Erotic Imagination & Sexual Fantasy

In this workshop, from March 2025, Christopher and I broke down a framework worth holding onto: fantasy (any wish or longing, sexual or otherwise) contains sexual fantasy (like the desire to have a baby, which is common and not erotic at all) which contains erotic fantasy (fantasy specifically in service of pleasure). Understanding which one you're actually working with changes everything about how you approach it.

I shared my own history: getting my hands on smutty books way too young, building an erotic imagination that's always run pretty wild. Christopher shared the opposite experience: a poverty of erotic fantasy that he's had to actively cultivate, plus the realization that a lot of what he thought was generosity in bed was actually his own ego needing validation. Both of those are completely valid starting points, and neither one is broken.

We got into the landmines people hit when they start exploring fantasy: guilt, shame, the fear that having a fantasy about someone else means you're cheating, and the sneaky one, labels. (Discovering you like anal stimulation doesn't threaten your sexual orientation. Your ass doesn't have a sexual orientation, it has nerve endings.) We also talked about why ravishment or "rape" fantasies are so common and what's actually underneath them: usually not a desire for harm, but a desire to feel so overwhelmingly desired that you don't have to be responsible for wanting what you want. Jack Morin's equation came up here too: attraction plus obstacles equals desire, which explains why taboo, power differentials, and forbidden dynamics show up in fantasy so often.