Sexual Fantasy

Fantasies are very common to the human person. Some fantasies are silly and unrealistic, some are interesting and fulfilling, while others can be genuinely disturbing. One may fantasize of becoming a movie star, or of having erotic sex with a colleague at work. Fantasies resides in the imagination.

The structure of a fantasy involves an agent taking pleasure in an object that is often a visual depiction of an event. The fantasy is under the agent’s control and has a semantic content. Fantasies are not totally unhealthy, it is a free act of man, but there are good reasons to be morally concerned with some imaginings even if we still insist that people should be free to fantasize.

One aspect of fantasy that has received attention through the centuries is sexual fantasy. Sexual fantasies are all images, mental pictures and daydreams of an erotic nature, whether their contents be merely erotic sights, ways of dressing, touches etc., or whether they may be imaginations of complete sexual actuations.

Sexual Fantasy

Sexual fantasies are normal; not only are sexual fantasies totally normal, they are healthy because they allow us to explore our sexuality in a space that is super safe, that is, our imaginations. Psychologists assure us that no one can avoid sexual fantasies altogether. They equally hold that a person must learn how to control them.

There are a number of factors that influence sexual fantasies; they include demographic background, personality traits and sexual history. Nevertheless another important factor is age. Age affects sexual fantasy a lot, for as one grow older the tendency to fantasize decreases. As these factors influence sexual fantasy so does sexual fantasy influences relationships; they can say a lot about the health of relationships.

Sexual fantasies and images are a very important part of a person’s psychic life and are crucial to smooth, successful conduct. Among other things, they are used to continue relationships even if separated by time and distance, to plan future behavior, to decide on the reactions to prospective challenges and to anticipate responses to probable situations.

The human person with the help of mental imagination fantasizes about sexual and erotic things. It is through this mental imagination that people are able to create and remember sexual scenes and words, making it possible for people to write love letters, read and write erotic literature, remember last week’s dating encounter and create memorable love setting.

Morality of Sexual Fantasy

Sexual fantasies can be intrinsically good or bad depending on whether the pleasure is malicious and whether the fantasy contains a false statement. The vast majority are not intrinsically bad since they neither involve an unfitting attitude toward something that is itself bad nor commit the subject to a falsity. Three characteristic features defines the structure of sexual fantasy. There is a subject (the one who has the fantasy), an object (the imagined scenario), and a relation between them (the first takes sexual pleasure in the second).

The object is the most controversial element. It usually takes the form of an imagined scenario with quasi-perceptual properties (for example, visual features). In particular, a person having a fantasy often experiences a state in a way similar to the way in which he or she would perceptually experience an actual sexual event. The notion of a mental object of sexual fantasies is controversial since it rules out adverbial theories that asserts that fantasies involve a type of imagining rather than the experiencing of a particular object.

Traditionally, morality assumed that for a normal person there is a rather proximate danger of progressing from flitting images to welcome fantasy to elaborate daydreams to sexual arousal to masturbation and sexual intercourse. Control of sexual behavior therefore ought to begin with and concentrate on the first fain stirrings of fantasy. Otherwise the ability to resist temptation will be strongly weakened.

Furthermore, sexual fantasies may be objectionable because of the intrinsic immorality of their contents. There are things that are morally wrong to do. Can we say that merely possessing the desire is itself morally wrong? Yes, it is. If we turn to fantasy to satisfy immoral desires that we cannot otherwise satisfy, we are doing an injustice to ourselves. By satisfying the desire, we do not rid ourselves of it. Rather, we run the risk of reinforcing the desire, thereby cultivating in ourselves a desire that we ought not to desire. Soon we may find ourselves doing the undesired desire.

More so, these desires associated with sexual fantasies are in principle inadmissible because of their contents. The deliberate enjoyment of actions in the imagination that are immoral because they are never admissible (e.g. rape, sadism, incest, adultery, fornication, pedophilia) is an interior sin against chastity. Especially, the serious desire to commit gravely sinful actions is gravely sinful itself and condemned by our Lord in his words: “Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:28).

If one however removes the “efficacious desire,” i.e. the serious wish and intention to commit gravely immoral actions, one should not qualify objectionable fantasies too fast as grave offences. The consent to the immoral action in the mere sins of thought is still imperfect; otherwise they would develop into an efficacious desire. And even what sometimes seems to be an efficacious desire, often proves to be an imperfect consent in the concrete situation, which might offer the possibility to translate the desire into action.

Nevertheless, even though unchaste thoughts are often not grave offences, they are inordinate and sinful and must be shunned. What is plainly immoral should also not find acceptance in a person’s imagination. Every sin first occurs in the mind before it is externalized. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man” (Mt 15: 19f).

This view is however not shared by scholars of present-day psychology. What is known about wholesome adjustment of sexuality does not favour automatic rejection of fantasy as in the best interest of the person. Each fantasy must be considered on its merits. Indiscriminate repression is too simplistic a policy of conduct.

A person must learn to accept normal erotic fantasies, i.e. to appreciate the sensual attraction and values which they entail and to distance himself or herself from them before they reach a level of intensity that reduces and overwhelms the responsible control of the person. The possibility of moral evil arises when a person consciously disregards the limits, which one ought to set oneself in one’s life of fantasy.

Sexual Fantasy and the Different States of Life

Besides the general approach to sexual fantasies, some distinctions are furthermore to be made for the different states of life namely: the dating youth, the engaged person, and the married adult. Different standards must be applied to these different states of life because of the distinct way they are affected by fantasy; one cannot categorize them together for the essence and durability of sexual fantasy in these states differs.

The unmarried person may lawfully reflect on erotic relations with a possible partner for life, coupled with a sense of appreciation for the divinely willed values inherent in sexuality. These thoughts are neither unchaste nor immodest. This holds true especially for the young dating person. Dating activities will give rise to erotic feelings and fantasies, and that is normal. The young people who are at a dating age must include the sexual aspect in their evaluation of the other and in the mutual relationship, since this belongs to the essence of the community for life that is to be tested and ultimately intended.

Still wider must be the moral boundary line for sexual fantasies of the engaged. From the beginning the person who is going to marry must be aware that sexual fantasies are a normal aspects of conjugal life, although, as in everything, over-indulgence in them can lead to problems. Here the fantasies grow higher and higher as they approach the day of marriage.

For the married person sexual fantasies constitute an integral part of conjugal love. Generally, sexual fantasies are able to stimulate a sexual relationship and can keep it from becoming dull or mechanical. If sexuality in a marriage is limited to intercourse, it loses its integral character; and it is only a short step to misunderstandings, sexual rejections, or merely physical coupling.

It is unfortunate that so many married persons still apply moral standards of the single life to their sexual fantasies. Fantasies concerning the conjugal relations of married people enrich the expression of their mutual love and enhance enjoyment. They should be encouraged. On the other hand, while the person before marriage can imagine many possible marriages, the married person should no longer dream like this, for it diminishes the flawless consistency of the style of interiority to which he is committed.