Episode 174: Fantasy vs Desire, Intrusive Thoughts, and Porn Literacy

You are listening to the Overcome Pornography for Good podcast episode 174, Fantasy vs Desire, Intrusive Thoughts and Porn Literacy

Welcome to the Overcome Pornography For Good podcast where we take a research-based, trauma informed and results focused approach to quitting porn. This approach has been revolutionary and changed thousands and thousands of lives. I’m your host, Sara Brewer. 

Hey everyone, today I’m sharing a little snippet from our healthy sexuality milestone. It’s pretty, pretty short, but like big concepts. I’m trying to keep it simple for you guys. 

A little content warning. So we talk porn literacy, and so we’re going to be talking about what is and isn’t real that you see in pornography. And so just a little content warning, you know, it’s not content for kids to hear. And I will say, and a comment here, if you have kids who have the internet and who have viewed porn, you might want to talk about some of these things with them. Talk about these porn literacy concepts with them. 

And you might feel awkward talking about some of these things, but the truth is your kids are probably feeling confused and scared and more awkward. And so it’s worth having the hard conversations with them about what they’re seeing, about what’s real and what’s not real. And doing it in a really shame-free but just educational standpoint is going to be really, really helpful for them. So listening to this and then deciding, you know, if you have kids who have viewed porn, how you want to talk with them about this type of stuff. 

Hey everyone, welcome to today’s episode. I’m so excited that you’re here. And today we’re doing another clip from the healthy sexuality milestone that I have in the program. Before we dive in, I just want y’all to know that I am offering a new class. It’s How To Quit Viewing Pornography Without Willpower 2.0. 

So this is a masterclass that I’ve been sharing for a long time, but I’m revamping it and adding a bunch of new stuff and new things that I think are really important for you to know if you want to understand the process to quit porn for good or to overcome all of the distress around pornography for good, so that you can live a really beautiful, joyful life completely in line with your value system. 

This is the only time I’ll be doing this class live because I’m going to, you know, run my ads to it, which is how many of you have found me, is through ads. I’m going to be updating the current one that I have with this new one. So what that means is that this is the only time you’ll be able to watch this specific class with me live and ask questions live. 

One thing I love to do, I love the live classes because I get to stay on and I get to chat with you guys as long as you have questions, I’ll just stay on and chat. And so come register for this class. It’s totally free. It’s going to be May 23rd at 5 pm Mountain Time. If you cannot make it at that time, you will still get access to a replay. 

And if I have a lot of demand, if you guys want more afterwards, we’ll do a follow-up call that will be free as well, but only to those of you who have registered. All you have to do is go put in your email so we have an email to send the link to. 

It’s going to be really, really great. I have people who tell me that this free class that they listened to in the past, it’s really changed everything for them and how they’re viewing porn and has allowed them to make a lot more success than they have in the years and years and years of trying all these things that we talk about in the podcast. 

So the purpose of this class is just to get really to the point. Very clear, here’s the process, here’s how we do it. Answer questions that you have. And then at the end, I do talk about my program for anyone who wants to come and work with me a little bit more in depth. 

It is not just a sales class. I do offer that information because there are a lot of people who want more help than what I can offer in my free material. But coming and listening to the free material alone will really give you a jumpstart and give you a lot of information on how to proceed in a way that’s going to help you long-term. 

So you can come and join us by registering at centerforovercomingpornography.com/livemasterclass. Hope to see you there and enjoy this clip continuing our chat about healthy sexuality. 

Okay, everyone, welcome to our porn literacy, intrusive thoughts, and sexual fantasy versus desire video. Let’s hop into it. You know, if we’re going to consume pornography and there are people right here in the program, there’s lots of people, there’s lots of different goals. Some of you are trying to cut back on your porn use, but not quit it completely. Some of you are trying to quit it completely. 

Either way. We don’t have a goal for you. We don’t care what you do. We just want you to learn to feel more in control, to not be buffering and just like the inner healing is our goal for you. And so whatever that looks like for you specifically with your porn use, we’re going to help you. 

And so just a few comments here, porn literacy and consuming porn. There are a few key concepts here. Number one, we want to do it as ethically as possible. And number two is we want to understand porn literacy. So ethical pornography use is legal pornography use on legalized sites. And paid sites have the best filters and procedures for making sure that things are going to be ethical and consensual that are uploaded there. 

Now, porn literacy, and I’m citing Marty Klein here from his book, His Porn, Her Pain. But some things that are really important to understand about pornography as you’re viewing, let’s go through these points. So first, porn is in a documentary. It’s not real life. Real sex and real bodies are not typically what you see in porn and not typically like what you see in porn.

Real sex doesn’t feel the way that porn looks. Porn omits a part of sex that most people consider important, which can include kissing, embracing, talking, laughing, and contraception. A sexual encounter in real life almost never starts the way that it begins in porn. It generally requires conversation, a smile, a gentle touch. 

Without scripting and a lot of preparation, much of what takes place in porn would be very uncomfortable, extremely unlikely, or simply impossible. And then lastly, most people never do some of the common things that you see in porn, like ejaculating on a woman’s face, anal sex, threesomes, women squirting during orgasm, et cetera. 

There isn’t anything wrong with these in consensual environments, but porn makes them seem very common and they’re actually very unusual in the general population. 

You know, there’s a really great article, someone teaching their son about pornography. And we can’t always just control everything our kids are going to see, especially if they live on the internet. So he compares porn and real life sex to driving and Fast and the Furious, right? So if you’re trying to learn how to drive by watching Fast and the Furious and you’re thinking how people drive in the Fast and the Furious is normal, it’s not going to be very safe when you get on the roads. 

And so it’s similar with this. If we’re viewing porn, porn might have been our form of sex education. These are some really, really important things to understand and know as you’re watching it, that it’s not real. It’s not a documentary. Real sex and real bodies are not typically what you see in porn, right? It’s a production. 

It’s a production, so there’s angles and there’s, you know, people that’s their jobs. Their only job is to make sure their body looks this way. That’s not real life. There’s medications sometimes and other things that can help people’s bodies look a certain way. 

Porn omits that part that a lot of people find important, the connection piece, the emotional connection. Real life encounters don’t usually look the way they look in porn. Anyways, I just already went through all of these, but these are really important things to understand about sex and sexuality if you’re viewing pornography. 

One thing to note too, sometimes people might feel threatened, right, by porn. You know, if my partner watches porn, they’re not going to want to have sex with me. The thing about sex with a real person is it’s very different. It’s much more intimate. It’s much more vulnerable. It has those parts, the cuddling, the connection, the actual human touch. That is very different and requires more work than just watching a screen. 

Okay, let’s move on to fantasy versus desire versus choice. Now this is something that can be talked about for hours, and we’re just going to try to keep it simple here. Again, like I said at the beginning of this milestone, don’t let me be the end all be all to like sex coaching and sex education. I’m including the things that are important for us in this way to quit viewing porn. 

And I’m trying to keep it as simple as possible, but there are a lot of amazing resources out there that you can find and really amazing books to start exploring and really amazing sex coaches out there. So let’s just kind of keep it simple, keep it to the basics. 

So fantasy. Fantasy versus desire versus choice. Fantasy is an imagined sexual script that gets you excited. And so what this means is that a fantasy or being turned on by something, being turned on by something in pornography might not necessarily mean that you’d enjoy it or want it in real life. So you can be turned on by this script and not want it in real life. That’s what fantasy is. 

For example, having sex with the pizza delivery person. Okay. Something that you see that might turn you on, a script that might turn you on but it’s not something that you want in real life, right? That is fantasy. 

Desire takes it a little bit further and it’s a fantasy where you do want to do this. I do want to do this and I do want to try this. I want to try this type of sex. I want to try this type of role play. I want to try this type of experience. Okay, so there is a difference. 

There could be things, scripts that are exciting to you that help you feel turned on, things that you can imagine that help you feel turned on that you don’t actually want to do in real life. And that’s good. And that’s okay. And that’s a part of sexuality. Fantasy is not bad, it’s just something to be aware of and to notice that it is different than desire. Desire is something that you actually want to do in real life. 

Now, the next step right here is choice. So there’s fantasy, there’s desire, and there’s choice. Sometimes you don’t want to choose to pursue your desires. So there might be a part of you that’s like I do want to try this in real life, but maybe your choice trumps it where you choose not to pursue that desire. 

So it’s recognizing and accepting that sexual part of you and realizing that, yeah, there’s a part of me that wants to try this and to choose this, but I’m choosing not to pursue that, okay? Choice always trumps. You will always have the power to choose. 

And so instead of getting really upset and really distressed about our fantasies and maybe our desires that are just natural, we want to trust that our future selves are going to choose what is really aligned for us. And so what this comes down to is it comes down to your relationship with yourself, which is what we’re working on in this program. 

The reality is that the realm of sexuality is weird and that’s okay. It’s weird. It’s erotic. It’s strange. That’s just part of it. It’s dark sometimes, right? That’s just part of sexuality. That’s part of its existence and that’s okay. 

There are types of porn for all different types of sexual pleasures. And so one really great thing that you can learn from pornography is that if you think you’re the only one with a weird sexual kink, porn shows you that you’re not. Sexuality is weird and fluid and that’s okay. And our goal here is to make peace with that part of you that is dynamic and erotic and sexual, and to make peace with this part of you. 

And so as we’re talking, as I’m talking here about the difference between fantasy and desire and choice, the goal here is to accept all of it. And we can do that as we know the difference between them and realize that ultimately we get to choose. 

So fantasy, again, imagine sexual scripts that get you excited that maybe you don’t really want to do in real life. But let’s just accept that part. Let’s accept those fantasies. There’s nothing wrong with them. Desire. I want to do this. I want to try this. I want to try this specific type of sex, right? Nothing wrong with that. That’s just a part of sexuality, even if it feels weird. And then choice is ultimately what you get to decide and where you get to pursue your desires. 

So instead of believing I’m gross, there’s something wrong with me. What is this sexual part of me? What is this sexual fantasy? I’m so gross. Instead, we really want to work on accepting it. I can accept this weird part of me, even if it feels weird. It’s okay if it feels strange. Sexuality is sometimes strange and I understand fantasy versus desire versus choice. That’s the goal. That’s where we want to get. 

We also want to understand that not everything is yours. Not everything is mine. So not all thoughts that pop into my head are something that I would want. Not all thoughts that just pop in are something that I want. 

Now this, this is really an important concept that my thoughts are not me. And sometimes, and especially if you might have some OCD tendencies this is a really big one. But many thoughts are just passer throughs of this culture that I live in, of this hyper-sexualized culture that I live in, of this fear and shame that I feel around me a lot. 

Many thoughts are just passerby. So we have to be really careful not to create stories around passing thoughts that come in. So you might have an intrusive thought or an intrusive sexual thought that feels distressing that you’re like, my gosh, where did that come from? And recognizing that might not be yours and not giving too much power to these intrusive sexual thoughts. 

Or if you have intrusive sexual phrases, if you experience these and they feel distressing and they feel like they’re out of the blue, first off, they might not be yours. Not all thoughts are you. You’re okay. There’s nothing wrong with you. Breathe in, accept it and it will go away. 

We want to stop, this is where we’re practicing stop, drop, and breathe. And not just holding the beach ball down like in fear and shame. Oh, it doesn’t mean anything about me. I am not my thoughts. These intrusive sexual thoughts that come in, they feel distressing and maybe they’re not mine. And maybe it doesn’t mean that I’m a bad person. Maybe it doesn’t mean that I’m not normal. It might not be mine. Let’s stop, drop, and breathe here. 

Now, if this is bringing up a lot of distress and you can’t seem to heal from this or to get relief from this, I would really encourage you to consider maybe seeing an OCD specialist, specifically scrupulosity and sexual OCD stuff. These intrusive sexual thoughts might feel like a really big, scary thing and OCD specialized therapy can help you with them if it’s becoming a little bit too much. 

Okay, so back to talking sex and sexuality, especially in terms of fantasy and desire. So sex is adult play, bedroom play. That’s what sex is. It’s where adults get to go and play. Sexuality is tension, and so it really thrives in high anxiety and polarized scripts. Those high anxiety polarized scripts often help us to access sexuality. This is why things that are forbidden feel especially sexy or feel especially exciting to us. 

Now thinking again in terms of fantasy versus desire, you can play out roles in the bedroom without it being something that you actually want to do in real life. 

An example of play is when kids play cops versus robbers, the kids don’t necessarily want to be cops or robbers when they grow up. If a kid’s playing a robber they’re not like, I’m going to be a robber when I grow up, right? We don’t get concerned. We don’t get concerned when we watch kids playing and one of the kids is the bad guy, right? We know they don’t want to be that when they grow up, they’re just playing a game. They’re just playing a role. 

And so thinking in sexuality and thinking in terms of adult play and these roles that might come up in fantasies, we can look at it the same way. This is how fantasy works in sexuality. It’s not something to be afraid of. And it’s not something to demonize. When we demonize, we make it stronger. 

An example here might be power plays. So these are not uncommon in the realm of sexuality, and it can be a form of play in the bedroom. Some examples, power plays, you know, where one role is very masculine and bossy and aggressive. In real life, you might never be this way, but in adult play with your consenting partner, right, that’s key, consenting partner can be fun. 

The other role, right, might be submissive and yielding. And, you know, you might not want to be this way in real life, or your partner might not be this way in real life, but in adult play maybe it’s fun. Maybe it’s fun to try out. 

And so we really want to change the script from whatever that fantasy is, whatever that desire is that you want to work through, changing the script of you that says that this part is evil and it needs to be squashed, to realizing it doesn’t have that much power. And actually, when we squash it, when we demonize it, hold a beach ball underwater, what does it do? It pops up. We give it more power when we do that. 

And so again, do I understand fantasy, desire, and choice? And as we understand that fantasy, desire, and choice, we can work towards true integration, integrating this sexual part of you that exists. Whether or not you want it there, it exists. And so let’s integrate it, and let’s love it and accept it. Let’s learn how to look at this in a healthy way, instead of a demonizing, fearful, shame, panic way. True integration, acceptance, and love, even for that weird, awkward, sexual part of me. 

Okay, as we’re talking about fantasy, desire, and choice, we want to keep in mind this principle of using sexuality for good, right? Fantasies are not something ever, ever to push onto someone else, but it can be used as a way to deepen your connection with your person if both parties are open to it and open to trying it. 

And in healthy, safe relationships, you can let them see into this deeper part of you. This might be something to work through with a sex coach with your partner, if it’s something you want to explore more. 

Where this really becomes helpful, especially in the world of quitting porn, is the more that we can accept and understand fantasy versus desire versus choice, the more power we have over our sexuality and the less shame and fear and panic we have. Again, the goal here is to let yourself just be a full human with quirks and weirdness and awkwardness and sexuality, and just full integration and acceptance and wholeness. Wholeness, healed. 

Wholeness is not rejecting parts of you. It’s integrating these parts of you and then using that to show up how you want to in the world. So we’re letting ourself be this way, and we can have a moral frame there too. And whatever you decide that your morals and your values are around sexuality, right, when we talk about this fantasy versus desire versus choice, we’re not just saying, all right, now our fantasies are ruling our life, right? 

That’s not using sexuality for good. But instead, it’s not giving it as much power as we might have in the past by demonizing them. It’s accepting them. Letting ourself be that and have that and have the moral frame there too, whatever that is that you decide that is with your values and morals around sexuality. 

So maybe you have a fantasy of a threesome. Thinking of a threesome really turns you on. That’s maybe a pornography script that you’ve seen that’s exciting to you. And maybe you decide, you and your partner have decided that our relationship, our sexual relationship right now, it’s just me and you. We’re not letting anyone else in here. 

So we can have that script in our mind and recognize that fantasy. Maybe even have that desire and be thinking that’s maybe something you do want to try. And you have the choice, which the choice is, no, we’re not doing that right now. And that’s where the moral frame comes in. We can have all of that and be okay. 

And a reminder here for program members, in the program we don’t throw our moral frames onto people. And so some people are going to be comfortable with some things sexually and other people aren’t going to be comfortable with those things sexually, and that’s okay. You can be wherever you want. As long as you’re not hurting other people, we don’t push our moral frames onto others. 

The goal here is that we want to move out of rigid black and white rules and move more into experiencing this beautiful human dance of just figuring life out, of figuring your sexuality out, of integrating it, of not demonizing it and hating it anymore. And understanding fantasy versus desire versus choice is a really, really vital component of learning how to do that. 

Okay, thank you for listening, podcast listeners. Again, if you want some help with this, we do coaching calls every week where we can walk you through this. We also have a specialized sex coach that comes in once a month that can talk you through any of this as deep as you want to go here. We’re here to help you with that. So come join the program if you’re not there and if you want some help with this. 

Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. Next week, we will be talking about another big one, we’re going to be talking about masturbation. So look forward to that. We’ll talk to you next week. Bye-bye.

I want to invite you to come and listen to my free class, How To Overcome Pornography For Good Without Using Willpower. We talk about how to stop giving in to urges without pure willpower or relying on phone filters so that you can actually stop wanting pornography. 

We talk about how to stop giving up after a few weeks or months. And spoiler alert, the answer isn’t have more willpower. And then lastly, we talk about how to make a life without porn easily sustainable and permanent. 

If you’re trying to quit porn, this class is a game changer. So you can go and sign up at Sarabrewer.com/masterclass, and it is totally free.