2:00

No, I made it, you know, that just

2:02

that sort of novice error. Yeah, rookie

2:05

mistake. Rookie mistake of going

2:07

first. So, and this was a fantasy.

2:09

I mean, this made me blush. I'm blushing now

2:11

just even thinking about telling you and all of

2:14

the Dear Sugar's listeners. But it's one

2:16

of my earliest fantasies that

2:18

when I was a teenager, I would conjure.

2:22

Okay, so it's the Super Bowl. Okay, that's

2:24

the first part of the

2:26

fantasy. Okay. The Super Bowl is on

2:29

TV and I'm in

2:31

some house, like some nice kind of upper

2:33

middle class house. Okay. And there's

2:35

a whole bunch of men who are

2:38

watching the Super Bowl. And... This

2:40

sounds wild. I can't imagine such a thing.

2:43

So, no, but these men are also, they're dressed

2:45

all of them in like business suits or,

2:48

so they're either businessmen. Right. Or

2:50

they're wearing like turtlenecks, kind of intellectual,

2:52

like sophisticated men. Okay. And

2:55

I am wearing really

2:57

sexy lingerie. And

3:00

I have to, I'm serving them

3:02

drinks. And they're basically kind of

3:04

like they're appreciating me, but in

3:06

this kind of powerful and different

3:08

way. And I'm giving them

3:11

drinks and they're like, you know, kind

3:13

of looking at me and like saying little

3:15

things to me as I serve them while

3:17

the game is on. Okay. And

3:20

that's the fantasy. So... And

3:23

it's like so, I know

3:26

it's an awful, horrible, embarrassing

3:28

fantasy. It was for whatever

3:30

reason that just turned me on so much, like

3:32

from the beginning. And it took me a long

3:35

time to say that out loud and get to

3:37

this place where I can laugh with you. All

3:40

of this feeling of being

3:42

embarrassed about that was shame. Because

3:44

of course, you know

3:46

who I am. Yeah. I am not going

3:48

to get scantily clad and serve you drinks

3:50

while you watch the football game. I'm not

3:53

like every, every layer of this

3:55

narrative. And it's interesting to me now that I've

3:57

analyzed it. There's football, there's the men dressed in

3:59

these kind of... of power suits. And

4:01

then there's me, this subservient female

4:03

who is a sex object,

4:05

and literally serving them,

4:07

you know, and there for their pleasure.

4:10

And nothing about who

4:13

I am as a woman,

4:16

a writer, a podcast host, a

4:18

lover, a wife, ever. Like all of

4:20

my life I've always been a strong,

4:22

ambitious woman. And

4:25

I've rejected every aspect of

4:27

this narrative. And here I

4:29

am, alone with myself, and this is

4:31

what I'm thinking. This is what we're going

4:35

to talk about today. The things we think

4:37

about in the dark. And the

4:39

ways that we feel in response

4:41

to those things, the complicated feelings

4:44

we have when we create

4:47

those sexual fantasies that seem to come out of

4:49

nowhere, but probably come out of

4:51

somewhere very deep within us. It's

4:53

interesting though, Cheryl, as you were telling this story, what

4:56

I am fascinated by, if

4:58

you want to really know somebody, is what's the fantasy

5:00

that you're afraid to tell? Because

5:03

that's the one that's revealing the hidden parts of

5:05

you. I think also it's significant that you were

5:07

in a happy, engaged relationship, two

5:09

years in with wonderful, probably looking like

5:11

Bon Jovi at that age. Brian was

5:13

looking, still looks somewhat like Bon Jovi.

5:16

One of the things that I think Freud got

5:18

terribly wrong. He said that

5:20

only people who are unhappy have fantasies.

5:22

In fact, fantasies aren't

5:25

the compensation for the lack of sexual

5:27

opportunities in part, they're just a different

5:29

form of our libidinal

5:31

drives. And I

5:33

prefer this formulation, which is from Desaad.

5:36

And this is what he has to

5:39

say. How delightful are the pleasures of

5:41

the imagination. In those delectable moments, the

5:43

whole world is ours. Not a single

5:45

creature resists us. We devastate the world.

5:48

We repopulate it with new objects, which

5:50

in turn we emulate. The

5:52

means to every crime is ours and we

5:54

employ them all. We multiply the horror a

5:57

hundred fold. It's like a hundred. There's a

5:59

hundred. Cheryl

6:01

Strayd's, you know, serving those

6:03

drinks, it is only by

6:05

enlarging the scope of one's

6:07

tastes and one's fantasies by

6:09

sacrificing everything to pleasure that

6:11

the unfortunate individual called man

6:14

thrown despite himself into this

6:16

sad world can succeed in

6:18

gathering a few roses among

6:20

life's thorns. Wow. That's

6:22

a beautiful vision of

6:24

the sort of liberation of fantasy,

6:27

but the problem is our

6:29

fantasies don't always operate

6:31

like that. We all know that they're

6:33

sort of shallow fantasies which are sort

6:36

of fleeting, but then there are fantasies

6:38

that we obsess about. There are certain

6:40

persistent fantasies that really wind up haunting

6:42

us and they're revealing of who we

6:44

are, but it's also that much more

6:46

terrifying. So that's the kind of letter

6:48

that we want to take on today. Now you

6:50

didn't ask me what Brian's

6:52

fantasy was on that walk. What did he say to

6:54

me after I told him about the Super Bowl and

6:57

the drinks and the men in suits? Okay,

6:59

I told you I'd made a rookie

7:01

mistake. Uh-oh. Yeah. So he says to

7:03

me after we finish, you

7:06

know, sort of unpacking the

7:08

whole Super Bowl scenario, he

7:10

says, you know Cheryl, I just think about

7:13

making love with you, which

7:15

is the biggest lie a man has ever

7:17

told. And to this day, all these

7:19

years later, I say to him,

7:21

come on Brian, just come on, just tell me.

7:25

He's like, no. Why

7:36

don't I read the first letter? Let's do it. Dear

7:39

Sugars, I'm a 29 year old female

7:41

who has been in a relationship with

7:43

a loving, understanding and supportive man for

7:45

10 years. He's

7:47

the most sane, normal, level-headed, even

7:49

killed person I know. The problem

7:52

that I'm having, have always had,

7:54

is my sexual fantasies. I

7:57

know that sexual fantasies are normal and that I

7:59

would never act on any of these things. Ever

8:02

since I started being a sexual being, that

8:04

is masturbating at around 17, I've

8:06

had terrible fantasies, incest

8:09

of every kind, teachers

8:11

having sex with their underage students,

8:14

gangbangs in public bathrooms. I

8:17

cannot get turned on without thinking of these

8:19

storylines. I can't come

8:21

unless the characters in my fantasies have

8:23

finished up with Daddy or Mommy or

8:25

Mrs. Smith. Why is

8:27

this happening to me? And how do I make

8:30

it stop? Did something bad happen

8:32

to me that I have repressed so much I don't even

8:34

have a hint of it? The

8:36

thing is, it works. I

8:39

know I can drop myself into one of these

8:41

fantasies and be turned on instantly. But

8:43

I also think that I'm finally fed up with

8:45

it. I'm sure I need to go to a

8:47

sex therapist eventually. But can I

8:50

ever really be healed of these visions? I

8:52

wanna be able to be connected to my

8:54

good, sane boyfriend. I want to think of him

8:56

and only him when I'm having sex with

8:58

him. I want my orgasm

9:01

to be because of the physical and emotional

9:03

connection I have with him and

9:05

not with my naughty subplot. I've

9:08

never told my boyfriend or anyone else

9:10

about these fantasies for obvious reasons. Who

9:12

would fess up to such a sexual

9:14

secret? My question is, do

9:17

I need to tell him? I know

9:19

it would hurt him deeply that I haven't

9:21

ever told him in the 10 years we've

9:23

been together. I'm sure he would feel betrayed

9:25

and scared and confused and bewildered. Not

9:28

to mention emasculated, realizing that

9:30

all those orgasms weren't quite

9:33

for him. How do I tell him? I

9:35

feel like a monster. Help me

9:37

please. Signed, Fed Up

9:40

With Fantasy. Wow. Well,

9:42

the first thing we have to tell Fed Up

9:44

With Fantasy is you are not a monster. And

9:47

actually in answering your letter Fed Up With

9:49

Fantasy, we're gonna get a

9:52

little bit of help from Dr. Ian

9:54

Kerner. He's a psychotherapist and sexuality counselor

9:56

who specializes in sex therapy and couples

9:59

therapy. He's also the New

10:01

York Times bestselling author of She Comes

10:03

First, a Sex Advice book. Which I

10:05

love the title of that book. I've pretty much

10:07

lived my life by that principle. As

10:11

do I, all right. Viva

10:14

la vulva. Yeah. So you

10:16

can tell we have Ian here in

10:18

the studio with us. We're

10:20

so pleased to have you to talk about

10:23

this issue and fed up

10:26

with fantasy. She is tortured

10:29

about what I'm going to

10:31

think are pretty common fantasies. Yeah,

10:33

absolutely. I mean, if you

10:35

look on the internet, incest-based

10:37

fantasies are really probably the

10:40

number one fantasy that's out there.

10:42

And it's amazing how many patients

10:44

I see who are so perturbed

10:46

by their particular fantasies. And

10:49

they have such universal themes. And so

10:51

she's really not alone. When

10:53

I was hearing you read

10:56

the letter, one thing that I also really

10:58

thought about was sort of just the

11:01

basic function of a fantasy.

11:03

And especially when looking

11:05

at the female sexual brain, studies

11:08

have shown that as women

11:10

are getting increasingly aroused and

11:12

getting close to or having

11:14

orgasms, that parts of

11:16

the female brain that are associated with

11:18

stress and anxiety, that those

11:20

parts of the brain kind of deactivate

11:22

and dim and turn off.

11:24

And so the premise

11:27

is sort of that parts of the female

11:29

brain kind of need to

11:31

turn off for the sexual brain to turn on. And

11:34

so what I'm

11:37

really seeing here is that this

11:39

person's fantasies are kind of performing

11:42

a basic and vital function, which

11:44

is to create a level of

11:46

psychological arousal and stimulation that kind

11:49

of hopefully maybe distract her from

11:51

some of those anxieties or

11:54

inhibitions. And so I'm

11:56

hearing in the letter that she thinks of her

11:58

fantasies as a human being. intrusive,

12:04

but really her fantasies are her allies,

12:06

and they're really helping her to experience

12:08

pleasure in her own body. And so

12:10

I really would just love to encourage

12:12

her to reframe this fantasy as

12:15

not being distressing or

12:17

intrusive, but really being sort

12:19

of an ally for helping her experience

12:21

the pleasures of arousal. Right. Well,

12:24

let's first of all, you said

12:26

incest fantasies are among

12:29

the most common, perhaps the most common.

12:32

I think that's disturbing for a lot

12:34

of people, even though they have those fantasies.

12:36

And I remember when I was a

12:38

teenager and first starting to have sexual fantasies,

12:41

when I would think about anything in that

12:43

territory, it really freaked me out. And it

12:46

freaked me out on a couple

12:48

of levels. One, it's repulsive. And

12:50

another, I experienced

12:53

sexual abuse as a child. I've experienced

12:55

incest. And so there's another layer for

12:57

me that that's disturbing. And I would

12:59

love to hear you talk

13:02

to us about that. Why do we

13:04

fantasize about taboo things like incest when

13:07

we know in our lives, not only would

13:10

we never do that, but even that those things

13:12

are harmful and may have harmed us? Right.

13:15

I mean, I think that in a

13:19

different kind of world, we might actually have

13:23

all sorts of different types of sexual attractions

13:25

that we might act on, but

13:27

we sort of live in a society in which

13:30

many of our attractions or

13:32

desires really are

13:34

repugnant and are not socially

13:37

warranted. And so I

13:39

think we build up very strong

13:41

boundaries around our social behavior. But

13:44

it doesn't mean that we don't

13:46

still, in our own sexual underground,

13:48

feel a whole range of different

13:51

types of attractions and desires and

13:53

interests that might not be societally

13:55

acceptable. So I think that fantasies,

13:57

in a healthy way, really... allow

14:00

us to explore taboos that intrigue

14:02

us and attract us and turn

14:04

us on that we can't possibly

14:06

explore or actualize in our

14:08

real lives. But I do want to just

14:11

comment Cheryl that you also said that you

14:13

were a survivor of sexual

14:16

abuse and I've

14:18

also found that that for many patients

14:20

who experienced

14:22

sexual trauma and

14:25

pain that fantasy is a really

14:27

viable way to convert

14:29

feelings of powerlessness and feelings

14:31

of pain into a sense

14:33

of pleasure and power and

14:36

so I think that in

14:38

that sense sometimes fantasies can

14:41

have a healing effect on our

14:43

trauma and I don't know exactly

14:45

what this person's you know personal

14:47

background is so I can imagine

14:50

somebody who is using

14:53

fantasy as

14:55

a way of converting that pain into

14:57

a kind of pleasure and developing mastery

14:59

over her own trauma or

15:02

I could imagine somebody who just wants

15:04

to enjoy a fantasy because it really

15:06

brings a high level of exciting psychogenic

15:08

stimulation that they're not going to achieve

15:10

in other ways. Yeah and she

15:12

does say did something bad happen

15:14

to me that I've repressed which I think

15:17

it's really interesting because

15:19

you know I was

15:21

asking this question when I was younger as

15:24

a sexual abuse survivor she's asking it as

15:26

somebody who hasn't been sexually abused and we're

15:28

both saying like why and where

15:30

does this come from and we don't want it

15:32

are you more likely to have

15:35

incest fantasies if you have been sexually

15:37

abused or is this really just something

15:39

that's in all of our minds and

15:42

in some subconscious way and they rise up

15:44

during those times. I think it's a little

15:46

sad sometimes that

15:49

as soon as we ask why do

15:51

I have these fantasies or what do

15:53

they mean we go back to a

15:55

place of potentially having some kind of

15:57

trauma and so we cast our fantasies

16:00

and a somewhat, you know, pathologized, problematized

16:02

light. I mean, most people say, oh,

16:04

I have this crazy fantasy. Do

16:08

you think I suffered some sort of trauma

16:10

as a child? I don't

16:12

remember it, but maybe I did. But rarely

16:14

do I hear anybody say, you know, I

16:16

had such a happy childhood

16:18

and such a creative childhood, and I

16:20

love to sing and play and dance

16:22

and pretend and act, and now I

16:25

have this rich, crazy fantasy life. It's

16:27

sort of a, you know, just an

16:29

extension of sort of the richness of

16:31

my life. So I think very

16:33

often we are distressed by our

16:36

fantasies. They run

16:38

counter to our own social

16:40

boundaries and our, you know, our own sense

16:42

of ethics, and so we

16:44

immediately look to pathologize

16:48

our fantasies. But to

16:50

answer your question, also, people

16:52

experience trauma, and not everyone

16:55

who experiences trauma goes

16:57

on to be impaired by their

16:59

trauma. Some people are able to

17:01

master their traumas, and some people

17:03

don't and can't. And I think

17:05

when we are unable to heal

17:08

our own traumas, when we're unable

17:10

to soothe ourselves, it

17:12

is possible that the

17:15

trauma will find its way more likely

17:17

into a fantasy. And so I

17:19

have found with my patients who have

17:21

unresolved trauma that

17:24

sometimes those traumatic experiences do

17:26

convert themselves into a kind

17:28

of fantasy. Interesting. In

17:31

talking to fed up

17:33

fantasies, let's say she walks into your office, one

17:35

of the things that she's struggling with is,

17:38

okay, maybe you can tell her, look,

17:40

fantasies are the repository, they're forbidden, but

17:42

they're also something that help you feel

17:44

good in your body. These are

17:46

not something that are abnormal, everybody has their share,

17:49

and so forth. You

17:51

can tell her that. But she still might

17:53

say to you, okay, but doctor, it's been

17:55

ten years I've been with this boyfriend, and

17:58

I haven't been able to tell him. educators,

28:00

counselors, and therapists, because it's

28:02

a very sex-positive organization,

28:05

and to really research the therapist that

28:07

they're going to be speaking with, because

28:10

I would worry that she

28:12

could have the wrong therapist and end

28:14

up in a worse place. Restigmatized, in

28:16

a way. So

28:19

one of the things that Fed Up with

28:21

Fantasy brings up is this idea that she's

28:23

thought such terrible

28:25

things in her fantasy life that she's

28:27

a monster. She says she's a monster.

28:29

She says her boyfriend will feel betrayed

28:32

and scared and confused, bewildered, all these

28:34

things. And I'm curious

28:36

if there is a line. I mean, I know

28:38

it's not in this letter, but if

28:40

you ever have somebody come into

28:42

your office and they tell you

28:45

their fantasies and you think

28:47

this is too much, I guess

28:49

what I'm saying is I think that what we,

28:51

the conclusion the three of us have come to

28:53

about this is, you know, anything goes in our

28:56

fantasy lives. That's what we're essentially saying.

28:58

But what I'm curious about is, is that true? And

29:01

where is the line? Yeah. I

29:05

honestly believe that the line is

29:08

when you cross the line into some kind of

29:10

behavior that could

29:13

cause distress to you or to somebody

29:15

else or to violate the

29:17

law. I mean,

29:19

I really am not the thought police.

29:22

You know, maybe as we can continue

29:24

to talk, though, sometimes I find that

29:28

certain fantasies become rigid. Things that

29:30

might just be a theme or

29:32

a channel or an interesting fantasy

29:35

start to become rigid the more

29:37

somebody is really experiencing a lot

29:39

of distress in their life. And

29:41

so I don't think

29:43

I could ever really say I draw the

29:45

line around content in terms of what somebody

29:48

is fantasizing or imagining.

29:50

But if it is really causing

29:52

them crippling

29:55

levels of distress, then

29:58

I would start to to feel that it's

30:01

crossing a line and that this person

30:03

is really tragically impaired.

30:06

I've come to agree with you, but

30:09

it took me time. And that's why I'm

30:11

really responding very directly to

30:13

Fed Up with Fantasy about her age.

30:16

Because I do think that it took me at

30:18

least the better part of a

30:20

decade or more to not feel

30:23

distressed, not feel anxious about

30:26

some of the things that were going on in

30:28

my mind that were contrary to who I am

30:30

or to anything I would ever

30:32

do, any of my ethical or moral values.

30:35

And so, you know, and I think that

30:37

that's a really great line, you know, that

30:39

there is a difference between

30:41

behavior and thought. And

30:44

also, I think it's very particular,

30:46

you know, I don't walk around

30:49

having sexual fantasies, you

30:52

know, when I'm not engaged in sexual activity. I

30:54

think if I were haunted always of these

30:56

sort of sexual, you know, images throughout my

30:59

day, I would maybe think I had other

31:01

issues that I needed to examine. But

31:03

yeah, I'm with you. So

31:16

dear listeners, we got so wrapped up

31:18

into our conversation about this letter with

31:21

Dr. Ian Kerner that we realized we're

31:23

going to make this not one episode

31:25

but two. And you'll

31:27

have to listen next week to hear that

31:29

second letter and more of our discussion about

31:33

our darkest sexual fantasies. Listen

31:35

in next week. and

32:00

managing producer is Larissa Anderson. Our

32:02

executive producer is Lisa Tobin, and

32:04

our editorial director is Samantha Hennig.

32:07

We recorded this show at Argo Studios

32:09

in New York City with Paul Ruest.

32:12

Our mix engineer is Josh Rogeson.

32:15

Find us at nytimes.com/dearshugars,

32:17

and please send us

32:19

your letters at dearshugars

32:21

at nytimes.com. That's

32:24

dearshugars, plural, at

32:26

nytimes.com. And if you want

32:28

to read the column every week, we answer an

32:31

additional letter on the topic that

32:33

we've discussed on the podcast. You

32:35

can find that at nytimes.com/The Sweet

32:38

Spot. That's on Tuesdays and on

32:40

Thursdays in the style section.