then find someone to talk to about it. Someone you trust, who can give you good advice, and who isn’t going to judge you. Just talking these things through with someone can in itself be a HUGE help to putting some perspective on it and stopping it being a problem.
Or you can try the advice my church youth group leader gave when I was a teen, when you start thinking about it, try NOT to think about white fluffy bunnies. It’s impossible not to think about something, so that takes precedence.
Just don’t blame me when you get wet watching Bugs Bunny.
