Undressing a Fantasy

Author: Tsara Shelton
Author Contact: @TsaraShelton on Twitter
Published: 27th Apr 2022 - Updated: 19th Oct 2022
Peer-Reviewed Publication: N/A
Additional References: LGBTQ Stories - Mainstream Publications

Summary: Critiquing your own sexual fantasies is a powerful exercise.

Main Document

Sexual fantasies are powerful and revealing. If we take the time to undress our desires without judgement, while being willing to insist on some changes, we can shift our sexual cuture.

It's not only the abused who need to be considered when thinking about what can be done to shift our culture of sexual assault. It is perpetrators, too, who are victims of this culture.

Obviously, I don't know what to do to fix it all. I'm just some chick sitting in her bed working on a laptop surrounded by cats and snuggled beside her man. I'm not a therapist or even someone with much experience enjoying a healthy sex life. But I do know being open to seeing everyone on the sexual assault spectrum as human, influenced by culture, scarred by experience, and worthy of the work it takes to support growth and insist on change, will make a sizable difference.

The popular knee jerk attitude of simply saying people who perpetrate abuse or harassment are monsters, of acting as though they are not worthy of more than hate, only harms. Stops people from reaching out before they assault, or when they've done so and want to understand, change, know if they did or didn't. And there is so much of it! Businesses are built on it, millions are made and murdered because of it. Clearly, it is common enough to be worth our time.

Much of it can be changed with a different mindset.

Again, I don't pretend to have some big idea that will save the world. But I do know this: We can change the world by accepting this as common, not only the work of monsters, and beginning at a beginning.

Our fantasies.

Our fantasies - specifically our sexual fantasies for this purpose - tell us a lot about what we desire, how we feel about ourselves, how we want to feel about ourselves, how we want others to react to us. And at the fantasy stage, no one gets hurt.

We can use this.

We can have fun and play while also being mindful and purposeful. Safe.

When our fantasies include abuse, ourselves as the abuser or the abused, we can follow the clues.

Undress what we find sexy, why we find it sexy, and reveal naked truths. Truths we have the power to change. It's not always simple, but with practice and support it is doable.

Sexual feelings are powerful, especially for people with excess testosterone. Hence, getting naked in this way and exposing our desires, insecurities, fears, motivators, enjoying them in the relative safety of our minds with the intention of encouraging healthy growth, is powerful too.

You don't want to abuse your naked truths. That would create dangerous results. No, see them for the humanity they are. Recognize the reasons they grew in you. Often to protect yourself, yes? Often to understand what you were taught, what you saw or was told to you, yes? Often a way to make sense of things when you were a young person that simply grew out of control as more inconsistent information came to light, right?

Don't abuse your naked truth, but do encourage sexy safe shifts.

What do you imagine, what stories do you see, what body parts do you want to touch and want touched when you pleasure yourself? Why? Because it feels good, yes. But why does it feel good for you specifically?

This exercise is best done, I think, alone or with someone you are truly deeply safe alongside.

I believe we all have fantasies that are not okay in polite society. Fantasies that are quite naughty. But some of us have darker, more dangerous, or simply strange fantasies, and it can scare us into thinking we're monsters, or we're disgusting, or we're pathetic, or we're absolutely nuts and will never find someone who can fully understand or love us. Without a place to safely figure out our reasons, to make changes where we see fit, there is the danger that our fantasies will grow darker, stranger, crueler, and we'll move them out into reality as we believe more and more in our own needs and need more and more to feed them. As we only insist on our right to be who we are rather than find ways to honor who we are while crafting ourselves with purpose.

If your imagination has become lazy due to easy access of visual stimulation, maybe try stepping back a bit and using your mind more. Practice picturing what titillates and tantalizes you. It is easier to know yourself when you don't overuse outside narrative and stimulation. Erotica and pornography can be safe and sexy additions to your sexual pleasure, however addiction not only takes your power from you but also leads directly to abuse. Of yourself and/or others.

Being abusive or being abused gets played out in the world we share physically. Often, it begins with fantasy. Things we imagine and get turned on by. We should have freedom to play out scenarios in our minds that are not okay to play out in the physical world. I believe we should not feel shame when we fantasize about something shameful, however we should remember our imaginings are affecting us. We should take the time to consider their power. To use it well. There are places we can safely play out some of our shameful fantasies. Sex dolls are an idea for people with the funds. If you have a partner, role playing with consent can be a fun place to explore kinkier or cruel fantasies in our physical world, but, again, undress them. Really explore them and know them as something you can shift in healthy directions. Keep it sexy, keep it kinky, but guide it safely.

It's a dance, discovering what to change while ultimately not judging anything you find.

Do that dance.

I will share a few personal examples.

Example One:
As a little girl I loved the tingling feeling in my tummy and groin and would seek it out, but I didn't yet know anything about sex. In my go-to fantasy I was a sexy car and all the other cars noticed. Even pedestrians, an entirely separate species, would turn their heads and gawk in awe at my sexiness. As I tingled, I'd imagine myself being driven slowly down a boulevard as all the cars and people lost their minds, bumped into each other, pointed and stared, because I was such a sexy car. As the feeling ebbed I'd get tired and imagine myself being driven into a driveway. The elderly couple that was driving me had arrived home and needed to bring their groceries into the house.

Clearly, I wanted to be seen as sexy. I wasn't looking at something sexy in the fantasy, all the somethings were looking at me. And I was sexy. Why did I want to be sexy? Well, I suppose being so young I wanted to be seen as special, and since the physical feeling I was experiencing was sexual in nature I made my specialness sexiness. I was playing out the desire to be seen as special and adding sexy. This was fairly safe, but it did blossom into an intense desire to be seen as sexy during sex. Note that I said being seen as sexy. As a result, I didn't learn how to enjoy sex and feel sexy but rather played a game of trying to look it.

Example Two:
I'm older with the fantasy I'm about to share and have been molested by my stepdad. A common fantasy, and I'm fairly common, is to take control of the abuse via fantasy. I created a story in my mind where my stepdad brought a business partner home and, while my stepdad was upstairs changing out of his work suit, I was downstairs seducing the partner. Sometimes the partner was a man, sometimes a woman, always the point was I had the control and the partner could not say no. I would threaten and seduce them, again I imagined myself impossibly sexy, and they had no power. The point was it was my idea. It was me doing it to them.

There aren't a lot of layers to this one. Undressing it doesn't give us a lot to play with. But for our purposes I'll mention I edited it, created a similar situation but where I was not forcing control on another person. Admittedly, I kept the age difference for naughty effect. Sometimes I imagined myself the younger player, other times the older one. Always, the character of me in the fantasy remained impossibly (and I mean, impossibly) sexy. (By the way: I say impossibly sexy because in my fantasies I am sexy in the opinion of anyone and I cannot be resisted. Which is impossible. Also, I don't actually picture people when I fantasize, I picture shapes and contours. Mine just happen to be impossibly sexy.)

Example Three:
I'm going to share a fantasy that didn't belong to me but, instead, to my youngest brother. He imagined a young boy wanting to touch him, kiss him, look at him like he's smart. My brother would imagine touching the boy in return, softly, rubbing him and whispering to him, being the one in the room who is smart and adult. He would imagine, along with the touching, shapes that pleased him. My brother reacts strongly to shapes.

My youngest brother - my mom adopted him when he was a little over a year old - has fetal alcohol syndrome, had autism, has social struggles. He lives alone, works alone, is sweet but also annoying thanks to his lack of social skills. He's handsome, has been raped in his own apartment and threatened with a gun, has no lasting legitimate friends (he is often taken advantage of) and he wants to be touched softly and seen as smart.

My brother worried he was a monster because of this fantasy. But it is a common fantasy. It might be one of the more common things about my brother. His willingness to talk about it has helped us find what the true naked needs are and find safer ways to seek them out. He shifted parts of the fantasy. The shapes remain.

I was able to shift my own fantasy in an important way, making the sex more mutual. But my need to be so impossibly sexy in these fantasies proves difficult. It is stubborn. However, even though I haven't shifted it, knowing it is there and understanding how big it is for me has helped. I know it is an impossible thing to be, and I know I want it, so I allow it in my mind and let go of it (mostly) in my life. And even though lately I'm feeling it again (I'm in a new relationship that is particularly sexy to me) it is clearly not something I need but something I like to imagine. Lucky for me, my man looks at me as if I am, indeed, impossibly sexy.

So, undress your fantasies. Peel off each sexy layer to reveal the naked workings. Explore why you get turned on by what you get turned on by. For that matter, pay attention to what turns you off as well. (Random example: I am turned off by seeing someone being turned on by live action porn. Not pornographic paintings or stories, but the live action stuff. Why? A few reasons but largely because I'm insecure about my ability to look sexy in that way, and since it doesn't look sexy to me I don't even know what exactly to be insecure about, and I know there is work done on the bodies of the people on the screen and I don't want work done on my body and I don't believe we should be looking at so many sculpted and shaved bodies but should instead be enjoying the ones we have naturally umm, there's more. The main point is, I know it is a personal reaction, not right or wrong. I know what turns me off, why it turns me off, when it is important to me vs when it is not. That might be as important as exploring what turns us on.)

Undress your fantasies and don't judge what you find. Don't judge your desires. These connections began when you were little and unaware of cruel, kind, what hurts who, victim, abuser. Don't judge your turn offs. They are largely personal and connected to beliefs you built and can unbuild or reinforce.

But do look. Do be honest with yourself.

Do be willing to make changes. It's certain you should. We all should.

Don't be ashamed. And do allow inappropriateness. Be naughty in your mind if it's fun.

Allow it. Play with it, edit and critique your stories and mind pictures.

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(Continued...)

Undress your fantasies.

Layer by layer.

Reveal yourself.

Truly naked.

Author Credentials:

Tsara Shelton, author of Spinning in Circles and Learning From Myself, is a contributing editor to SexualDiversity.org

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