How to use the erotic power of your mind
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Did you know sexual fantasies are one of the safest, most common and diverse erotic experiences that you can have anywhere, anytime?
Fantasies, which are experienced by most people, can exist only in the safety of your mind, can be brought to life on your own or can be shared with your sexual partners.
Fantasies can enhance emotional, mental, spiritual and physical sexual satisfaction, boost arousal and desire, spice up your sex life, deepen your connection to your sexual side and encourage you to become more open minded when it comes to sexual exploration and expression.
Fantasies can enhance emotional, mental, spiritual and physical sexual satisfaction
Fantasies are experiences that may fall both within and outside your control. While you might not always have power over exactly what thoughts pop into your mind, you can adjust the way you respond to them. A key practice in increasing enjoyment and reducing shame around sexual fantasies is realising that whatever your fantasy is, it’s okay, despite how unique or unusual you think your fantasies might be.
Practice being non-judgmental and show self-kindness, give yourself permission to embrace your fantasies, use them to your advantage and allow yourself to become turned on when they do arise. Whether you’re in a relationship or not, fantasies can be an essential part of enhancing your sex life and increasing your sexual pleasure.
Sexual fantasies for creative expression and meeting your needs
While your skin might be your largest pleasure organ, it’s your brain that is your most powerful and erotic sexual part. It’s the place where your sexuality develops, your orgasms are experienced and fantasies created.
Sexual fantasies are diverse and might include a wide scope of scenarios that you desire and want to explore more in the real world, things you’d love to try but are inaccessible or improbable, or encounters you enjoy thinking about when you’re turned on but don’t want to act on.
Using the erotic power of your mind to explore sexy scenarios is a form of creative expression, stress relief and is especially useful in pandemics; to turn yourself on, build intense arousal, strengthen desire to engage in a sexy session, intensify orgasm, improve communication, deepen connection, and become a way to meet diverse sexual needs when partnered sex isn’t an option.
Exploring sexual scenarios, possibilities or encounters in your head is a pathway to giving yourself permission to play, prioritise pleasure and spend time engaging with the things that get you going. Through your fantasies, you’re also creating a safe space to realise what you do and don’t enjoy, what turns you on and off or what you might like to become a part of your sexual repertoire.
Exploring sexual scenarios, possibilities or encounters in your head is a pathway to giving yourself permission to play
For those who have experienced sexual trauma or pain, deciding to use the power of their minds to reimagine experiences, create new positive and satisfying scenarios, and reclaim power, touch or other activities that were once triggering or resulted in dissociation, fear or a stress response can be an empowering and transformative event.
The greatest thing about sexual fantasies is that they can exist safely in your mind without limits, shame or expectations. You can go to places in your head without subjecting yourself to other risks or challenges.
While fantasies are often personal and private experiences, this does not mean they have to be secret. Secrecy is the ingredient that allows shame to grow. Deciding to share your fantasies with a sexual partner, a friend or online can become a significant journey to validating and normalising your experiences, helping you to realise that those fantasies you’re having are far more common than you might’ve thought and that whatever they are, they are normal (whatever normal really means).
Stepping over barriers to fantasies
Fantasies and pleasure have historically and culturally been taboo, rarely been discussed openly and non-judgmentally and are predominantly absent from sexual education.
Fantasies are strongly tied to shame, guilt and anxiety, with many perceiving themselves as abnormal, broken and fearful of the possibility that fantasies are damaging their relationships and their self-worth.
Despite all the negative feels around them, fantasies are not harmful or unfaithful as you might’ve once been led to believe. The erotic does not have to be shameful, yet it often becomes difficult to connect with because of the overt and covert social and cultural sex-negative beliefs and values.
Feeling shame and anxiety around sexual experiences is not your fault. The idea that sex, pleasure and fantasies are dirty or wrong is something that has been learned. This means with curiosity and kindness, these ideas can be unlearned and replaced with messages that better serve you, your sexuality and your relationships.
Start small and get used to the practice of fantasising. Daydream about receiving an erotic massage by someone with strong, firm hands or a soft, gentle touch.
Try reimagining a past sexual encounter or future experience with a partner, that sexy colleague, your favourite celebrity or a stranger.
Continue learning about the numerous benefits fantasies can have on your erotic life and the plethora of ways fantasies can support partnered and solo sex to heighten pleasure, engagement and opportunities for deeply intimate, arousing and desirable sexual connections.
Deciding to embrace your fantasies often has a far greater impact on improving your relationship with yourself and others than feeling ashamed or trying to push them away ever could.
How to live your sexual fantasies – with sex toys
Living out your fantasies is the next step up from exploring erotic scenes in your mind.
While many scenarios might not be possible or accessible right now, adapting your sexy thoughts, being creative and using what’s available to you means that some fantasies can become a reality.
In order to decide how you’d like your fantasy to play out, think about which specific scenario you’d like to make happen, get some inspiration online and if you’d like to share the experience with a partner(s), talk out possibilities with them.
Being creative and using what’s available to you means that some fantasies can become a reality.
Remember, you don’t have to jump into the deep end and act out your wildest dreams. It’s ok to ease into them; practice your negotiation skills and create a plan that works for everyone involved.
While you might not have access to sexual partners because the COVID-19 pandemic makes it difficult to have safer sexual encounters or because a partner isn’t what you want, it doesn’t mean you can’t live your partnered sex fantasies during solo sex.
For acting out fantasies during solo pleasuring, sometimes a great water-based lubricant and a vibrator might be all you need as you imagine yourself being caressed or dominated by another.
For people with vulvas, to enhance your pleasure and feelings of fullness, add some clitoral stimulation combined with vaginal penetration. Rabbit g-spot vibrators such as Adam and Eve’s Silicone Rabbit Vibrator or the classic Pipedream Rabbit Vibrator with Rotating Pearls can make living your fantasies in lockdown possible.
For people with penises, a masturbator or sleeve might be just what you need to transform solo sex into partnered penetration.
Have you been craving oral sex and dreaming about someone going down on you? Try the Satisfier Pro 2 with pressure wave technology for powerful clitoral sucking-like stimulation or the Pipedream Pump with Tongue that can feel like having your clitoris licked, flicked, sucked and vibrated.
While the idea of a threesome may get you hot, it might not be practical or possible in your current relationship. Using a strap on dildo with a partner or a double-ended dong for anal, oral or vaginal double or even triple penetration during solo or partnered sex can create new opportunities to feel stretched while you fantasise about sharing yourself between multiple bodies.
Are you into role reversal? If you have a partner with a penis or a partner who enjoys penetrating you, swapping roles and playing the penetrator by picking up some great lube, trying out a butt plug, dildo or a strapless strap on is often a fulfilling way to play out these erotic thoughts.
Fantasies of power play, control, domination and submission are common. Depending on what your sexy thoughts involve, there are many ways to experience power play and BDSM fantasies. Ascending from a paddle, binding rope or handcuffs to a ball gag or bondage hood, however you’ve imagined power play, whether it’s on your own or with a sexual partner in your bedroom, lounge or kitchen, there are endless opportunities for pleasurable, satisfying sexual domination.
The bottom line
While we still continue to live in a sex-negative culture and many people may hold on to shame or guilt around their sexual fantasies, fantasies are a common and normal part of sexual wellbeing.
If you’re struggling to feel ok with yours, seeking support from a sex therapist might be what you need to unpack and move through the obstacles that are limiting your pleasure potential.
Fantasies play an essential role in exploring one’s sexuality, enhancing pleasure, building arousal and increasing desire. Some fantasies may be better enjoyed in the privacy of your mind, while others can be shared, adapted and played out in the real world.
Fantasies play an essential role in exploring one’s sexuality, enhancing pleasure, building arousal and increasing desire
Oftentimes using sex toys makes fantasies accessible for anyone, in any kind of body and any kind of relationship, that might not have been accessible otherwise.
Take a chance and consider sharing your sexiest thoughts with your sexual partners or other safe spaces. Start talking, normalising, challenging and changing the culture around fantasies. You might find that your partners even have their own kinky ideas they’d love to share with you.
Remember, whatever your or your partners fantasy is, it’s okay. Never yuck anyone’s yum and continue reminding yourself the benefits fantasies can have on your sex life.
