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Should you control your sexual fantasies?
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It is natural to have sexual fantasies, but should you censor those thoughts to include the person you are dating?
I do not fantasize about specific people, perhaps because the Catholic sexual guilt inflicted on me in the youth doesn't allow me to drag anyone else into my sinful thoughts. My fantasies are like the people in my dreams: just bodies that are faceless in a noncreepy way. These thoughts drift in and out, mixed with grocery lists and unanswered emails, until I am filled with a sensation of guilt for not including my boyfriend. So, startled, I substitute him in.
How Orwellian of me.
I can't pinpoint exactly when I started censoring my thoughts, but I know it has been since I started dating my current boyfriend. He and I, at one time, had very different ideas of what is acceptable in a relationship. When it comes to dating, he is much more conservative than I am. It has always been very hard for me to draw the line when I am with someone. Oh, you got drunk and made out with someone? No problem, it happens. Passed out at a female's house? I am sure nothing was going on there.
I had always felt that getting upset about these gray-area situations was lame and silly. Usually people experiment with this kind of logic in college then wake up and smell the coffee, realizing that people can be lying bastards if you let them. They become hip to the fact that if you give someone you are dating too much leeway, bad things tend to happen. A line is crossed -- first, it's just your toe, then you're running across it. I should know; I am a reformed perpetual line crosser.*
I find that it takes a lot of self discipline for me to not be a bad girlfriend. Maybe my parents didn't hug me enough. Who knows? When someone wants me to be close, my instinct is to throw poop instead. And by "throw poop" I mean flirting with relationship disaster: coming upon a situation I know is kinda wrong but doing it anyway.
Now that I am trying so hard to be good, the self-discipline has gone a little haywire. Hence the self mind control.
I asked my boyfriend about it, and, while undoubtedly rolling his eyes at how weird I can be, he said that it isn't bad unless you are fantasizing about another specific, could-do person. As in, in real life, you could have sex with him or her, for reals. Celebrities don't count. Obviously my shadow people don't fall into this catagory.
Did this make me feel better? Not really. I am sure that the self-censorship will continue. One thing I know about myself is that I am a creature of habit. At least now my habits don't lead to people hating me.
*Coming soon: Is hipster culture the problem? Just kidding ... or am I?**
**Also coming soon: Hipster suicide: When dying is the raddest way to be ironic
