Standard Deviations — 12/2/10

There are fantasies, and there are fantasies.  There is the fantasy where your loving partner sweeps you off your feet to your favorite restaurant, where you eat by candlelight, whisper sweet nothings and later return to a flower-strewn room where you make sweet, sweet love on the bed you share together.  That’s a totally fine fantasy, and also, most likely, a desire that you can communicate with a few well-placed hints and maybe a wink or two.  And then there is the fantasy that involves your partner on all fours wearing a dog collar.  This is also fine, but probably not something that you can communicate with a wink.  This would probably require a bit of a talk.

Fantasies that involve degrading your partner, or being degraded, are actually fairly common.  They also tend to be incredibly uncomfortable and awkward to discuss.  There are unavoidable questions of respect, and rightfully so — there’s not much more personal and vulnerable than sex.  But there’s also not much more personal than a fantasy, nor more vulnerable than expressing one that may or may not be well-received.  After all, having a partner confess a fantasy that may be extraordinarily outside personal boundaries is something that should be appreciated as well.  It’s a level of trust most people give only to furtive Google searches, regularly-erased histories and prostitutes. Thus, admitting one to a significant other is to be valued as a sign of trust and respect.

Still, the idea that your boyfriend or girlfriend really, really, really wants to use you like a prostitute is hard not to take personally.  Don’t.  A fantasy executed is sexual theater — parts being played and acted-out for a singular gratification.  In the same way that we don’t (usually) hold Kenneth Branagh liable for killing half the royalty in Denmark, once all is said and done and the chains, latex, schoolgirl skirts, marmalade and DVD of Hamlet have been put away, you and your dearly beloved are pretty much back to where you started.  (Though perhaps slightly stickier.)  Once the acting is over and done with, life goes on.

As an actor, a fantasy-facilitator, there are still a couple of lingering questions. Did you just get used?  Of course you did, and hopefully, you were fully aware of that and committed to it.  It’s just like a more elaborate form of unreciprocated oral sex — just like you are (hopefully) aware that often a gent or a lady would rather bliss out and pass out than return the favor, so the execution of a fantasy is, at its heart, a gift. There is pleasure from pleasing your partner, sure — and hopefully, you have a partner grateful enough to pay you back on a later date with an executed fantasy, or a bit of home cooking, or a lengthy massage or whatever the coin of the realm is.  A more complex and protracted question is: Is this what s/he always thinks of when we’re having sex?  Is this what they really want, and just have never been able to tell me?  What implications does this have on their personality, on who they are and how much I know them?

Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that.  For the last question, at least, (and this one goes out to you furtive fantasizers, too) I will say that fantasies occur in the most unlikely places, to the most unlikely people.  Just like the stereotype of the driven, powerful, controlling gent or lady just loves being tied up and submissive, sometimes even Bambi longs for a bit of bondage.  But, just as in theater, there’s a vast gulf between a fantasy, even an executed one, and a reality. Bringing to life a fantasy involving a cop rarely requires more than a change of wardrobe and a pair of handcuffs, not enrolling with the local police department.  But it still means a willingness to don a collar, at least.