I don’t think fantasizing about someone inappropriate is bad. I don’t think fantasies are bad. I just think when you voice that fantasy, thought becomes action and you need to consider the consequences, especially if it could make someone feel violated in some way.
I’m thinking of a certain poster with a bondage fetish who talked about it at every opportunity and made many people uncomfortable.
Welllll… People are influenced by their brains. (It’s like they’re connected or something!) If you’re deliberately choosing to fantasize about something inappropriate, essentially entertaining the idea and mulling it over in your mind, you might find yourself becoming more accepting of he idea over time due to the same mechanic that conservatives use to acclimatize people to lies: if you repeat something to somebody enough they begin to accept it as right regardless of its truth.
So yeah, I don’t hold it against you if the occasional thought flits across your mind, but if you’re dwelling on how hot your friend’s wife is and making her the subject of your erotic fantasies, then maybe you should find other ways to spend your mental time.
As I said above, I can’t visualize anything so it’s not something I have personal experience with, but it seems to not be really uncommon.
Rodney Dangerfield told this great joke to Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show that he just had had a night with his wife where “nothing was happening” so he asked her “What’s the problem, can’t you think of anyone, either?”
It does seem that people are able to have fantasies without it becoming a problem just as many people can gamble or drink without it becoming a serious problem for them.
I grew up in a very conservative environment which was sexually repressed and yet many people had serious problems with inappropriate sexual actions. I’ve always wondered if people were allowed to be a bit more free if that wouldn’t be more healthy.
Obviously if something becomes obsessive then it’s going too far, but is there really that much harm simply by having an occasional fantasy about someone?
Despite the Carter mindset of having lusted in my heart, I see no moral failing in a fantasy. Sharing the fantasy or even thought is however an action, in this case an ethical choice. If you know the room you can guess if people will be creeped out by the fantasy/ thought or amused or complimented by the sharing of a vulnerable secret. Or if a lie is the better ethical choice.
Seems like retrospectively a little lie or deflection was the better choice for that room.
As I see it, the potential harm is the possibility that…
On the other hand, as you suggest, it’s possible that fantasizing could be beneficial, providing a healthy release or safety valve.
I have no idea and make no claims about how likely any of these things are.
thelma Lou–it was 80’s and the LA Reader carried it when I worked there
As George Carlin said “the second biggest cause of erectile dysfunction is picturing your neighbours wife naked.”
Man, if just thinking about stuff I haven’t acted on is morally wrong, I’m a very bad person I think! However, if it is wrong, I’d like to know how bad I am compared to the average person.
This ^
Thinking about other people naked is not a problem but honesty is not always the best policy. I confess that I don’t want to know everyone else’s thoughts 100% of the time and I assume the same is true of others.
I don’t think of thoughts as being moral or immoral; what’s in the mind is in the mind. It doesn’t enter the realm of morality until one begins plotting of ways to act on such thoughts.
Yeah. Perhaps why I’m hesitant to judge others’ thoughts is that I think about all kinds of twisted shit. People like me who suffer from intrusive (repeated and unwanted) thoughts are suffering enough. And the fastest way to make a random thought into an intrusive thought is to feel bad for having it.
Naked, no. Nekkid, yes.
Buck-naked? You can still socks on.
First thing I learned to overcome stage-frigh, was to imagine your audience naked. That would work to explain your way out of the OP’s dilemma.
This is actually something I’ve thought of in the context of some religions which seem to have rules about some types of thoughts, but also have concepts like temptation. Seeing as no one saw any inconsistency, it seems to me that temptation and lust were always seen as different things. Heck, I’m not sure lust was understood as a mere thought.
(Not wanting to get into a debate about whether said religions are legitimate or if people are stupid to believe in them or not.)