Let’s Get Intelexual | Your Fantasies Know Things You Don’t

A fantasy of mine revealed itself in a dream.

I didn’t know I had it. That might be my favorite thing about fantasies: sometimes your conscious mind is the last person invited to the party. Mine apparently decided to expose itself by way of an indoor pool, a man I’m attracted to, and a version of me willing to get into a little trouble.

The pool is empty except for him. He’s already in the water when I arrive, and I’m standing at the edge fully dressed + unprepared to swim.

“Take your clothes off.”

I laugh, waiting for a smile that would turn the moment into a joke. No joke comes. There’s something in his voice I haven’t heard before. Calm. Commanding. Serious. I like it. Suddenly the thing making me nervous isn’t the idea of being naked. It’s the realization that I want to listen. As a second generation Eldest Daughter, I spend so much of my life being the calm, commanding, serious one. I have a 5 PhDs in handling shit and 4 in emotional labor.

But standing there, looking at him, I have a delicious sense that whatever trouble waits in that water, I wouldn’t have to clean it up.

Your Fantasies Know Things You Don’t

Fantasies are interesting because the plot is rarely the whole story. Beneath who is doing what to whom, there are themes: surrender, pursuit, attention, danger, safety, power, permission. Those themes can reveal something about the conditions under which your psyche finds enough safety and/or charge to let desire breathe.

Mine gave me a man who embodied the very qualities I’m over-accustomed to holding: calm, command, certainty, competence. It’s sexy to be in command. But it’s also exhausting. The fantasy wasn’t simply about giving up control. It was about being with someone whose competence made control feel like clothes I could take off.

So forget the plot of your fantasies for a moment and look for the pattern underneath them. If your fantasy could speak without describing a single sexual act (notice mine didn’t) what would it say your body has been asking you for?

What’s In Your Erotic Gumbo?

Your sexuality has taste. Your erotic taste is the collection of psychic ingredients in the gumbo of your sex life. It’s the desires, dynamics, emotions, sensations, contradictions, turn-ons, turn-offs, etc. that create charge for you. Maybe your gumbo needs surrender + competence. Maybe yours wants praise + rebellion. Most of us know when gumbo tastes good. Far fewer of us can tell you what the hell is in it.

Learning to language your erotic taste changes that. When you can name why something feels good, uncomfortable, exciting, boring, safe, or absolutely-the-fuck-not you gain vocabulary for more than sex.

You get better at communicating needs + preferences. You get better at setting boundaries. You settle less. You speak up more. You build a healthier more autonomous relationship with your body and your self.

So here’s your homework (or home play)

Choose an erotic fantasy that keeps finding its way back to you. You don’t need to understand it. You damn sure don’t need to moralize it. Just write it down. Look through the list of erotic themes below and notice what flavors appear in your fantasy.

Power: dominance, surrender, control, being led, authority, defiance, permission, restraint, being responsible, being irresponsible.

Attention: being desired, being chosen, being rejected, pursuit, admiration, praise, being seen, being irresistible, exclusivity, being the focus, anticipation.

Safety & vulnerability: trust, competence, protection, care, tenderness, reassurance, exposure, being known, letting your guard down, emotional surrender.

Risk & transgression: secrecy, forbidden fruit, rule-breaking, getting caught, taboo, danger, rebellion, betrayal, anonymity, unpredictability, “good trouble.”

Identity: confidence, boldness, innocence, mischief, glamour, power, softness, wildness, receptivity, becoming someone different from your everyday self.

Connection: intimacy, devotion, belonging, mutual fascination, emotional intensity, playfulness, worship, being understood, reciprocity, possessiveness.

Sensation & atmosphere: slowness, urgency, suspense, novelty, luxury, privacy, publicness, ritual, spontaneity, sensory immersion.

Now get curious: What do these flavors give me? Who do I get to become inside this soup? What does my body seem to want more of and what does it want absolutely nothing to do with?

The better you become at connecting what your body knows to what your mind can understand the more access you have to your vital life force energy. Knowing your erotic palette gives you vocabulary for creating a sex life that actually tastes like yours.

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