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YOUR MARITAL HEALTH/WIVES’ SEXUALITY: MS. MYTH – THE CLOSED-MIND MYTH

I don’t fantasize. I’m sure I don’t. Everyone talks about that, but I can’t do it and I never have. I just think about holding, being close, warm, intensely in love with my husband, just alone together, becoming more together, more in love, more turned on with each other. I think about that a lot, but I don’t fantasize.

WIFE

The early sexual perspectives saw fantasy related specifically to physical and genital imagery. Questions in the research protocols were about “physical turn-ons,” typically leading questions from the point of view of the male researcher. It is a fact that everyone fantasizes. Women fantasize, men fantasize, children fantasize. Sexual fantasy is the mental rehearsal of the love map, including some new paths that I described earlier, and relates much more to the individual experience of that love map than it does to gender. Here are two fantasies from the couples. See if you can tell which is a husband and which is a wife.

“I can see it in my mind even while we are doing it. My partner goes down on me while somebody is kissing me and somebody else is rubbing me all over. Then all three do everything to me. Then I do it to each one of them alone.”

“I see an image of the two of us embraced, close, kissing deeply. A candle is nearby, and our shadow is on the wall. The kiss becomes more and more intimate, and I come just by kissing.”

The first fantasy is that of a wife, the second was reported by a husband. You have already learned about the sexual similarities between men and women, so you probably expected the unexpected in this example, but most spouses reported the first as male, the second as female and were surprised to learn that personal and relationship development had more to do with sexual imagery than gender.

I discovered that it was more meaningful to ask about “sexual images” than fantasy. Some spouses were raised to censor the fantasy process but would readily discuss a set of mental images. It was as if the image was something to be “viewed” from a safe distance, while fantasy was something one participated in and therefore wrong. I explored not only individual imagery but “marital imagery,” asking couples to create and continually modify their collective sexual images. Here is one example.

“My wife is naked with me on a tropical island,” reported the husband. The wife is then asked to provide the next image. “We walk hand and hand in the warm sun and gentle breeze,” she reported. “We stop to shower in a warm, refreshing waterfall, and the water hitting us seems to arouse us,” reported the husband. “I notice his erection and touch it, begin to kiss it,” shares the wife. “I caress her breasts and run my hands through her hair,” shares the husband. The imagery assignment continued until the husband stated, “That’s about all we want to say in this session.” The wife added, “Good-bye, and we will leave you to finish this up with your own images.” Perhaps you and your spouse can take their imagery from here and develop your own scenes. Remember, images have no gender. You together are the producers, directors, and cast of this I-rated (intimacy-rated) movie.