“The Christian church plays the central formative role in limiting and thwarting our sexual phantasie.”

Carter Heyward

German liberation theologian Dorothee Soelle wrote of Phantasie, the use of imagination to transcend the limits of present reality. Sexual phantasie can be conceived as sexual imagination, the dynamic expansion of our sexual horizon. And at the heart of sexual phantasie is fantasy, the imaginative escape from real-life sexual restraints.

My sexual imagination was forged in the crucible of a religious culture which imposed an “obsessive, proscriptive attitude” toward sexuality. From purity culture, I learned that one’s essential worth consists in maintaining “purity,” that is, in abstaining from being sexual. When I wasn’t suppressing my sexual urges, I was convicting myself of the sinfulness of unrepressed sexual obsessions. “Impure thoughts” were condemned as adultery against a future spouse. My erotophobia stifled any sexual exploration.

But there was Genevieve.

Genevieve was a fellow freshman at my private Christian high school. Petite and pretty with long brown hair, I couldn’t help but notice her. And I couldn’t help but notice her massive chest. I had only the most rudimentary notions of sex (I thought oral sex was talking about sex), but I fantasized about Genevieve. I wondered what wonders lay under her skirt. As I marveled at the fullness of her breasts, admonitions to take thoughts captive sounded hollow. Guilt inevitably accompanied my erotic imaginings. Whenever Genevieve shyly smiled at me, though, I lusted in my heart.

Despite my best efforts to control it, my erotic imagination intensified. I undressed Miss Singer, my comely young English teacher, in my mind. I furtively sneaked off and masturbated to images of Anna Kournikova. I developed a fetish for the lacy lingerie that (barely) covered my favorite Victoria’s Secret models. My religiosity tempered my fantasies and clothed them in shame, but they couldn’t be quelled entirely.

Tina’s kids are watching VeggieTales in the nursery. She’s in my office for more adult pursuits. I press her against the wall, hike up her skirt, and pull down her panties. She wraps her legs around me. I hear some other parishioners in the hallway outside. No matter. I roughly fuck her against the wall — hot, wet, sticky, creamy. She strains to muffle her moans of pleasure. I’m intent on sending her back to her kids with my sperm swimming inside her….

My erotic imagination has certainly expanded since then. My exposure to porn surely has contributed. More so, becoming sexually active has allowed me to penetrate (no pun intended) the mystery of erotic experience. My hypersexual imagination now filters much of my life through an erotic prism. As I write this sentence at Starbucks, I’m spying two young college girls in line, their tight leggings hugging their legs. Visions of the blonde going down on her friend dance in my head.

My sexual imagination has a momentum of its own.

I drew closer to Sister Agnes. “I don’t think you’ll be needing your habit any longer.” I reached for her veil and slowly took it off her head. She removed the pins from her hair and allowed her beautiful brown tresses to frame her face. Then she slowly removed her habit, which she allowed to fall to the church floor. She stood before me in her simple underwear: a plain white bra and white cotton panties. She unclasped the back of her bra and allowed it to fall down. Her round, pointy-tipped breasts were quite lovely. She reached down and slipped off her panties, revealing an unshaven patch of dark brown pubic hair. She took my hand, and I led her to the altar. I told her to lie on it. She hesitated, then climbed on top of the altar and spread her knees wide. I climbed on top of her and guided my cock to her opening. She shivered as it started to slide it in. I felt the tip of my cock against her hymen. I paused for a second, marveling at the thought at what I was about to do….

Freud believed sexual fantasies were a window into the psyche. Sex researcher Justin J. Lehmiller made an interesting discovery:

People who were religiously affiliated and who, presumably, had the most sexual constraints placed upon them, tended to fantasize more about breaking free of them. Specifically, they were more likely to fantasize about a range of novel and taboo sex acts. They seemed to be demonstrating what psychologists call reactance, the idea that when our perceived freedoms are threatened or when we’re pressured to adopt a certain view or attitude, we respond in a way that’s opposite of what the authority or requestor wants. In other words, rather than getting in line, we rebel.

My hands run through Khloe’s blonde hair as she aggressively sucks my cock. Kara plants a deep kiss on my lips before joining her sister on her knees before me. As Khloe continues to work on my shaft, Kara takes one of my balls into her mouth. Then Kara positions herself on the edge of the bed and spreads her legs. Khloe looks on as I penetrate her sister. I establish a steady rhythm before Khloe comes in to make out with me. Minutes pass before Khloe pouts that she wants to get in on the fun. I lie on my back. Khloe gets on top and furiously rides me. Now its time to make out again with Kara. Or is it Kara who’s riding me as I passionately kiss Khloe? It makes no difference….

Shadow Self

I’ve long struggled with my shadow self, that dark part of my psyche which contradicts my public commitments. I’ve been incapable of accepting my erotic imagination. My personality is fractured. In the struggle to repress my desires, I’ve lost control of them. My fantasies expose the perversity at the heart of my sexual rebellion.

Dr. Sheffield’s undergraduate students would never imagine this. Their cool, calm professor, who has mastered Ugaritic and is an expert in the Dead Sea Scrolls, was utterly servile before me: bent over her desk, skirt pulled up, her panties stuffed in her mouth. Her heart-shaped bottom was as red as a rose, but I wasn’t done yet. SMACK! She flinched and whimpered as she endured yet another spanking. SMACK! She had discovered the pleasure that can only come from humiliation and pain….

Sexual fantasies are the ultimate expression of erotic freedom. In my “straight” life, I hide and suppress my deepest, darkest desires. Even as I have become more sexually adventurous, my inner erotic life is marked by a yearning for deeper exploration. In my sexual phantasmagoria, all is possible. I can athletically bang Amy Adams. Or the young barista behind the counter. A threesome with Mrs. Sexton and her nubile daughter is vividly enacted. Molly the prudish librarian is stripped of her virginity in the stacks, and no pretty pastor’s wife is safe from debauchment. Liberated from social, religious and moral strictures (as well as the constraints of time, space, and plausibility), my erotic imagination occupies a liminal space between right and wrong, good and evil, the sacred and the profane. It’s a space of raw uninhibited honesty.

Journeying to the deepest and darkest corners of my psyche, I’m confronted by a deep reservoir of shame. “Some desires aren’t desirable,” I recall being told. My rigid conservative upbringing narrowly defined “normal” sexual behavior. The things I dream of doing, the unspeakable thoughts that sear my mind and make my pulse race — they are condemnable. Yet my polymorphic perversities are not so easily tamed. I filter sex through a dark lens.