4

From the Conventional to the Bizarre: Interpreting Sexual Fantasies

O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!…

—Cleopatra, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

I’ve tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic and the others give me a stiff neck or lock-jaw.

—Sophie Tucker

 

When I first began writing this book, several people asked me if I was going to include some kind of glossary in which people could look up their sexual fantasies and find out what they meant. I imagined that such a glossary would resemble the old-fashioned “dream books,” popular in the early days of psychoanalysis, in which the symbolic meanings of various elements of a dream were indexed and interpreted. If someone wanted to know why he or she dreamt of snakes, that person could look up “snakes” and perhaps learn something like “snakes are phallic symbols.” I initially cringed at the suggestion that I include a similar type of index because I believe that such a cookbook of interpretations, whether it involves elements of a dream or a fantasy, is fundamentally misleading. One of the main principles that guides my work is that the meaning of something “depends on the patient.” The meaning of a thought, feeling, or behavior is intrinsically subjective and idiosyncratic, and it is the job of the therapist to understand the world from the patient’s point of view, not according to some objective formula. A snake never always means any one thing. Nor can a sexual fantasy of domination be assumed always to mean the same thing. It might be intended to overcome guilt in one patient’s psyche, be a way of feeling special in another’s, and be a method of overcoming helplessness in the mind of yet another person. When I am sitting with a patient in my consulting room, there are few universal explanations of anything. It almost always “depends on the patient.”

On the other hand, a theory is no good if it can’t generate generalizations. I have proposed a theory of sexual excitement that I think can be applied to everyone’s fantasies and preferences. As a result of applying this theory to the fantasies of a great many patients, my own and those of other therapists, some broad patterns have emerged. Some fantasies regularly seem to be attempts to deal with guilt, some with shame, rejection, and helplessness, and some with problems of identification. It is possible to make certain broad correlations between a fantasy and its likely meaning. An erotic fantasy of being humiliated, for example, is usually created as an attempt to master unconscious feelings of guilt. Knowing this gives us a start in understanding the meaning of such a fantasy when we encounter it.

Bearing in mind that we cannot determine the precise meaning of a fantasy without knowing a lot about the fantasizer, I am going to briefly describe a wide range of fantasies and offer an explanation of what they probably mean, educated guesses based both on my clinical experience and theory. Most of these fantasies, however, did not arise in clinical situations, but were gathered from the Internet or from various collections of erotic stories. They are not presented as “cases” in which relevant family background was available or in which a therapist had the chance to conduct a serious inquiry into their meaning. Instead of an in-depth analysis of a small number of cases my intent here is to present the barest outlines of a large number of fantasies gathered from nonclinical sources, snapshots that sample some of the amazing range of creative scenarios that the human mind produces and employs in the interest of achieving pleasure.

How is it that a woman can get sexually aroused by the fantasy or reality of being slowly asphyxiated, or a man by wearing panties, or a woman by being led around by a leash? How can someone imagine or enact a situation of being urinated or defecated on and be sexually excited and not repulsed? What could it possibly be about being diapered or having one’s wife be raped in one’s presence that turns some people on?

The fact that these scenes could produce sexual excitement seems bizarre and incomprehensible at first glance, and yet, armed with the particular theory of sexual arousal offered in this book, we can make some good educated guesses as to their meaning. Therefore, the following list of fantasies and their possible explanations are not only intended to be a useful starting place in understanding such fantasies in the real world, but also will demonstrate the versatility, power, and efficiency of this special approach to sexual arousal.

Sadomasochistic Fantasies

MASOCHISM AND SEXUAL AROUSAL

Sexual sadomasochism is a state of mind in which scenarios—in fantasy or in reality—of pain, devaluation, humiliation, or helplessness cause arousal. We will first examine the experience of sadomasochistic excitement from the point of view of the masochist.

In order to convey the almost infinite range of masochistic fantasies that the human mind can create, I want to list and discuss a sample of postings I recently found on an Internet bulletin board, a place where people can offer opinions on a particular subject by typing and then “posting” them and inviting other visitors to the site to respond to these postings. A peculiar type of conversation gradually emerges. This particular bulletin board is dedicated to sexual fantasies. Each posting has a title, limited to a few words, that suggests the broader fantasy that will follow if the viewer clicks on and opens it. Each title is then followed by the pseudonym of the person doing the posting.

The following titles and pseudonyms were listed exactly as they recently appeared on this web site:

My Hot Wife, by Cuckold

Fuck My Ass with Your Huge Cock, by Chris

Looking for Girls to Take a Walk on My Body, by Doormat-Girl

See Me Obey? by Ass Man

Human Toilet for Women, by maleslave

Looking to Be Used, by Tina

Diapers a Turn-On, by Son

Women Kicking Men in the Balls, by John

I Want to Kiss My Lady’s Ass, by Per

Bent over a Chair, by Jenni

I Need Some Blow, by Dope Fucked Slut

Sniffing Butts, by Brian

Humiliation, by Sara

I Want to Be a Slave to a Woman’s Cunt, by Aaron

Situation Wanted: Houseboy, by Terri

Need a Rough Guy, by Anonymous

Public Pussy Shaving, by Ellen

Searching for a Spanking, by Chris

Hypnotize Me, by Simone

I Like to Smell Girl’s Bicycle Seats, by Dingleberry David

Girls—Have You Ever Pinned Someone Down and…? by Greg

Forced Feminization, by Matt

Each of these titles represents a different fantasy, a different scenario that the writer finds arousing, and yet they all share the theme of pain, submission, or degradation. Some of them are shocking, others bizarre, and still others amusing. But they all function in exactly the same way, by counteracting certain beliefs or feelings that would otherwise make sexual arousal difficult.

Without knowing the life histories of the contributors to this bulletin board, I would nevertheless guess that their fantasies are attempts to deal with unconscious feelings of guilt. The mechanism is simple: by empowering someone else to hurt or degrade them, the writers reassure themselves that they are not the ones doing the hurting or degrading. The unconscious logic is a kind of perversion of the Golden Rule: Have others do unto you what you feel guilty about doing unto others. Since guilt inhibits sexual arousal, its diminution produces excitement. If someone is guilty about feeling superior to others, then a fantasy about being inferior is arousing because it eliminates any trace of the crime. If someone feels guilty about being strong, then a fantasy about being weak and helpless might appease the conscience enough to allow sexual excitement to emerge.

Let’s apply this general principle to the list of fantasies above. If a woman feels guilty about being stronger than men, the fantasies suggested by such titles as “Need a Rough Guy,” “Looking to Be Used,” “Searching for a Spanking,” or “Hypnotize Me” would negate that guilt. In these fantasies, the woman is used, roughed up, or rendered helpless, and therefore she is unconsciously reassured that she poses no threat to men about whom she could feel guilty. Since these fantasied situations eliminate her guilt, she can let herself fully express her powerful sexual feelings. If a man feels guilty about feeling superior to or critical of women, then fantasies of being degraded by a woman, such as “Human Toilet for Women,” “Women Kicking Men in the Balls,” “Girls—Have You Ever Pinned Someone Down and…?” or “I Want to Be a Slave to a Woman’s Cunt,” would probably be perfectly suited to easing his conscience. In these scenarios the man has unconsciously arranged to be the victim and not the victimizer, the degraded one and not the one feeling disdain. Since women are now safe from his scorn and criticism, he can let himself get aroused by them. The details of the fantasy sometimes offer clues as to which sin is being absolved. If the fantasy is about being humiliated, it may be that the person’s guilt is about feeling proud or superior. If the fantasy is about being rendered helpless, then the guilt might be about being too powerful.

Masochistic fantasies of all kinds tend to rest on psychological dynamics involving guilt. If a patient reported any of the fantasies listed above, I would be instantly alerted to the possibility that he or she was struggling with feelings of omnipotence, guilt, and worry. I would like now to examine, in more detail, several other variants of sexual masochism that we have not encountered thus far and that illustrate the workings of guilt in interesting ways.

GOLDEN OR BROWN SHOWERS

A small number of people, usually men, get aroused by the fantasy or actuality of someone, usually a woman, urinating or defecating on them. These scenarios are referred to as “golden showers” or “brown showers.” Since this activity is repulsive to most people, and its power to cause pleasure probably incomprehensible, it offers us a good example of how a theory of sexual excitement based on the concept of safety can easily explain the seemingly inexplicable. As with most masochistic fantasies, the central issue here is guilt. The manifest humiliation unconsciously expiates a deeper guilt. A boy who grows up feeling guilty about feeling contempt for or shame about his mother reverses this painful situation and makes himself the object of contempt and shameful degradation. Our language offers us a powerful way to represent symbolically the act of degrading another person—we say that we were “pissing” or “shitting” on that person. In the sexual fantasy or enactment, the man is pissed or shit on, rather than vice versa. Urine and feces become the symbolic representations of the feelings of hostility that were once directed at a woman but are now being received from one.

MEN WEARING WOMEN’S PANTIES

There are men who get sexually aroused, in reality or fantasy, by wearing women’s panties. The pattern often is that these men, in fantasy or reality, wear women’s panties underneath their traditional masculine clothes. The “secret” presence of the panties is sexually arousing. Consider some of these postings on the aforementioned sexual fantasy web site:

Stroking in Mom’s Silk Panties, by Ben

Hard in Panties, by Chris

Looking for Panty Play, by Jerking in Panties

Girls—Make Me Your Panty Slave, by Panty Guy

In Mom’s Panties and Bras, by Johnnie

Why are some men aroused by wearing panties? There is a high probability that the answer is that, instead of feeling guilty about their strength or selfishness, these men are attempting to overcome guilt about their masculinity. Sometimes this guilt resulted from growing up with a father who was weak and ineffectual or a mother who was unhappy and envied men. As boys such men might have had difficulty feeling proud of their masculinity, unconsciously worrying that such pride would hurt their parents. For example, if these mothers appeared burdened and downtrodden, their sons might grow up not only feeling guilty about being too separate but about feeling superior to them and, later, to women in general.

How does wearing women’s panties solve this particular problem of guilt? The mechanism is simple, but the logic is unconscious: by identifying with the very beings—women—about whom they feel guilty, these men are unconsciously absolved of their imagined sin of belonging to a different and (in their minds) preferable gender. Psychoanalysts call this mechanism “identification with the victim.” Since masculinity itself has become somehow equated with hurting women, men’s psyches come up with a creative solution: wearing panties. The panties function as an unconscious symbolic reassurance to women, originally their mothers, that these particular men are not different or superior. Wearing panties beneath masculine clothing becomes a creative compromise for such men, symbolically reassuring their mothers that the boy is their secret ally. “It’s all right, Mom,” the boy is unconsciously saying, “I’m only pretending to be a real man.” With their guilt alleviated, however, these men can get sexually aroused in a masculine way by getting an erection.

DIAPERED AND TREATED LIKE A BABY

Why would a grown man or woman want to be treated like a baby, humiliated by being diapered and treated as if he or she were utterly helpless? Yet sexual bulletin boards are littered with fantasies with such titles as “Baby-fied and Humiliated” and “Want to Breast-Feed.” I myself have seen two men in therapy who became aroused by the fantasy of being diapered and breast-fed. The key to these fantasies was the man’s imagined lack of responsibility. Like other masochistic fantasies, these scenarios of being treated like a baby by a strong and sexy mother unconsciously relieved the fantasizer of the responsibility of making the woman happy, a responsibility that he experienced as burdensome and enervating. A baby is supposed to be selfish and cared for, something that these men were too guilty to allow themselves to feel as children or adults.

Additionally, the fantasy of breast-feeding was arousing because it disconfirmed the man’s pathogenic belief that women didn’t—and couldn’t—want to give to him, but instead required his care and feeding. Being breast-fed symbolized a psychological situation in which the man allowed himself to take from and be given to by a woman without guilt or shame. This dynamic would be the same for women who enjoyed a similar fantasy of being infantilized. In its essence, it is not gender specific.

ASPHYXIATION FANTASIES

A very small number of people get aroused by the fantasy or enactment of a scenario in which they are being choked or in which their air supply is being cut off in some other way, as for instance, by having a plastic bag around their heads. This particular fantasy is seen more often in women than in men. Usually, the woman is being asphyxiated by a male partner who has the role of bringing the women right up to the edge of losing consciousness. Notwithstanding the fact that asphyxiation can produce sexual arousal on a purely physiological basis, in reading about these fantasies, the theme of helplessness is repeatedly mentioned. The women being choked, like the masochist being tied up, have relinquished control to another person.

Asphyxiation is an activity that is realistically dangerous but paradoxically functions on an unconscious level to establish the conditions of safety necessary for sexual arousal. While the conscious intent may be to endure and survive a dangerous state of helplessness, the unconscious intent is to overcome feelings of guilt and worry. In typically masochistic fashion, such people are likely giving omnipotent power over their lives to another person as a way of reversing and counteracting an internal tendency to feel omnipotent toward others. These people probably grew up struggling with guilty feelings of responsibility for others, feelings that made them feel too powerful and as a result overly worried about others. By reversing the situation and rendering themselves helpless and in the complete control of someone else, they can stop worrying and get excited.

DOMINANCE AND SEXUAL AROUSAL

For every masochistic fantasy or behavior, there is a real or imaginary sadist lurking in the wings. For every fantasy in which one person is aroused by being degraded, hurt, or made helpless, there is someone in a complementary role doing the degrading, hurting, or dominating. When Simone titles her fantasy “Hypnotize Me,” she needs a hypnotist to make it work. When Chris asks someone to “Fuck Me in the Butt with Your Hard Cock,” the complementary role is obvious. If Aaron wants to be “A Slave to a Woman’s Cunt” or John to be “Kicked in the Balls by a Woman,” they require women who get turned on by slaves or who like to kick men where they are most vulnerable. When people post a masochistic fantasy, they are fishing for someone with a complementary fantasy. When they find one, a conversation results, a fantasy is created or enacted, and sexual pleasure results.

Interestingly, the same bulletin board from which I culled the prior list of masochistic fantasies did not contain quite as many overtly sadistic or domination fantasies. There were a few:

Wife as My Slave, by Joe

At the Slave Auction, by Merlin

I Can Control Any Man, by Caitlin

Spank, by Punisher

Punishing My Slut Daughter, by Big John

Slave for Sale, by Boss

I think that one of the reasons visitors to this site were less likely to state explicitly wishes to dominate than to respond to the explicit invitations of masochists is that one of the key ingredients of a successful domination fantasy is that the person being dominated or enslaved is aroused by the process. The overwhelming majority of sexually sadistic fantasies, scenarios involving forcing others to submit, hurting, humiliating, or even torturing them, require the real or imagined pleasure of the victim in order to be arousing. Therefore, it is psychologically safer to respond to a masochistic overture than it is publicly to demand one. The man who enjoys a rape fantasy, or enacts one with his partner, needs to feel that the other person is aroused and therefore not really injured. The master rules only with the consent of the slave, and this consent is most powerfully conveyed by the slave’s sexual excitement.

Thus, when I hear about a sadomasochistic fantasy from the point of view of the dominant party, I think that there is a high probability that the person is struggling, just like the masochist, to overcome problems with guilt. The key to understanding this process is to remember that the sadist, master, or “top” is inflicting pain and abuse on a victim who, in reality, doesn’t actually feel victimized—who instead is sexually aroused. Since there is no true victim, there is no crime. Domination fantasies in which the victim is not only not hurt but sexually aroused powerfully disconfirm our guilty beliefs and as a result free up our sexual excitement. Let us analyze several variations on this theme.

RAPE FANTASIES

Common among men, and infrequent among women, these fantasies involve raping or sexually overpowering a partner, usually a woman. The woman objects at first, but then comes to like it. By the end, she is sexually ecstatic and a full participant in the sex. The meaning of this fantasy is that the person doing the raping is attempting to master feelings of guilt about hurting others, usually women, and so creates a fantasy in which he appears to be hurting her but really isn’t. The woman welcomes his aggression and isn’t hurt by it.

There is, however, another type of rape fantasy among men that does not depend at all on the woman’s arousal. In these fantasies the erotic charge is connected to actually hurting the woman. They are arousing not because they overcome guilt, but because the man has the power to hurt and frighten a woman. This may well be the fantasy that most frequently accompanies actual rape. It is easy to see how the idea of female arousal during a rape fantasy can counteract a man’s guilt about hurting women. But how can our theory account for those cases in which her real pain and fear are required for actual arousal?

One important psychological issue in these situations usually involves what psychoanalysts call an “identification with the aggressor.” The rapist, in fantasy or reality, is doing to the woman what he has experienced on some level being done to him. She is getting hurt, not he. She is helpless, not he. If a man grows up having experienced himself as the helpless victim of the ruthless and frightening attacks of a more powerful person—for example, a parent—then that man will grow up with a powerful obstacle to being sexually connected to another person. Helplessness and fear, as we know, are inimical to sexual arousal. By turning the psychological tables, by being the one who is violently frightening and violating rather than frightened and violated, such a man can feel momentarily relieved of this obstacle and feel safe enough to get aroused. A man who enjoys a woman’s actual pain without any fantasy that the woman is secretly enjoying it is likely a man who has somehow been, in his most intimate relationships growing up, victimized, humiliated, or wounded.

The second dynamic often seen in these types of fantasies is survivor or separation guilt. The perpetrator identifies with a sadistic parent because of an unconscious belief that he is not supposed to be healthier, i.e., less cruel, than that parent. For such a man, loving instead of hurting, symbolically represents a condemnation of and triumph over the parent. In these cases violence is a distorted form of loyalty.

MASTER/SLAVE RELATIONSHIPS

Similar to a rape fantasy, a master/slave relationship is just what it says. The person enacting the role of “master” has total control and power over his or her slave. This fantasy can be acted out in elaborate rituals in the real world or simply imagined. The psychological dynamics, though, are similar to those behind the type of rape fantasy in which the victim gets aroused, namely that the master is acting in an entirely selfish and ruthless manner without any real negative consequences. The slaves ask for a master, seek one out, and enjoy it. The master gets to be aggressively self-serving without a pang of conscience. Guilt is overcome, and sexual pleasure is the reward.

However, master/slave relationships contain another dynamic as well, one that is crucial to many sexual fantasies. The master and slave provide each other with a special kind of attention and recognition that counteracts an internal sense of being unimportant, invisible, and without value. For the master, the slave’s devotion is evidence that he or she is important, the center of the slave’s world. For the slave, the master’s attention—even if this attention involves figuring out the precise manner in which pain and degradation are to be inflicted—makes the slave feel that he or she is important enough for the master to want to control or hurt. People prefer to be the object of negative attention rather than be invisible. In the master/slave relationship, in whatever form it is constructed, an intense bond between the two parties counteracts feelings of insignificance and loneliness.

INCEST FANTASIES

Incest fantasies are common. To the extent that they are acted out in the real world, they are invariably destructive to the child. In real life, childhood victims of incest grow up feeling responsible for their own violation, “bad” for having “provoked” it, worthless because they weren’t protected, confused about personal boundaries, and often prone to reenact such abuse with their own children. Incest fantasies, however, are not necessarily so destructive. They are usually never acted out and may simply be attempts to overcome conflicts involving guilt and recognition, just as we saw in domination/submission fantasies.

It is crucial here to differentiate between a fantasy that is directly destructive to another person because it is enacted—for example, incest—and a similar fantasy that may very well reflect the fantasizer’s psychopathology that is kept private. Obviously, such psychopathology may hurt other people in various ways, but in the present instance I’m distinguishing between a fantasy that is directly harmful when acted on and one that is only privately entertained. In both cases, sexual excitement results from the negation of pathogenic beliefs. I will take up in more detail the issue of private verses enacted fantasies—what accounts for the difference and its moral and psychological ramifications—in chapter 7 and the “Conclusion.”

Incest fantasies take many forms. Sometimes they involve a stepparent or stepchild, enabling the fantasies to circumvent prohibitions against “real” incest. In father/daughter fantasies, whether constructed from the point of view of the father or the daughter, there are often themes of punishment. The daughter has been “bad” and needs to be punished. Sometimes the daughter is replaced by a baby-sitter. The plots vary. Often, either the parent or child is “accidentally” discovered naked, or masturbating, or in some other lewd or lascivious state. Similarly, with mother/son incest there are many variations. The mom may be a neighbor’s mother or the son a neighbor’s son. The son may be a delivery boy or the “mom” figure a much older sister. Sometimes the mother surprises the boy and finds him masturbating or reading pornography. Other times the boy surprises the mother in the bathroom or sunbathing. The following fantasies appeared on an Internet bulletin board of sexual fantasies:

Daughter’s Slumber Party, by Mr J

Honey! I Know That You Sleep in the Nude, by Stepdad

Baby-Sitter Fantasy, by Single Father

Neighbor’s Kinky Daughter, by Mr. Smitts

Mom in a Thong, by Geoff

Mom, Are You Almost Ready? by Kevin

Mrs. Robinson, by Benjamin

Mom’s Boyfriend, by Angie

I Would Love to Rip My Mom’s … by Son

Daddyluv, by Kitty

Young Lady Ditching School, by Horny Neighbor

The content of most of these fantasies is self-evident. But what are their meanings? In many cases the meaning involves a complicated attempt to overcome not only guilt but feelings of rejection. A man’s incest fantasy of a sexy, seductive mother or mother figure may, on the one hand, counteract his real or imagined experience of a grim and depressed mother around whom the man, as a boy, felt worried, guilty, and responsible. He creates a fantasy of a mother who is sexy and alive. We can see, however, that the incest fantasy simultaneously disproves feelings of neglect and rejection in the man because the fantasy mother is getting aroused in a special way by her son, responding intensely to him, and only him, in a way that the real mother never did. The maternal incest fantasy takes care of two feeling states that normally dampen sexual desire—guilt and neglect. As a result, the fantasy enables the man to get excited.

For the mother expressing incestuous wishes toward her son, or a son-substitute, such as a neighbor boy, the function of her fantasy is similarly twofold. On the one hand, the son—inexperienced, full of hormonal pressures, and under the sway of the mother’s authority—reassures the mother against fears of rejection. The son is enthralled and seduced by the mother’s womanly sexuality and isn’t in a position to be “choosy.” On the other hand, the son’s youth conveys a sexual vitality and inexhaustible carnal desire that counteracts the woman’s worries and guilt about draining a man her own age. The boy is full of sexual vigor, and as a result, she is too.

Similarly, fathers’ incest fantasies about their daughters or daughter-figures carry similar mixed meanings. The girls are nubile and inexperienced, open to whatever the father, or father figure, can teach them. The men are therefore unconsciously reassured against the dangers of failure, of disappointing their partners in the same way that they might feel with their wives or that they might have felt with their mothers. The daughter looks up to him and is eager to take whatever he gives her. At the same time, just as the boy’s fantasy about a sexy mother counteracts the effects of having a grim one in the real world, so, too, the father’s fantasy of a sexy daughter counteracts the same kind of debilitating experience of worry and guilt for unhappy mothers and women in real life. Sexy women, whether in the role of mothers or daughters, enable the man to disconfirm his pathogenic beliefs about women, beliefs that hold his sexuality in check. The result is the flowering of sexual pleasure.

Finally, for the woman imagining herself having sex with a father figure, either in the present or through her identification with a young and sexy daughter figure, the issues are familiar ones. In these fantasies the father is filled with desire for the daughter, providing in the process a powerful current of reassurance to the girl that she is special and valuable. This counteracts real or imagined experiences of rejection, experiences that would have given rise to feelings of worthlessness. In addition, because the father figure is portrayed as so powerful, the girl—and woman—can let go of her guilt-based sexual constraints and freely express her excitement without worrying about hurting the man.

Homosexual incest fantasies can be understood in similar terms. Male sexual fantasies involving a father or father figure can provide unconscious reassurances on a number of levels. The sexual attention of a powerful man reassures the fantasizer that he is special. It is a connection that helps protect him from an anxiety-provoking or otherwise uncomfortable closeness with the mother, thus providing a sense of psychological safety that makes sexual arousal possible. Such a man might feel endangered by worry or guilty in relation to women and feel relieved by his special connection with an older, stronger man. Similarly, a woman who imagines sex with an older woman/mother figure may be looking for someone who is strong and sexual in order to counteract experiences with a real mother who is weak and grim. The sexy mother in fantasy replaces the repressed one in reality and, as a result, makes sexual arousal possible.

MULTIPLE PARTNERS

Three is not a crowd when it comes to sexual fantasy. Some variation of group sex is a common fantasy, particularly among men. The ménage à trois has been enshrined in popular culture as an expression par excellence of sexual hedonism. But when we really study these fantasies, we realize there are many variations possible on the theme of group sex, and each may have a slightly different meaning. Among the possible variations with which people play in their imaginations are:

1. A man imagining having sex with two women.

2. A man imagining having sex with another man and a woman.

3. A woman imagining having sex with two men.

4. A woman imagining having sex with another woman and a man.

5. A man watching two women have sex.

6. A man watching a man and a woman have sex.

7. A man watching two men have sex.

8. A woman watching two women have sex.

9. A woman watching a man and woman have sex.

10. A woman watching two men have sex.

The predominantly heterosexual sexual fantasy bulletin board that I’ve been quoting from to illustrate the wide variety of sexual daydreams found in the general population contains several variations on the ménage à trois:

I Want to Suck Your Hubby’s Load from Your Pussy, by Jim

Would You Fuck My Wife? by Husband

Watching Hubby’s Cock Slide into Your Pussy, by Denise

My Husband Wants Me to Fuck Dan. Anyone Game? by Anna

I Come Home Early and See My Wife…, by B

Two Friends Stripping My Wife, by Monty

Thus, there are many permutations of the theme of group sex that appear in sexual fantasies, and while there are significant overlaps, there are often subtly different meanings connected to each one. Jim’s thrill comes from interacting at least as much with another man as with a woman. “Husband” and “B” want to watch their wives being “fucked” by another man (Monty even imagines that there are two of them) rather than participate in it. Denise seems to be primarily focused on watching another woman be penetrated by her husband, while Anna’s sexual aim is to have sex with another man in her husband’s presence. Sometimes the scene is embroidered by various important plot devices. The man getting aroused by watching a man and woman have sex might specifically prefer that the woman be his wife, or that she be raped, or even that there be more than one man. A woman who is aroused by the fantasy of being with two men might construct a scenario in which her husband is “asleep,” and she has sex with another man in her husband’s presence.

What are the meanings of group sex fantasies? In my experience there are usually one or more of the following unconscious aims behind these scenarios.

First, the presence of more than one partner may simply mean that one is getting at least double the attention. As the focus of the sexual ministrations and energy of multiple partners, the fantasizer powerfully disconfirms the pathogenic belief that he or she doesn’t deserve to be admired, catered to, or loved. Fantasies of group sex are reassuring and, therefore, momentarily liberating.

Second, the presence of more than one partner can mitigate the guilt that some people feel about burdening their partners with their sexual appetites. A woman who feels guilty about the strength of her own desire can let go of her sexual constraints if there is more than one partner to “handle” her. A man who worries about hurting a woman with his sexual ruthlessness can reassure his conscience if the power of his sexual energy is absorbed by multiple partners.

Third, when a heterosexual man imagines being with another man and a woman in bed, he may be attempting to master burdensome feelings of responsibility for women, guilty beliefs that he’s supposed to satisfy women and make them happy. If another man joins him in bed, he doesn’t have to shoulder the burden by himself—the weight of responsibility is shared with someone else. Similarly, if such a man gets aroused by simply watching a couple have sex, I think that he is dealing with the same issue, but once removed. In this case, the voyeur can imagine that he’s the man having sex. Since he’s actually not, he is free from the responsibility that he imagines goes along with sexually satisfying a woman. He gets to have sex without worry or guilt. The same dynamic can apply to a heterosexual woman imagining having sex with another woman and a man or watching this other couple have sex.

Fourth, given that one’s responsibility for sexually pleasing others is diminished, the danger of rejection is correspondingly lessened. If ensuring the other person’s satisfaction is a team effort, then one’s own contribution is less likely to be singled out and criticized. Diffusing responsibility diffuses not only blame, but the danger of being rejected.

Fifth, many men get aroused by the depiction of two women having sex. Most heterosexual pornography has at least one obligatory lesbian sex scene. Although some analysts argue that this scenario invites and evokes the feminine or even homosexual longings in many heterosexual men—the male voyeur is identifying with one of the women in the scenario—I believe that the role of guilt and worry might be even more important here in several ways.

Just as in the case of a man getting aroused by watching a heterosexual couple have sex, the man who gets aroused by the sight of a lesbian couple can identify with each of the parties but without the guilty burden and obligation of pleasing anyone. He’s not directly involved and so can’t fail. Further, the fact that there is no man to be found in the scene makes it safer for the male voyeur to identify with one or both of the women because many men unconsciously believe that women feel ambivalent about men to begin with. When a man is watching two women have sex, he can enjoy a pleasurable fantasy of having sex with a woman without having to worry about any untoward effects of his own masculinity. The women can’t be provoked by masculinity because it is absent.

Sixth, if a man or woman has homosexual desires but feels guilty about them, watching or participating in group sex can be a way to circumvent this guilt. Watching a heterosexual couple have sex or imagining participating in sex with them opens up multiple opportunities for identification. A man might identify with the woman having sex with a man, a woman with the man having sex with a woman. However, because the scene is scripted as explicitly heterosexual, the fantasizer can trick his or her conscience into overlooking the real homosexual longings that are being gratified.

GANG RAPE

Heterosexual gang rape is as underreported as rape for the same reasons as rape in general—the victims feel ashamed, and the justice system discourages reporting. The fantasy of gang rape, however, is much more common than its enactment. Pornography fuels the fantasy. So do movies, from Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, or Vittorio De Sica’s Two Women, with Sophia Loren, to The Accused, starring Jodie Foster. The Accused, in particular, delves, not only into the devastating effects on the victim, but the interpersonal dynamics among the men who participated and covered it up. The power of the male “group” to permit the expression of sexual violence and to brand as “traitors” any man who objects is based on the same psychological mechanisms we have been using to explain other sexual fantasies, namely the centrality of safety in sexual arousal. Responsibility is shifted from the individual to the group. It is not I who am doing something aggressive and sexually ruthless—we are responsible. Guilt is reduced, and excitement can then flourish. In the fantasy, as opposed to the enactment, of a gang rape, the woman is usually not even hurt. The rape becomes more like a consensual act between a promiscuous woman and several men. These plot devices enable the individual man to counteract his worries about hurting women with his sexual desires and, thus, to get aroused.

VOYEURISM: THE PEEPING TOM

We’ve already touched on the voyeuristic potential in some people, exploring the excitement that may accompany watching other people have sex. Sexual voyeurism takes other forms as well, most notably that of the Peeping Tom, a man who spies on girls and women hoping to see them in some state of undress or lascivious activity. One variation on the Peeping Tom theme involves men who enjoy the fantasy of looking under a woman’s skirt. In fact, there are a number of sexual fantasies listed on the sexual fantasy bulletin board that involve a title like “I Love to Peek Under Women’s Skirts.” Harkening back to childhood experiences of “accidentally” dropping something on the floor in order to look up girls’ skirts, these fantasies—usually proffered by men—involve the excitement of piercing the mystery of the female body. There are Internet web sites devoted to nothing other than the posting of still photographs and videos of unsuspecting women caught in some stage of undress or inadvertently revealing their underwear to the camera. There are even men who position a hidden camera on the ground in order to record a brief glimpse of whatever lies hidden beneath a woman’s dress. What is going on here?

The excitement connected to “sneaking a peek” under a woman’s skirt lies first in the fact that it is forbidden. In the man’s mind, the woman is involuntarily giving up her “secret.” The guilt that the voyeur feels about his interest in the female body, a guilt based on his perception that women will be offended by such interest, is neatly circumvented by the fact that the object of his curiosity isn’t aware of it and so can’t object. The pathogenic belief that women will regard a man’s prurient interest in her as demeaning is disproved by the fact that she doesn’t know anything about it. In addition, some men grew up feeling that their mothers wouldn’t let their sons get close to them, and the sons felt rejected and excluded. In voyeuristic “peeping,” the man dramatically reverses this rejection by sneaking under it, so to speak, and enjoying a moment of stolen intimacy denied to him. With his guilt mitigated and his sense of rejection reversed, the man can then get excited.

EXHIBITIONISM: PHOTOGRAPHING AND VIDEOTAPING SEX

In the popular film from the 1980s Sex, Lies, and Videotape, various women become aroused by the interest of a man who has recently arrived in their town and who has the “hobby” of videotaping women recounting their sexual life histories. The interviewer appears to lack any obvious prurient interest in the women but seems to be driven by a wish to draw them out and get them to reveal the most intimate details of their lives. The women are invariably sexually aroused by this process, often leading to actual sex, which may also be videotaped. What is arousing about being seen in this way? Why is it that some people like to be “on camera,” even if that camera doesn’t always have a flattering lens? And taking this process to its logical sexual extreme, why do some people like to take pictures of themselves having sex or even make movies of it?

While uncommon, this fantasy or behavior is not rare. The excitement comes from the awareness that one is being photographed during sex. The actual psychological meaning and purpose of such exhibitionism, as revealed in Sex, Lies, and Videotape, are that the person being recorded is gratified primarily by the attention, the fact that he or she is important and the object of a special focus. The movie makes this explicit because it sets the women’s experience of being interviewed in a context of their overall loneliness and isolation. The stranger with his video camera is the only man in their lives who seems to regard their experience as worthy of attention.

On a broader level, exhibitionism of this sort is often motivated by an attempt to master feelings of rejection and neglect. If we did not feel that we were on our parents’ emotional radar screen growing up, being watched by a camera is a powerful antidote, counteracting the feelings that we aren’t deserving of special attention. Having negated these feelings, exhibitionism allows sexual excitement to flourish.

Flashers—men who expose themselves to women—are a special case of exhibitionism. The man’s excitement comes in large part from the shock and fear he evokes in women by exposing his penis to them. What’s the thrill for the man here? Since we know that the fantasy being enacted reverses the chilling effects of particular unconscious beliefs and feelings, then what are those beliefs and feelings? There are two problems that flashers are probably attempting to solve—shame and neglect. Sometimes people who are afraid of heights make themselves jump out of planes, or people who are afraid of rejection force themselves to be sociable. In a similar vein, a man ashamed of himself, particularly his masculinity, may briefly triumph over his shame by showing off the source of it. Doing the very thing we fear can be an attempt to master it.

The second problem that flashing attempts to solve is feelings of neglect. Someone who traumatically experienced growing up as being rejected or invisible inevitably feels himself to be deserving of such disregard. Such a man momentarily feels freed from the burden of such feelings, however, when he manages to evoke shock, disgust, and fear from women by exposing himself to them. Whatever else he is, he is not invisible and overlooked. Neglected no longer, such a man feels unconsciously reassured and safe enough to get sexually aroused.

BODY TYPES AND SEXUAL AROUSAL

Most people tend to be initially attracted to a particular body type. Some people take this to an extreme and fetishize particular parts of the body, making their presence a requirement for sexual arousal. Some women find themselves attracted only to tall men, while some men will only be able to get aroused fully by women who have large breasts. While we’ve discussed many of the dynamics of fetishism, let me suggest, based on my clinical experience and general theoretical approach, some possible meanings of various fetishistic preoccupations about the size and shape of the human body:

Tall men might symbolize strength to a woman or, for that matter, to another man. A tall man represents someone you can depend on and someone whom you can’t easily hurt. For someone struggling with worries about overwhelming a man, such an attribute would be reassuring and permit excitement to emerge more readily.

Heavy women might symbolize plenty and abundance. Some people are sexually attracted to a big women because her size unconsciously suggests that she has a lot to give, that she is a bountiful vessel of maternal supplies, someone who will help counteract feelings of being deprived. She might seem like someone who is so substantial that you can’t hurt her, thus mitigating feelings of guilt. Finally, a person might develop a sexual fantasy or preference involving a heavy woman because, since our culture values thinness, a heavy woman is imagined to feel lucky to have any partner and won’t be dissatisfied or critical.

Big breasts might similarly symbolize a woman who has a lot to give, therefore counteracting feelings of disconnectedness and deprivation and permitting the flowering of sexual pleasure. The opposite may also be true. Men who have a secret disdain for women—but feel guilty about it and hide it—may unconsciously exaggerate their admiration for the most obvious marker of femininity, breasts.

Big penises have multiple meanings in our culture. One of these meanings is that they signify strength. Therefore, someone who psychologically requires that a man be strong in order to counteract his or her guilt might fixate on the size of a man’s penis. In addition, some people will talk about how a big penis “fills them up.” In this sense, a big penis signifies being well fed and taken care of, a sensation that would reassure against feelings of deprivation.

Crippled or injured body parts are arousing to some men and women. Some men have a fetish about crippled women, and some women are drawn to men who have a physical handicap. For men, a crippled woman can lessen feelings of unconscious guilt because, since she is already injured, she can’t be injured any further in fantasy. Additionally, as was true in the case of heavy women, deformed or handicapped women can’t, in the man’s mind, be “choosy,” and thus his fears of rejection can be allayed, and his excitement can safely emerge. For women drawn to men with injuries or handicaps, the same dynamics may apply. In addition, in the woman’s unconscious mind, a crippled or injured man can’t hurt her. Some women are physically afraid of men, and with this danger reduced, they can get aroused more safely.

GAY MEN AND SEXUAL AROUSAL IN HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN

Some women are aroused by gay men and may become sexually expressive with such men in a more confident and spontaneous way than they can with straight men. The issue here is clearly one of safety. Gay men make it safe for these women to become sexually aggressive because the women know that their overtures won’t be reciprocated. These are women who have anxieties about being sexual with straight men because they’re afraid of being overpowered or rejected, on the one hand, or of hurting the man with their sexual power, on the other. In either case, the fact that the gay man won’t cross the line between playful flirting and real sexual behavior is intensely reassuring to such women. A variation on this particular attraction may be found in cases in which the challenge of “turning” a gay man straight offers the woman a reassurance that she is especially attractive.

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This list of sexual fantasies and practices does not begin to exhaust the possibilities. The human mind is continually creating the conditions under which sexual excitement can occur, weaving images from popular culture with the idiosyncratic twists and turns of its unconscious. But as widely varied as these fantasies might appear, the underlying mechanisms are the same. Beliefs and feelings that inhibit sexual arousal are counteracted by the images and stories of which fantasies and sexual preferences are constructed. Whether it is an elaborate, highly stylized sexual ritual or simply a picture in our minds, psychological safety is necessary for our sexual desire to flourish.