The Reality of Fantasies Is They Needn’t Evoke Guilt, Experts Say
In the HBO series “The Mind of the Married Man,” the lead character, Micky, is a newspaper columnist who regularly fantasizes about making love to his attractive young assistant, even while he is having sex with his wife. So pervasive are Micky’s fantasies about his assistant that she interrupts his sleep (he hallucinates that she beckons him seductively).
It’s amazing poor Micky can hold down a job, considering that all his waking time appears to be devoted to fantasizing about his assistant and, occasionally, other women.
Television hyberbole aside, sexual fantasies and fantasizing about someone other than a mate is as natural and normal as, well, the sex act. In what is believed to be the first study to investigate the frequency of sexual fantasies about one’s mate versus someone else, 87% of the heterosexual participants (98% of men and 87% of women) reported having sexual fantasies about someone other than a partner during a two-month period, according to a study published in February in the Journal of Sex Research.
“The difference between men and women may not sound significant, but it is actually statistically significant,” said Thomas V. Hicks, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of Vermont and co-author of the study with Harold Leitenberg, professor of psychology at the University of Vermont, who is a recognized expert on sexual fantasy.
The study was conducted using an anonymous questionnaire distributed to 349 university students and employees, ages 18 to 70. Sexual fantasy was defined as “erotic mental imagery” or “very detailed sexual fantasy.” The researchers found that the length of relationship (an average of nine years), number of prior sexual partners and past infidelity increased the number of fantasies about someone other than a partner for women, but not for men.
“Men, no matter what they did, reported that 53% of their sexual fantasies were about someone other than their partner,” said Hicks, who added that men in the study reported having about 77 sexual fantasies a month as compared to 34 for women. “We know from earlier research that men generally have more sexual fantasies.” For instance, men think about sex 7.2 times a day compared to women’s 4.5 times, according to past research.
About 29% of women and men reported cheating on a partner, but women who strayed said that 55% of their fantasies were about someone other than their partner. Women who remained faithful reported that 30% of their fantasies were about someone other than their partner.
“The cheating finding is striking,” said Hicks, who added that there is no way to determine causality from the study results. “It makes sense that if you are having an affair, your fantasies are about the affair. It could be that people who have had more sexual partners have more sexual fantasies because they draw on past experience. We don’t know if it is fantasy affecting behavior or behavior affecting fantasy, or both.”
A third explanation, he suggested, might be that sexual fantasy is a way to cope with sexual boredom in long-term unions and to satisfy desires for variety without compromising fidelity.
But regardless of why human beings entertain erotic thoughts (the prevailing theory is that sexual fantasies are pleasurable, fun and a natural part of a vibrant, active sex life), a great many people feel that fantasizing about someone other than their mate is wrong. In a New York Times poll of 1,000 randomly selected adults, 48% said that they do not think it is acceptable to fantasize about someone else, even if they are faithful to their partner. The poll results, published in March 2000, inspired Hicks to do his study.
“I was struck by the idea that almost half the respondents were not OK with this kind of sexual fantasy,” Hicks said. “I thought this kind of sexual fantasy must really be common.”
Herb Samuels, professor of human sexuality at La Guardia Community College City University in Long Island City, speculates that the poll results may represent a double standard about sexual fantasies. “I think we are dealing with two sets of moralities,” said Samuels. “One for ourselves and one for everybody else including our mate.”
In an experiment about sexual fantasies, 35 students in Samuels’ class were asked to mark “yes” next to subjects about which they had fantasized (sex with a stranger, making love to the same gender, imagining oneself as the opposite sex during sexual activity). But when Samuels asked his students to imagine reading the questionnaire with the same “yes” boxes checked belonging to their partner, 50% of the students said they would be very upset.
“The issue is in our own fantasies we are in control,” said Samuels. “We know what the fantasies mean and we know that we would never do most of the things we fantasized. But if your partner is fantasizing, you are not in control and you don’t know what this fantasy means to them. What I try to explain to my students is that fantasy is simply something you do to give yourself pleasure.”
Yet for some people, sexual fantasizing bears emotional costs. In an earlier study conducted by Leitenberg, one in four people reported feeling guilt about their sexual fantasies.
“The guilt is associated to the notion that by fantasizing about someone, it brings you one step closer to doing the fantasy,” said Carol Queen, a San Francisco-based sexologist and human sexuality educator. “Part of the guilt about any fantasy is what the culture says and what a person thinks is appropriate or inappropriate.”
Fantasy is a way people prepare for sexual intimacy, said Pat Love, author of “The Truth About Love” (Plume/Penguin Books, 2001). Fantasy is titillating, revs the libido and acts as a cognitive rehearsal of a repertoire of what one might do with a partner. Think of it as sexual brainstorming.
“If your fantasies leave your mate coming up short, then fantasy may not be helpful to your relationship,” said Love, a marriage and family therapist based in Austin, Texas. “A lot of fantasies are focused on the sensations in the body as they are happening, whereas if you are fantasizing about Michele Pfeiffer, you are missing an opportunity to bond with your partner because you are not there and tuned in.”
Hicks and Leitenberg did not specifically ask the participants in their Journal of Sex Research study if their fantasies occurred while they were having sex with their partners, but Hicks speculates that most likely they do for both genders .
“I hope that the public sees the basic finding that regardless if a person is a man or a woman, it is very common to have sexual fantasies about someone other than your partner,” said Hicks. “I am hoping that people see that it is not deviant or unusual. One thing I want to make clear is that having these fantasies doesn’t interfere with the relationship.”
