I was talking with a friend recently, and somehow the topic of fantasies came up. This person expressed a sense of deep personal discomfort with certain fantasies, and I got a sense of shame and misery from this individual about having those fantasies, and we had an exchange that went something like this:

Me: Ok, I get that you feel like such and such a fantasy is “wrong,” because the behaviour involved is morally questionable, but I don’t think you should beat yourself up over it.

Person: But, its wrong, I shouldn’t feel that way, and it makes me feel like a bad person.

Me: Right, but here’s the thing. Unlike an actual bad person, you would never do the thing that you are fantasizing about. Because you recognize that it is a bad thing, and you understand the difference between fantasy and reality.

Our whole exchange was very interesting, and obviously I’m not going to delve into it, but it got me thinking about one of the reasons I really love Savage Love, Dan Savage’s advice column. (Dan Savage himself, alas, is extremely fat-phobic, but I can separate one dislikable aspect of a person from their more redeeming traits.) Savage explicitly and frequently expounds on the difference between fantasy and reality, and I think it’s a good difference to underline.

There’s a huge difference between doing something and thinking about doing something. For example, I occasionally fantasize about ruthlessly slaughtering my neighbors, but obviously that’s not something I would ever do, because I recognize that it is, you know, not very nice. But I don’t think that imagining the act is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I would argue that working out elaborate schemes in my mind while I seethe in bed trying to sleep allows me to express my irritation and anger, thereby defusing it.

America is all about repression, and the mind is a dangerous thing to repress. People in this country wig out about fantasies like the citizens of 1984 fret about thoughtcrime. I just don’t think that the world of the imagination is or should be subject to the same rules which govern actual, physical behavior. Imagination is a wonderful thing, after all.

And, in some cases, I think that there are ways to realize certain fantasies with consenting people in a healthy, safe, and sane way. There are whole communities of people out there who love to do just that, and many of the people in those communities are gentle, loving, caring people who simply have a few unusual extracurricular pursuits.

It makes me sad that we live in a society where people are taught to feel ashamed of themselves when they think in ways which are nonconventional. Obviously, I am not condoning actual atrocities, but I don’t think that trying to repress fantasies is very productive, or healthy. I also certainly wouldn’t condone any acts which were nonconsensual, but I am not opposed to the illusion of nonconsensuality in a carefully negotiated and controlled scene with mentally capable adults.

The boundaries of what we consider to be sexual deviance seem to be constantly changing, but there’s a common thread of treating people who are perceived as deviants like animals. I find this attitude extremely counterproductive, because it suggests that there is no sane, healthy, safe way to express desires and fantasies.

In a world where people were more open about their fantasies, maybe they would understand the difference between fantasy and reality more clearly. If you’ve ever looked at Japanese comic books within the larger context of Japanese society, you can see that people are perfectly capable of expressing some pretty astounding fantasies without actually acting on them. And for those who do want, in some small way, to act out such fantasies, there are healthy outlets for doing so, because it’s a culture where the concept of fantasy is accepted, allowing people to negotiate their own boundaries and to seek out like-minded individuals.

Personally, I’d rather see that than the inevitably explosive results of repression.