Where Do Sexual Fantasies Come From?

quick tips Apr 05, 2020

Today we are talking about sexual fantasies.

I know this is not the most comfortable topic, but it's so powerful.

My biggest breakthroughs in finding freedom and healing from pornography came when I finally understood what my sexual fantasies were about, and I learned how to relate to myself in a whole new way.

Five years ago, I was researching sexual addiction. I was watching a video by Dr. Patrick Carnes, when he started talking about sexual fantasies and all of a sudden it clicked and I realized:

I'm not a freak!
It's not my fault!
I'm not the only one, and my fantasies are not random.

There are reasons behind them. There are always reasons.

And this is what I help my clients figure out when they come to me and they're talking about their sexual fetishes and fantasies.

We interpret the fantasies. We focus on them until we can figure out what they really mean and that's what I want to help you do today.

As one of my clients said:

"I no longer run for my sexual fantasies. Instead, I listen to the story that they're telling."

So how do you listen to that story?

I'm about to teach you.

A sexual fantasy is not the same as a sexual preference. A sexual preference could be like, "Oh, I like blue eyes or I like brown eyes."

A sexual fantasy is a story. It's an image or a video. It's more visual and it captures you. It has a magnetic pull on you. It's arousing, it's exciting, it makes you feel alive and you might not understand why.

You might even hate the fact that it's arousing to you, but it's a fantasy because it's a deep-seated dream.

That's what pornography offers us: not just preferences, but fantasies about a specific kind of person and a storyline. For me, a sexual fetish was part of my story and I hated myself for that until I understood why.

So I want you to know: you're not a freak, it's not your fault, and it's not a random occurrence that you have specific sexual attractions to things that might be weird.

I'm the same way, or at least I have experienced the same things and I've also experienced a lot of healing.

So let me give you a couple of categories for how to understand your sexual fantasies:

REPETITION AND REVERSAL

Repetition is when you go back into your story and you say, "Okay, When have I seen this kind of thing that's showing up in my fantasies? When have I seen that before?"

In Reversal you're saying, "When have I seen the opposite?"

"When have I felt that way before?" - That's Repetition

"When have I felt the opposite?" - That's Reversal.

So for me, my sexual fetish, which was very specific to middle school, goes back to when I was 13 years old. What was happening in my life at that time?

My family moved from Canada to Texas, and I had a deep, deep longing to be accepted–to be someone who belonged. This specific sexual fetish symbolized that for me...not verbally, but visually.

And there was also a theme in all of my fantasies of power and domination. Invariably, the other person involved in my sexual fantasy was either submitting to what I wanted or resisting it, and either way, I was in control.

I didn't like that about myself.
I hated that, but it was still attractive to me and I kept coming back to it.

Why?

The power and domination thing turned out to be a reversal of when I moved from Canada to Texas and I have no control over that move. I went from a small all-boys school to a large public school.

I felt completely powerless. These themes of power and domination were giving me what I longed for, what I wanted, which was to be the one who decides what I get to do, to be the one in the driver's seat, to be in control.

And that's not part of who I am. That's part of what happened to me. And when I could go back into that story and find that little boy who needed love, it changed everything.

When you can realize: "Hey, this sexual fantasy is not your fault; this is something that happened to you," the level of freedom you'll be able to achieve is amazing.

That's why I created a free video series on this topic called the Sexual Fantasy Framework.

This will give you specific guidance from a Christ-centered psychotherapist and me on how to interpret your sexual fantasies and love the little child on the other side of them.

Because that's ultimately what we need.