The Psychological Origins of Sexual Fantasies
How Media and Society Shape Our Fantasies
A gentleman on Facebook requested me to shed light on the psychology of sexual fantasies. However, this article reflects on all types of fantasies, whether they are about success, marriage, or romance.
First, the question arises, how are fantasies formed?
Fantasies are a feature of your mind, a characteristic found in every human mind. We imagine things when the chances of achieving or accessing them in real life are minimal, or when we try to experience through imagination what is going to happen in the future. And if someone has gone through trauma in childhood, they use this mental feature to escape from their painful emotions and reality. Nonetheless, every human in this world possesses the feature of imagination.
The gentleman also asked whether sexual fantasies are normal or if this type of imagination counts as abnormal behavior.
If your sexual fantasies do not harm anyone, and they do not interfere with your daily life, health, married life, or work, they are just fantasies, and you cannot stop them. However, if your fantasies are aggressive, or you feel that your mental state is not right, causing your fantasies to be extreme, and you are harming yourself or others, or your work or relationships are being affected, in such cases, you should seek help from a psychologist.
But now it is important to understand where the content of your fantasy comes from. The feature is present in the mind, but does the content also exist?
A very bitter philosophy about humans, which psychology also confirms, is: “You can achieve whatever you want in this world, but you cannot choose what you want.” In simple words, “You can imagine whatever you want, but the content of your fantasies comes from various sources in your mind… including culture, society, childhood experiences, past experiences, emotional or physical needs that were unfulfilled in childhood, and the psychology of your personality.”
However, what is very powerful in today’s era is the media and social media. Media includes dramas, songs, web series, porn, short videos on social media, etc. And the impact of media on your thoughts is much greater than you might think. Your thoughts about marriage, success, sexual relationships, beauty, romance, and the purpose of life… most of these fantasies come from media and social media today. Media and social media provide you with models for marriage, freedom, happiness, sex, romance, friendship, goodness, badness, relationships, success, and beauty.
Providing models is not wrong, but just think if the provider of these models is misleading and confusing you because they have a vested interest in creating these models!!
For example, if you see a person looking happy while wearing a watch during a break, and girls are repeatedly looking at the guy’s watch and swooning over him, it sends a message to your subconscious that if I buy this watch, maybe people will also look at me like that (this behavior applies to marriage, romance, and sex as well), and I will feel very happy. Humans are mirror creatures; we all want to be happy by following the footsteps of a happy person.
The capitalist system is based on this philosophy and psychological principle. Now, whether this is right or wrong is a separate discussion, but by understanding this feature of your mind, you can avoid many wrong decisions that are taken by imitating others. Because whenever you turn a fantasy into reality, you forget one thing… what is that thing?
It is that in the world of imagination, there are no “errors” or “flaws.” Whereas the real world is full of mistakes and uncertainties. You and your partner and three or four people in a room, whatever you are doing in your fantasy, most people feel it is very wonderful because it releases the pleasure hormone in the brain. But in your fantasy, you can control the behavior, actions, reactions, facial expressions, minds, and psychology of all the characters in the room.
Is this possible in reality?
It is impossible in reality because humans are very complex and emotionally rich creatures. Humans have ego, self-esteem, self-image, dignity, identity, and other complex factors. It is impossible for you to control any human’s reaction. You do not know if, when you turn your fantasy into reality, it will be flawless or dreadful!!
In reality, there are flaws and mistakes. And this is why most people have to pay the price for turning their fantasy into reality.
Your fantasy can also be a gateway to your subconscious because for many people whose emotional and physical needs are not fulfilled, then fantasy is a way through which many people try to fulfill their needs in their minds, away from reality (but in reality, you will always remain empty). Fantasy also provides an escape from reality if reality is very painful because the brain uses the feature of fantasy to take you away from that bitter experience/emotion/reality.
My clients who had to go through events like parental separation, the death of one of the parents, strict narcissistic parents, etc., had created whole romantic stories in their minds because they fulfilled their unfulfilled needs in their minds to fill the emptiness inside them. But that emptiness never filled and kept getting deeper with time, so they came to therapy.
Here, Carl Jung’s theory of “Ego” and “Shadow” proves to be very useful. Because all the characters in fantasy reflect your own psychology and emotional needs. In someone’s sexual fantasy, there might be a very passionate lover, someone might be very romantic, someone might be aggressive… the list is endless. You should observe what characters and behaviors your fantasies revolve around.
For example, one of my clients, who appears to be a very strong man outwardly, has a submissive behavior in his sexual fantasies, and he does not understand why this is so. He cannot express it to his partner! Here, too, Jung’s “Ego” and “Shadow” theory resolves this confusion because, in a household or culture where there is pressure to remain emotionally very strong, the opposite behavior “emotional weakness,” is not just for women to express, becomes your “shadow,” i.e., a secretive behavior. And then this secrecy leads people to become involved in some such activities on the internet which cause them only harm over time. (Wish we humans had the patience to listen to and understand our close relationships instead of using them for our own ego satisfaction and purposes).
So it is very important to share your sexual fantasies with your partner, but this is impossible because the emotional maturity required for this is lacking here. This is why people have ten types of masks on their faces, and maintaining these masks takes a lot of their energy, but a day comes when your “shadow” is revealed to everyone. Wearing masks in front of the world is not wrong because the relationship with the world is transactional, but the relationship with your partner should be above transactions.
Acting on every fantasy can be a losing proposition, so through “shadow work,” journaling, or meditation, you can bring your fantasies into your consciousness. Sometimes, just bringing your fantasies into your consciousness or accepting them as part of your personality and not feeling ashamed or judging yourself for them can save your energy. Or doing “shadow work” with a therapist or through “talk therapy” can help you understand yourself better, fulfill the incomplete needs that can be fulfilled, and accept those that need acceptance and move forward in life.
Apart from sexual fantasies, the capitalist system has targeted the tender spots regarding success, beauty, and romance, and people’s fantasies have become so misleading that no one in this flawed and mistake-filled world or the human race can fulfill them, and you will never find happiness by fulfilling them because the actual purpose behind these fantasies is to sell different products, not your happiness.
Avoid consuming such misleading and confusing content because, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, the feature of fantasy was, is, and will remain in your mind, but keep a strict check on the content you are filling it with!!
