Secret Desires -- Not a Big Deal?

Recently, Bruce Jenner's transition into being a woman (now known as
Caitlyn Jenner) has received more than it's fair share of publicity.
I have no comments on that particular subject. The media has beaten
it to death.

But it got me to thinking along a certain path. Jenner waited until
his sixties to give in to his wishes to change sex. If he were not a
former Olympic champ, no one would be paying any attention because
there are lots of regular folks who are on the same journey of finding
who they really want to be.

The bigger question in my mind is the stuff that occupies the minds of
many -- not necessarily sex changes but stuff that all of us consider
deeply personal. We all have a private interior where we may
fantasize about this or that. I suspect that a great deal of this
hidden material is sexual in nature. Perhaps many have wondered what
being of the opposite sex would feel like. I've wondered about this a
bit myself. It's rather laughable. When I try to imagine myself as a
woman, all I can actually picture is playing with my body in front of
a mirror. Since my orientation is heterosexual, I can only imagine
being a horny lesbian.

I also imagine that many people have fantasies that outwardly would
seem adulterous, e.g., sex with other partners or perhaps
participating in a small (or large orgy). I've talked with friends
who have expressed a fantasy about having sex with two women. If they
are twins, all the better. I've listened with sincere interest to
these confessionals, although I do not always understand them. I've
always found that one woman at a time is about all I can handle.

Other friends have admitted to secretly wanting very specific things
that they only hesitantly confessed. None of this reached beyond the
purview of my known awareness about certain fetishisms. Happily, no
one has ever confessed their desire for a sheep or a goat. No one
has confessed that he is on the verge of murder or becoming a human
bomb. I suppose if my circle of friends was larger, I might be
exposed to these kinds of secret thoughts. I don't get around that
much, so I suppose this is restricted to the psyches of average,
middle-income, literate but not profoundly important individuals. I
may not be the repository for darker thoughts such as sex with minors
or incest. I can understand why such secret thoughts cannot be
expressed. It's probably best that such secrets remain hidden. I'm
sure that taboos like this exist in the minds of some, but I'd prefer
not to hear about them. I have a pretty wide latitude when it comes
to human behavior, but I have limits. If confronted with this type of
confessional, I'd merely listen. Lecturing would serve no purpose.
If someone were to admit to me that he had intentions of raping his
daughter, I'm sure I'd try to be advisory on the matter, but at the
same time I'd realize that my input may be totally inconsequential.
It wouldn't be much different than listening to a friend who confessed
he was about to commit suicide. Like everyone else, I'd try to
dissuade him from taking such a course, but would it really make a
difference?

I only wish that my female friends were as forthcoming -- perhaps they
are among themselves. But looking at it from the outside, I doubt
that female sexual secrets within this class are amazingly different
than those of their male counterparts. Infidelity, promiscuity,
licentiousness, would probably be on their hit list -- as much as it
is for males.

So, my thinking is that most secret thoughts and fantasies are
actually pretty mundane. None of it is to be treated in a contrite
manner, I suppose. People keep their secrets because it makes sense
to them. If you are someone who feels a sex change is required or
simply coming out of the closet about your orientation, none of this
is trivial.

As a society I think we are making progress with at least the sexual
secrets. It's kind of a big yawn in a news cycle about someone
confessing they are gay. If they weren't a celebrity of one kind or
another, we would just breeze past the headline.

Of course there is a deeper and darker aspect to secret thoughts that
extend beyond mere sexual flights of fancy. Some few (hopefully few)
individuals harbor really ugly secret thoughts about death and mayhem.
I'm not going to address any of that here, but I recognize it as being
part of the human psyche that goes well beyond the mundane.

There's a significant difference between having fantasies and actually acting on them. It's one thing to be a married individual and having lust for another partner. This gets into the ground of morality, which I'm not addressing. My focus is upon harboring secret fantasies and whether or not these fantasies are an unnecessarily closed door. I suppose it comes down to a level of where a particular individual resides with his/her own code of morality. Surely, as a species we shouldn't act on every whim that enters our imagination. There are ramifications that extend to one's family and affiliates. Our civilization is still filled with taboos, and unless an individual can work around these taboos to allow their secret desires to blossom, they may end up paying a very heavy price. And there are taboos that could place you in jail -- and that is certainly a big consideration. We try to protect the innocent. If you collect pics of child pornography, should you be sent to jail? I think that the mere collection/distribution of this material is deviant but not criminal. If someone is filming having intercourse with a minor and then sends the video file to like-minded buddies, well, that's something else entirely. Our minds are free to wander -- even into some unseemly territory, but thinking about a thing vs. acting upon it are very different indeed.

As mentioned previously, I sense that most secret thoughts that people have fall into the realm of the mundane. Some thoughts may border on the perverse and repellent to our common sense of moral order. If someone is thinking about murder, blowing up buildings, assassination or setting a forest on fire, and you are exposed to such confessionals, you have to consider whether or not to contact protective agencies. There are the mundane sexual fantasies one might be "treated" to, and then there are secret thoughts that may not be simply self-destructive but outright dangerous and mentally imbalanced. It's not rare where an individual who has designs for some kind of mass destruction to reveal their intentions in advance. Where we might find thoughts of infidelity objectionable, it's a world away from someone who has designs for what they perceive as repaying an unforgiving world as a cause of their suffering.

Secret thoughts. We all have them. While the majority are mundane in nature, there are some who harbor secret thoughts of a potentially dangerous nature that -- if possible -- should be exposed. It's one thing for a close friend to confess he'd like to experience a "golden shower" and quite another for him to talk about using his vast collection of automatic weapons to take vengeance against a police department or high school bullies.