On Tuesday, September 24, I’ll be presenting on Erotic Fantasy with the South Shore Sexual Health Center. The class is from 5:30-8:30, and is $120 to attend.
Although our classes are usually aimed at developing future sex therapists, this particular class offers valuable insights for everyone, whether you’re a therapist or simply interested in the subject.
Defining Erotic Fantasy
Let’s start by answering a simple question: What is erotic fantasy?
Filippo Maria Nimbi, sexuality researcher at Sapienza University in Rome, defines erotic fantasy this way:
“Mental imagery and thoughts that are sexually arousing or erotic to the individual while awake, and thus are not externally observable.”
A couple of quick notes.
One of the reasons that sexuality is important to us is because it’s one of the primary ways that adults play. As relationship and sexual health researchers, we view erotic fantasy as a gateway to imagination and creativity. As Peggy Kleinplatz notes in Magnificent Sex, these traits are among the most crucial for couples who report long-lasting positive experiences.
Almost everyone (between 90-97% of people) have some variety of erotic fantasies.
Having a positive and enjoyable erotic fantasy doesn't necessarily mean someone wants to enact said fantasy.
Focus Areas for Our September 24 Session
In the class on September 24, I’ll ask four important questions:
What are the most common erotic fantasies that people have? Since sexuality is taboo in many circles, normalizing the activities and scenarios people fantasize about can help reduce the anxiety and shame associated with sexual health. We’ll explore the work of Justin Lehmiller, specifically his book Tell Me What You Want, as well as some of the data from Pornhub. (I’ll also write about Pornhub’s data next week.)
What do the erotic fantasies that I have say about me? First, that you are a creative, imaginative, joy-seeking person. Second, think of an erotic fantasy like a play, and you are an actor in that play. Even if you don’t want to act out the specific details of your fantasies, the role yohowu play in them may reveal something about you want to engage in sexual experiences. Brett Kahr, author of Who’s Been Sleeping in Your Head?, offers a framework for exploring that.
What are circumstances that are likely to incite erotic fantasies and eroticism? For some folks, sexuality and erotic fantasies arise spontaneously. However, for most folks, sexuality and erotic fantasies develop in response to other contextual factors. (For more info on this, check out Come as You Are by
.) As we’ll talk about in Wednesday’s Substack, Jack Morin, author of The Erotic Mind, offers individual and relational scenarios that can increase eroticism.How do we engage with the fantasies that we have?
Takeaways from Nimbi’s Research
And that brings us back to Filippo Maria Nimbi. In 2023, he and his colleagues at Sapienza University developed the Sexual Desire and Erotic Fantasies Questionnaire.
In their article “Sexual Desire and Erotic Fantasies Questionnaire: The Development and Validation of the Erotic Fantasy Use Scale (SDEF2) on Experience, Attitudes, and Sharing Issues,” published in April 2023’s Healthcare, they explore the relationship that people have with their sexual fantasies.
Specifically, they assess for five things:
The frequency of fantasies. How often do you have them in general? And how often do you have them during solo and partnered sexual experiences?
The normality of fantasies. How normal do you think it is to have the specific fantasies that you have?
The importance that you give to fantasies.
The negative emotions that are connected with fantasies. Specifically, they assess for discomfort, worry, guilt, anger, frustration, and embarrassment.
The frequency with which they discuss their fantasies with their regular partners. As well as the frequency with which their partners discuss their fantasies with them.
They share this assessment with over 1800 Italian adults. Research involving Italians is particularly intriguing to us, as we study the influence of Evangelical, Mormon, and Pentecostal communities on American adults and long-term relationships. There is a strong parallel in how both countries have blended conservative religion with nationalist politics, resulting in highly heteronormative, sex-negative policies in education, advertising, and propaganda.
How Erotic Fantasies Differ Between Genders
They discover that men have more sexual fantasies than women. However, Justin Lehmiller suggests that men and women have similar quantities of sexual fantasy, even though the preferred content of fantasy differs slightly.
In their sample, heterosexual women have the lowest quantity of erotic fantasies by a substantial margin compared to men, bisexual women, and homosexual women. It’s unclear whether this reflects a more rigid understanding of gender in Italian culture (somehow) compared to American culture, or if something else is afoot.
Interestingly, Nimbi and colleagues suggest that bisexual women have similar quantities of erotic fantasy as heterosexual and homosexual men, and more quantities of erotic fantasy than bisexual men. In fact, bisexual women experience the highest sense of normalcy with their fantasies compared to all subgroups (straight/bisexual/homosexual men and women).
They also find that older age, higher education, being in a relationship, and having children are “protective factors against negative emotions” related to erotic fantasy. I was surprised to learn that having children is considered a protective factor, given how parenthood often limits people from engaging in sexual experiences.
Not surprisingly, Nimbi and colleagues discover that folks with conservative political values and/or strong religiosity tend to have fewer fantasies and more negative relationships with them.
How We Can Help
Given these findings, how can someone with a high-control religious background start to explore erotic fantasies and develop a healthy relationship with them?
That’s where we step in.
Julia and I provide relationship coaching and therapy to partnerships where one or both people grew up in a conservative religious environment.
In relationship coaching, we help you explore and reflect on how cultural messages from late 20th and early 21st century America have shaped negative expectations about your body, others' bodies, and what healthy relationships should look like. We'll then create a space for you and your partner to discover new ways to engage with imagination and pleasure that suit your relationship.
For more information about relationship coaching, please email us at sexvangelicals@gmail.com.
Let’s heal together!
Jeremiah and Julia