Sexual Fantasies - By Breett Kahr

Sexual fantasies: All in the mind
The psychotherapist Brett Kahr has studied more than 19,000 sexual fantasies as part of the largest sex survey of Britons. In an extract from his new book, he reveals the facts behind the fantasy

The preliminary results of the pilot clinical interviews and the pilot computer survey of the British Sexual Fantasy Research Project helped me to appreciate a number of key findings.
The vast majority of British adults do fantasise, indeed, quite frequently.

- Paradoxically, however, most adults never share their fantasies with anyone else, in part because of the great shame involved, as well as the great guilt involved, since most fantasies revolve around someone other than one’s current long-term partner.

-Many fantasies contain strong imagery of sadism, masochism and other forms of harm. If any of us could manage to put many of our more aggressive fantasies into practice, we would end up in prison.

- Contrary to expectations, a surprisingly small percentage of our fantasies concern so called celebrities (entertainers, sports personalities and politicians). Most of us will fantasise about people whom we know, or in many instances about people whom we “create” in our mind, especially so that we may coopt them to participate in our often subversive, sadistic or masochistic internal dramas.

- In spite of the widespread fears of relating one’s sexual fantasies to one’s regular partner, the preliminary survey revealed that a great many people expressed a keen interest to discuss their sexual fantasies with a qualified mental health professional, thus suggesting a certain amount of curiosity or, perhaps, concern about the content of their sexual fantasies.

What is a sexual fantasy?
Sexual fantasy may be defined as an image, a thought or a fully elaborated drama which passes through our mind principally during sexual activity, either coital or masturba-tory, often resulting in orgasm. Sexual fantasies must be distinguished from sexual daydreams or fleeting sexual thoughts. Sexual fantasies may be very simple or highly complex, may be tender or sadistic and may cause us psychological pleasure or psychological pain. In general, we keep our sexual fantasies hidden from our partners, and even from our psychotherapists or other confidants.


What constitutes a “normal” sexual fantasy?
Having now studied more than 19,000 British sexual fantasies, I cannot identify a so-called “normal” fantasy. It would be far too facile to describe as normal only those fantasies involving loving, genital intercourse with one’s long-term partner or spouse. I interviewed many happily married people who harboured very aggressive fantasies — often about their beloved spouses, in fact. On the basis of the data, I must conclude that the British mind contains much diversity and complexity and, therefore, speaking about a “normal” fantasy may well be meaningless.

Why do we have sexual fantasies?
We don’t know how and why sexual fantasies developed. Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that sexual fantasies contribute to the facilitation of sexual arousal, which, in turn, facilitates procreation. Thus sexual fantasies may play an important, previously unrecognised, role in the continued propagation of the human species. Freudian psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, by contrast, have speculated that our fantasies may have developed as a means both of gratifying wishes and of conquering intrusive memories of early traumatic experiences.

What purpose do our sexual fantasies serve?
There are many reasons why we might fantasise, from wish-fulfilment and mastery of trauma to self-medication against pain, to the elaboration of childhood play. For many, fantasies remain an unending source of fun and enjoyment; for others, they are a constant reminder of early injuries. For many, fantasies will provide pleasure and pain simultaneously.

Does everybody have sexual fantasies?
According to psychoanalytical clinicians, everyone has unconscious fantasy structures — in other words, subterranean tendencies to have certain preferences or to act in certain predictable ways (sadistically, masochistically, depressively, and so forth). In most adults, these unconscious fantasy structures will find representation in our conscious sexual fantasies, which occur during masturbation or during intercourse with a partner. According to the British Sexual Fantasy Research Project, at least 90 per cent of all British adults will experience daydreams, which may or may not be sexual. As for sexual fantasies, the data reveals that approximately 96 per cent of British adult males and about 90 per cent of females report having sexual fantasies. These may well be conservative figures, as I have met many individuals over the years who profess, on first questioning, to have no sexual fantasies but later, often during the course of psychotherapy, will admit to fantasising in a sexual manner.

Should we ever share our fantasies with our partners?
I cannot provide a definitive answer to this most complex of questions. There are cases where partners seem to have benefited from having discussed their sexual fantasies with one another, but some couples experienced great distress on learning of one another’s truest fantasies. Some couples have claimed that risking self-disclosure about such intimate matters promotes further emotional trust and union. Much will depend, of course, on the preexisting strength of the couple’s attachment to one another. Above all, one must proceed with thoughtfulness.

Should we ever share our fantasies with our friends?
Often, it might feel rather less exposing and rather more manageable to share fantasies with friends than with partners. I know of many men, for example, who would not hesitate to talk about extramarital affairs or rape fantasies with their friends at a Friday-night poker game, but who would never dream of discussing such fantasies with their female partners for fear of causing outrage or offence. Similarly, I have interviewed a number of women who have shared fantasies with their girlfriends, particularly those involving men with extremely large genitals, but who would not impart this to their husbands or boyfriends for fear of promoting feelings of inadequacy. Although entrusting one’s fantasies to a friend may be an act of great faith and may serve to enrich the friendship, one must remember that friendships can, and often do, sour, sometimes promoting paranoid anxieties that promises of confidentiality will be broken along with the friendship.

Can our fantasies ever be damaging or dangerous?
In some instances, sadistic fantasies can serve as stepping stones to sadistic actions. My colleagues and I in the forensic mental health field know of many cases of patients whose criminal careers began in their own minds. Once, years ago, I had the opportunity to interview a psychotic serial killer in a maximum-security setting. I learnt that before his incarceration this man could make love to his wife only if he fantasised about clutching a switchblade knife. Some years previously he had embarked on a killing spree, using a knife as his weapon, causing carnage. Of course, not all examples will be nearly as dramatic as this, but nonetheless fantasies can damage us by reinforcing self-destructive patterns of behaviour and thought.

Would it be wise to act out our sexual fantasies with our lovers?
Acting out fantasies requires a great deal of compassion, creativity and trust on behalf of the partnership, and I have seen a number of marriages founder when such role-plays have gone awry. Certainly psychotherapists would recommend much consideration before enacting a sexual fantasy scenario, bearing in mind that a fantasy and a reality might be experienced rather differently. One must also be prepared for some surprises. I recently interviewed a woman who indulged her husband’s wish to spank her and call her a “bitch”. When the husband described the potential scenario, the wife became excited and offered her consent. But when the couple actually brought this fantasy to life, the wife felt “cheapened” and “revolted” and deeply regretted her decision. For many, the fantasy excites precisely because it will never be enacted.

If we have very outlandish fantasies, does this mean that we must be mentally unbalanced?
Those individuals who present very elaborate and complex fantasies come from every walk of life. Among the clinical interviewees whose fantasies could be described as “outlandish” I detected no traces of formal mental illness. In fact, the most psychologically troubled participant in the interview group had, in fact, the least complex and least intricate fantasies of all the many research participants.

If we fantasise about someone other than our partner during sex or masturbation, does that mean that our relationship could be in trouble?
If we find ourselves in the grip of an intramarital affair fantasy, this does not necessarily prove that our relationship must be in trouble; however, the intramarital affair may be a harbinger of subsequent marital difficulties. By fantasising about someone other than our regular partner, our unconscious mind will have generated an opportunity for us to examine our relationship — an opportunity to inquire privately and honestly whether there may be difficulties that have propelled us into the arms of a lover conjured up by fantasy.

If we fantasise about something “illegal”, does this mean that we may be at risk of acting it out?
Fortunately, fantasy often exerts a hugely containing function for the human mind and, as a result, we manage to encapsulate some of the more aggressive and destructive aspects of our personalities in the fantasy content. I talked to many doctors, priests, social workers, nurses and other members of the “caring professions” who had very violent fantasies that they had never enacted and will never enact. If the fantasy becomes perverse — in other words, unmiti-gatedly sadistic, repeated compulsively and unceasingly — then it would represent a somewhat higher risk of ultimate enactment. However, mercifully, even those with compelling perverse paedophilic fantasies, for example, will often refrain from ever harming children in real life. If one finds oneself struggling with “illegal” fantasies about cruelty and torture, this may indicate a severe difficulty with aggression based on childhood trauma, and in such instances it might be prudent to consult a qualified mental health professional, especially if one has worries about the likelihood of an eventual enactment.

How can we explain the range of fantasies?
Why do some people prefer to be kissed and cradled while others enjoy inflicting pain? I have two answers to this question. In large measure, the content and structure of our fantasies will depend on the nature of our infantile and childhood experiences.
Those who have experienced a great deal of childhood trauma will be more prone to regular fantasies of sadism. Some individuals with horrifically abusive histories do have tender fantasies but only because, in my estimation, they enact their abusiveness in real-life destructive activities. I have, however, met many people with relatively stable histories who nonetheless have lurid fantasies — so one must allow for the possibility that aggressively tinged fantasies can result not only from primary trauma but also from creativity and from the capacity to allow oneself to regress to a more primitive mental state without becoming fixated at an infantile level of functioning.
In other words, most aggressive and destructive fantasies stem from early abuse, but in some cases they might represent a developmental achievement, the fantasiser having acquired the capacity to expand his or her mind to encompass a variety of experiences without acting them out.

Can we ever change our fantasies?
For the most part, my clinical data indicates that fantasy structures remain reasonably constant throughout adult life; however, changes in the emotional state of one’s intimate relationship can either fuel or quell particular fantasy constellations.
One of my patients, a law-abiding male, had very aggressive masturbatory fantasies about raping women, yet these fantasies became prominent only when he fought with his wife. During periods of marital contentment the patient seemed to have much less need to masturbate to his rape fantasies. One should also mention, perhaps, what I have come to call the “Krakatoa Complex”, a phenomenon whereby some external or internal event will serve as a trigger, opening up a whole new world of fantasy possibilities that have lain dormant.

How often do we lie about our sexual fantasies?
In retrospect, I wish I had included a question of this nature as part of my computer-ad-ministered survey for the British Sexual Fantasy Research Project. I do not know the answer, although on the basis of my clinical work I suspect that human beings lie quite regularly about their fantasies. I remain impressed by the number of times that men and women to whom I spoke prefaced their discussion of sexual fantasies with the qualifying phrase “I’ve never told this to anyone before”. I certainly noted a distinction between “true fantasies” and “pub fantasies”.
A man in a pub sharing a fantasy with his friends may well be telling the truth when he reports a wish to have sex with Britney Spears — but in most instances his report of the fantasy will stop at this point, devoid of the more revealing details of what he wishes to do to or with Britney Spears, or what he wants her to do to him. In Britain, sexual fantasy remains a relatively taboo area of discourse.

Do we control our fantasies or do they control us?
This could be described as the $64,000 question, the subject of much controversy in psychological and sexological circles. As a psychotherapist I have met too many people over the years whose fantasies have troubled them (because of religious prohibitions, parental prohibitions, repetitions of early sexual abuse or any combination thereof) and who have desperately attempted to erase these sexual fantasies from their minds; but in virtually every case the fantasies continued to erupt into consciousness and could not readily be avoided. Certainly, highly traumatised individuals have little conscious control over their fantasies. On the whole, I have found that we may not be the ultimate architects of our sexual fantasy lives, much as we may wish to be. As a young gay male patient once reported: “If I could be straight, I would. Life would be so much easier and my parents would be cooler about everything. But I can’t. I just can’t fantasise about women. So that’s that.”

One should allow for the possibility that, while some Britons may be able to sculpt their erotic lives, for many their erotic propensities will sculpt them.

Extracted from Sex and the Psyche by Brett Kahr, published by Allen Lane on February 22 at £25. © Brett Kahr 2007 www.penguin.co.uk. Available for £22.50 (including p&p) from Times BooksFirst: call 0870 1608080; timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy Brett Kahr will discuss the origins and meaning of contemporary sexual fantasies with Rowan Pelling, the former editor of The Erotic Review, the clinical psychologist Oliver James and the novelist Joanna Briscoe at the ICA, London, on Monday, March 5 at 8.30pm. Box office: 020-7930 3647 www.ica.org.uk Men on our minds...