Why Do Men Fantasize?

Talking about sexual fantasies, especially with someone besides the lover besides you, is usually taboo.

Nancy Friday, discussed female fantasies in her book My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies. She relates sharing a sexually uninhibited love life with a male who enjoyed their living out their fantasies.

In the throes of passion her lover asked her what she was thinking. Honestly she answered describing her fantasy.

The man up and left.

Men seem to have a double standards when it comes to fantasies.

Admittedly, I believe that true passion is achieved by fully focusing in the moment, with your partner, not on an external toy or lost in some dream.

However, it seems many men still have sex more in their heads than with their bodies. As in life, many men are detached from their feelings.

According to the The Kinsey Institute 91% of men fantasize during sex and 45% think of sex every day.

However, the most common fantasy is not about seducing the scantily clad cheer leader or a woman in uniform – it’s having sex with a loved partner.

It seems there are a lot of myths and a team of researchers are out to debunk them.

A team of psychologists led by Dr Mitch Waterman at Leeds University is conducting the definitive, anonymous and confidential survey of the fantasies of men aged between 18 and 90.

In an article on TimesOnline, according to Dr. Mitch Waterman and Tamara Tuner-Moore – a psychologist and Ph.D. student who plans to conduct a definitive study of male sexual fantasy at Leeds University

“Research suggests that the most common sexual fantasy in men is a conventional fantasy such as sex with a loved partner,” says Turner-Moore, a PhD student involved in the study. The loved person may be a former lover.

Waterman us cautious about such claims  and wants to find out if men secretly fantasize about others.

The report in asks the following questions:

“Bestiality, paedophilia and rape, in other words. This is where sexual fantasy has the potential to cross over from the titillating to the terrifying, where the amusing sexual foibles and fetishes documented by the likes of Cosmopolitan and Maxim become disturbing tales of sexual preoccupations leading to criminal behaviour.

“What, if anything, distinguishes a man who likes his wife to dress up as a schoolgirl in consensual sex from a man who grooms under-age schoolgirls for sordid encounters? The researchers will also record the thoughts of sexual offenders, who have turned illicit fantasy into illegal reality.”

While, there is little point about feeding fears that every fantasy will be acted on, the link between fantasy and sexually inappropriate actions needs further research.

What fantasies mean is debated by psychological schools.

“Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that sexual fantasies contribute to the facilitation of sexual arousal, which, in turn, facilitates procreation” says Waterman“Thus sexual fantasies may play an important, previously unrecognized, role in the continued propagation of the human species.”

However Freudian psychology claims “that our fantasies may have developed as a means both of gratifying wishes and conquering intrusive memories of early traumatic experiences (during childhood).”

A 2007 study by researcher Juan Carlos Sierra Freire of the University of Granada highlighted the importance of sexual fantasies in sexuality.

Having sex without desire may negatively affect the stages of sexual response.

“This first stage is the most complex because it is influenced by many factors”, said Freire. He Sexual desire is influenced by social, psychological, and neurophysiologic aspects and proper neurohormonal activity with a right sexual stimulation is required to experience sexual desire.

Freire stated that education on sexual stimulation and response may helppeople find sex more pleasurable and reduce sexual dysfunction.

Time will tell if the Leeds University study will contribute to increasing understanding of sexuality.

However, information and knowledge cannot replace the efforts of a loving couple to experience a deep, intimate and spiritual connection inspiring ecstatic intimacy.

I still believe that the ultimate passion comes from going within and sharing deep intimacy.