[Greta Christina] On Having Fantasies About Acting Out Fantasies
Does anybody else do this?
I’ve been doing this for much of my adult life. And I’m starting to be curious about whether anyone else does it, too.
I’m talking about having sexual fantasies about acting out sexual fantasies. Or meta-fantasies, if you will.
I realize that’s a little oblique. So let me give a concrete example.
Lately, I’ve been having this very intense fantasy about acting out a coercion/ rape fantasy. Consensually, with a consenting partner. In this fantasy, my partner is a professional submissive, someone I’ve played with many times before. She tells me we’ve been playing for long enough now that she’s willing to forego her “no genital sex” limit; I ask her if that means we can act out a rape fantasy, and she agrees. Nervously, but excitedly. Enthusiastically, even. In some versions of the fantasy, she says she was hoping for that.
(Just to be clear: No such person exists. I tend to make up very elaborate backstories for my fantasies.)
In the actual fantasy part of the fantasy — as opposed to the backstory part — we both get deeply into our roles. It’s clear that she’s consenting to it, even that she’s getting off on it . . . but it’s also clear that the role of the victim is feeling real to her. Just like the role of the perpetrator is feeling real to me. So I get to experience those dark emotions of power, forcing myself against resistance and reluctance, making someone feel frightened and violated and helpless — and getting off on it. And I get to experience those emotions in an ethical context of consent.
And I’m wondering:
What the hell is this about?
It’s a fantasy, for fuck’s sake. Of course it’s in an ethical context of consent. It’s all taking place inside my own head. You can’t get any more consensual than that. Why can’t I just have a nice, normal rape fantasy, without adding in these meta- layers of detachment from it?
And does anyone else do this?
When I first started thinking about this, I thought the problem was how literal my mind is. Ridiculously literal at times. I have a reality check deeply embedded in my brain, and it goes all the way down into my libido. I don’t like impossible or implausible porn; I spend absurd amounts of time figuring out the backstories of my sex fantasies to make them believable; and I rarely have fantasies about things that couldn’t really happen. (Except for the Snape fantasies. But that’s different.)
But here’s the thing. I can and do enjoy fantasies of force and coercion and even rape . . . as long as I’m the victim. If I’m the victim in the fantasy, I can let go of my desire for plausibility and realism. I can get into the fantasy of feeling forced and violated, humiliated and powerless . . . even though I know that the reality would be an appalling nightmare. I don’t have to have fantasies about acting out a fantasy of being raped. I can just fantasize about being raped.
It’s only as a top — as the coercer, the abuser of power, the rapist — that I insert these meta-levels of detachment. It’s only as a top that my fantasy life gets an ethics committee, making sure that even the made-up characters in my head are all having a good time before I can get off.
So I don’t think plausibility is the problem.
I think the problem is a hyper-active conscience. A conscience that has a hard time even imagining doing things I know I shouldn’t do.
Even in my dreams. I almost never have dreams where I’m having sex with someone who, in real life, I want to fuck but shouldn’t. Instead, I have dreams where I almost have sex with someone I want to fuck but shouldn’t . . . and then back out and say No. (And then wake up, totally annoyed with myself, going, “It was a dream! It would have been okay! Nobody would have gotten hurt!”)
It’s not that I think there’s anything wrong with having coercion/ force/ rape fantasies without the “meta-fantasy” distancing technique. I don’t, at all. I feel very strongly that no fantasy in this world — not a fantasy about being Hitler molesting a kitten, nothing — is unethical. Fantasies are, by definition, consensual. No fantasy is bad.
But apparently my conscience is as deeply embedded in my libido as my reality check. I know that having a fantasy about an unethical act isn’t unethical . . . but my libido, apparently, knows nothing of the kind. When I get deeply wrapped up in a fantasy, my libido takes it seriously. It thinks it’s real. And if it’s a fucked-up fantasy where I’m being a bad person, it can’t do it.
Which is kind of annoying. It’s not a big deal or anything. It’s just kind of annoying. Kind of ridiculous. And, okay, if I’m going to be totally honest, kind of funny.
And so I ask again:
Does this happen to anyone else?
And if so, what’s your take on it?
This entry was posted on Friday, 3 October 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on Friday, 3 October 2008 at 7:53 am Rona wrote:
Oh thank goodness. I thought I was the only one who did this. I get distracted by meta-concerns (usually ethical ones) in my fantasies all the time.
on Friday, 3 October 2008 at 3:33 pm Lynet wrote:
All the time! It comforts me. I have more sub fantasies than dom fantasies, but to be honest, I’m just as capable of feeling guilty about allowing myself to be dominated as I am about allowing myself to dominate. I’m supposed to be a strong woman, dammit! So often I add clauses to my sub fantasies like ‘I chose to be paid for doing this’ or ‘I harnessed myself up like this deliberately so that people would be able to take advantage of me’. The consent tends to involve a physical action on my part. Verbal consent isn’t enough. Often, especially if I’m deeply into the fantasy and not second-guessing it much, I won’t actually pay much attention to those parts of it, but they’re usually there. And when I’m not quite that deeply into it they can be essential to stopping me from feeling uncomfortable. They turn a fantasy that would make me feel sick about myself into an fantasy that gets me off nicely with no nasty side effects.
With my comparatively rare dom fantasies, by contrast, I always imagine my partner has agreed to it, but that’s at least in part because the fantasy almost always involves either me enjoying (and usually being very interested by) the fact that my partner is getting off on it and/or my partner returning the favour. Unlike the sub situation, I don’t think the decision to imagine the consent is the result of guilt at all, there. There are too many other reasons for it that relate directly to the main things about such fantasies that get me off.
on Friday, 3 October 2008 at 5:14 pm Paul Crowley wrote:
Yes, and I don’t think it’s a hyperactive conscience, because even when I’m fantasising about the bottom’s role, I want it all to be negotiated in advance. Often it’s very explicit that the sub has gone to great lengths to set the situation up. I think it’s just what my kink is. I have no problem with other people fantasising about violent nonconsensual rape; it’s just that isn’t where my head is at.
on Friday, 3 October 2008 at 10:21 pm C. L. Hanson wrote:
Nope, I do not add a meta-fantasy layer when fantasizing about sexual encounters that would be very wrong and bad in real life.
I do something that is perhaps a little stranger, though: I usually don’t appear as a character in my own sexual fantasies (not even as an observer). All of the players in the scene are fictional characters (with elaborate back-story, etc.) that I invent for the purpose of my fantasy.
I’ve always wondered if anyone else does that. We could answer these questions and more if only people would discuss their masturbation fantasies more often… ;)
on Friday, 3 October 2008 at 11:47 pm Nikki wrote:
I do this all the time. Only usually, my layer of detachment is a bit different: when I need to imagine what would a rapist feel, I simply invent someone else as the rapist, while I’m being the omniscient observer (like the last commenter). I mostly do this for the bottom part, too. The reason is plausibility alone, I think: for the rapist part, I’m just too nice to do it myself; for the bottom part, I simply need an “innocent victim” who is much more “innocent” than myself :-) I just need her to act differently than I would, so I imagine a different person.
But I also had what you describe. I had fantasies about having fantasies, for Loki’s sake! I wonder if that happened to anyone else…
I fantasized about this man that I desperately want but cannot have. In the fantasy, he was asleep, and I was sitting near him, thinking about kissing him. I knew he would not wake up (in some versions there’s a long an elaborate backstory about how he’s ill and I tend to him, only to justify the main important fact: he’s asleep very deeply). So I totally can touch him, and caress him, and kiss him, and it wouldn’t hurt anyone. Only I know that would be wrong. But I desperately want it. I know it’s all I could ever have, he’ll never be mine. But it’s wrong… so in the fantasy, I just sit there, wanting him, and fantasizing about how I’d touch him… Pathetic, right?
But now I see it’s exactly like that dream you had about saying No. Very simple: when I can’t use my usual layer of detachment, I have to use another. And so I get to the same place as you.
on Friday, 3 October 2008 at 11:53 pm Mister Harvest wrote:
I wonder if it is also a fantasy of acceptance. Many (most?) people with a fetish want and hope to find someone who can accept the fantasy and revel in it with them. A fantasy about a fantasy provides that: The fetish itself, and the fantasy of acceptance.
on Saturday, 4 October 2008 at 1:27 pm Greta Christina wrote:
I do that sometimes too, CL. Sort of. I sometimes have fantasies where everyone in it is a made-up fictional character… but at least one of the characters is something of an avatar for myself, and I project myself into their part of the story. Very much like a Mary Sue character in bad fan-fic.
Interesting thought, Mister Harvest. That could be a big part of it. In my more extreme and fucked-up meta-fantasies, part of it is often about finding someone else who’s twisted enough to want to act them out with me. (In reality, I don’t know if I even want to act them out… but within the fantasy, “Someone else is as twisted as me!” is often a component.)
on Saturday, 4 October 2008 at 8:30 pm cand86 wrote:
Very interesting! I think I tend to do the same thing sometimes- except instead of explaining a huge backstory to my rape fantasies, I just make up a story about other people. That way, I can hate/condemn the rapist just as much as my fictional victim does, and I’m not [as] guilty, even though I’ve been getting off from his/her pain and suffering and humiliation and whatnot.
Lately, I also really like the idea of being forced to be one of the “bad guys” by the “real” bad guys. Like, they’re threatening me and my loved ones with violence unless I rape others. Somehow that absolves me from my fantastical sins.
Strange, aren’t we, as complex human beings?
on Sunday, 5 October 2008 at 8:57 am Femetal wrote:
I almost never have dreams where I’m having sex with someone who, in real life, I want to fuck but shouldn’t. Instead, I have dreams where I almost have sex with someone I want to fuck but shouldn’t . . . and then back out and say No. (And then wake up, totally annoyed with myself, going, “It was a dream! It would have been okay! Nobody would have gotten hurt!”)
This happens to me! It’s likely that I have dreams in which I have “unacceptable” sex partners (those who would be forbidden to me in real life for one reason or another), however I never remember having them.
If I start to have a dream where the outcome will be a voluntary, unacceptable sexual encounter, and I become aware of it, it wakes me up. It can be terribly frustrating, but my conscience won’t let my brain go there if it is engaged.
on Monday, 6 October 2008 at 10:20 pm Rob wrote:
I know just what you mean, Greta. I’m drawn toward the dominant side of things, myself, but I could never hurt or coerce another person. The idea of playing with anyone who wasn’t a willing participant is abhorrent to me, even as a fantasy, which is why most of my fantasies involve an element of consent. Anyway, I think enthusiasm is hotter. :)
on Tuesday, 7 October 2008 at 10:54 am The nerd wrote:
I honestly have never had these types of fantasies, but perhaps it’s because I’m usually on the recieving end, and there isn’t any ethical dillema with that. I wonder if there’s a statistical connection to be found there?
on Sunday, 4 January 2009 at 6:05 pm links for 2009-01-04 - the prophet king governance wrote:
[…] [Greta Christina] On Having Fantasies About Acting Out Fantasies | Blowfish Blog I’ve been doing this for much of my adult life. And I’m starting to be curious about whether anyone else does it, too. […]