Fantasy Sex Lives

I’m going to go on a limb here and talk about secret sexual sins. Not a comfortable topic. Twice in my life, I met with girls who were brave enough to confess their struggles in this area, and both times it opened the door to me doing the same. While recent studies have highlighted how often women watch porn, and certain bestsellers have shed light on erotic literature, this is still a hard topic to talk about, especially for women.

I was reflecting recently on how it is so common, even for those who are outwardly moral, to have a fantasy sex life, defined as watching or reading anything that leads to having mental fantasies often manifesting in masturbation. The actual content one struggles with may range from what most believers would call bad (porn, erotic novels) to more acceptable things (lyrics in songs, TV shows with sex scenes, christian romance books with sexual tension).

The reality is, it’s almost impossible to grow up in this culture without struggling to some extent with a fantasy sex life. Before you get married, you figure actually having sex will fix all of it, but it doesn’t: while the fantasy sex life affects the real sex life, having the real life doesn’t always affect the fantasy one. Because at heart, they are two totally different things. The real sex life is about relationship, about a real person, about putting ourselves aside, about being vulnerable. The fantasy life is about consumerism, objectification, and immediate gratification, without actually giving anything. It’s faster, easier, and more addictive.

What’s behind the fantasy life? Sometimes it’s time-of-month hormones, or being tired, or being angry, but mostly it’s an idolization of feeling desired, at least I think for women. You don’t have to foray far into the romance novel industry to figure this out: the longer the book can draw out the pursuit and ongoing sexual tension, the better.

That’s why, to me, the issue is at heart a spiritual one. There are so many rational reasons to stay away from this stuff (objectification of women, bad examples to our kids, polluting effectiveness in ministry, contributing to pedophilia, rewiring our brains, affecting our sexual expectations, wasting our time, practicing deceit), but what will make us stop?

The other night I was confronting the reality of this in our lives, and I felt overcome with sadness in a way I never had before, just sadness for myself, my friends, for those I loved, that these things which we struggle to utter to the people closest to us on earth will one day come before a holy God. I saw how much these things hurt God, and cheat us of what he wants for us, and as I was crying I started thinking about the picture of Jesus in Revelation 5: Jesus with seven eyes, seeing everything. A slain lamb, because he loves me. Standing, because he has resurrected and overcome the darkness. With seven horns, because he has complete power, power that he gives me to overcome. It’s a bit of a horror-movie image, but at that moment, it felt precious.

It doesn’t take much to see that our story with Jesus is the stuff of fantasies. He went from one world to another, changed form, became poor, suffered for us. He is the ultimate alpha male, sensitive lover, and unfailing protector that all these novels hark on about, and I suppose there is a kind of tension that we exist in, anticipating the ultimate consummation of our lives forever with him in eternity. But there’s a difference between knowing these things and feeling them deep in our hearts, in a way that takes away the hungers and habits we nurse in the dark. I think it can. I’ve experienced that, and I’m praying it for the people I know and love.