Erotic Fantasy Reconsidered: From Tragedy to Triumph

Abstract

A fantasy is a map of desire, mastery, escape, and obscuration; the navigational path we invent to steer ourselves between the reefs and shoals of anxiety, guilt, and inhibition. It is a work of consciousness, but in reaction to unconscious pressures. What is fascinating is not only how bizarre fantasies are, but how comprehensible; each one gives us a coherent and consistent picture of personality-the unconscious-of the person who invented it, even though he may think it the random whim of the moment. Nancy Friday (1992) Sexual fantasies are a wellspring of information about the individual's internal life and the relational dynamics of the couple. They remind us that sex isn't something we do, but a place we go, inside ourselves and with another. Too often, couples focus almost exclusively on the act and the statistics of sex, especially if they are caught in a sexual stalemate. "Three times a week is too much, but twice, is too little." "We both have orgasms, but sex is always the same… the whole thing lasts 10 min from beginning to end." "Conditions are never right, I can't remember the last time we had sex." The therapeutic approach described herein helps couples exit the "doing" story of sex, and enter their subjective and inter-subjective experience. The erotic landscape is vastly larger, richer, and more intricate than any repertoire of sexual techniques. Sex is a receptacle for our longings, hopes, fears and struggles, and we invest our erotic encounters with a complex set of needs and expectations. We seek love, pleasure, escape, validation, ecstasy, to be seen, and even spiritual union.