“Sexual fantasies outside your partner” can actually let us put aside the constraints and limitations of daily life, as long as we are brave to listen to our own desires, research tells you, this can actually increase the sexual desire for each other!
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Sentence ｜ Cyte
Reprinted from the public number: KnowYourself (ID: knowyourself2015)
Official account introduction: Focus on self and heart, awareness is freedom.
Hello everyone, I am Cyte, the author of KY’s fastest speed.
Do you have sexual fantasies about people other than your partner?
My friend commissioned me to ask you this question. She has been suffering for a while:
“To tell you the truth, my conscience has been particularly disturbed these past few days.”
“I understand. After Double Eleven I looked at the balance figures in my account and I have always felt this way.”
“No! Just, I don’t know what’s going on recently. Sometimes when I’m in a daze, I can’t help but fantasize that something indescribable and embarrassing will happen with other people…”
“Sir, have you told your boyfriend?”
“Of course not anymore!! So I feel so guilty, I always feel like I betrayed him. Will it be the same when others are in love? Am I considered mentally derailed?? What should I do ah ah ah!!!”
In order to save this friend who screamed the groundhog, today, we will come to talk with you, what is going on when you have a sexual fantasy about others when you have a partner?
Picture｜Photo by freestocks on Unsplash
Hicks and Leitenberg (2001) from the School of Psychology at the University of Vermont in the United States recruited 349 college students and staff who are in heterosexual close relationships to conduct an anonymous questionnaire survey. It turned out that 98% of men and 80% of women said that in the past two months, they have been –
Extradyadic fantasies
Simply put, it means having sexual fantasies about someone other than your partner. In the following, we will simply refer to this concept as “extra-partner sexual fantasies.”
In addition, the researchers also found that men are more likely to have extra-partner fantasies than women (the probability ratio is 11:1), and the frequency of men’s extra-partner fantasies is significantly higher than that of women (men average 41.4 times per month, Women 12.3 times a month).
Regarding such gender differences, Hicks and Leitenberg (2001) believe that compared with men, women have a stronger sense of taboo about sexual fantasies outside their partners, so they may admit it less publicly.
Regarding the types of sexual fantasies outside of partners, studies have divided them into 6 types according to different objects of sexual fantasies (Joyal et al., 2015):
- Boss/colleague
- Older elders
- friend
- predecessor
- People younger than yourself
- stranger
So, why do you still have sexual fantasies about others when you have a significant other?
1. You have been with your partner for too long
In fact, having been with your partner for a long time, sexual fantasies about other people is a natural thing. Hicks (2001) found that there was a significant positive correlation between relationship duration and sexual fantasies outside the partner. Those subjects who were in an intimate relationship longer had fewer sexual fantasies about their partners and more sexual fantasies about others.
2. You may be avoidant attachment
Hutson (2009) pointed out that avoidant attachment people, because they are afraid of being too close to others, are often in sexual fantasies and are more likely to imagine themselves having sex with strangers who have no emotional connection.
How should I put it, anyway, everything in my dream…
3. Your personality is more open
Susan Krauss Whitbourne (2014), a professor of clinical psychology at Massachusetts State University, believes that those who have a tendency to “openness to experience” in their personality traits are more likely to have sexual fantasies, and sexual fantasies outside a partner are among the sexual fantasies. One kind.
So, regardless of whether you have a partner or who you are fantasizing about, in general, you are a more open and positive attitude towards sexual fantasies.
4. Your curiosity is at work
In many cases, sexual fantasies are just a reflection of the universal curiosity of human nature. To fantasize about a person does not necessarily mean that you have feelings for that person, and it does not necessarily mean that you have real desires for this object.
Imagine that when you lie on the bed peacefully, you don’t consciously appear in your mind, cosplaying and playing SM with others…
Huh, don’t panic! This may just be your desire to satisfy your own curiosity about some niche sexual habits, but it does not represent your desire for that object.
Therefore, what needs to be clarified is: Sexual fantasies outside a partner do not mean cheating! ! !
Further reading:Will partners be happy if their values are the same?
The reasons for the extra-partner sexual fantasy are complex, and people’s reactions to it are also different. Michael Castleman, a sexology journalist, put forward the following three typical responses to sexual fantasies outside their partners. Next, let’s do a little test——
When you have sexual fantasies about someone other than your partner, what is your reaction?
A. Guilt
If you feel guilty, it means that you think the romantic relationship is sacred and the commitment is one-to-one. Your requirements for loyalty include the need to give up thinking about others outside the relationship. For your “sex blessing,” we hope you don’t feel guilty. Research shows that as sexual guilt increases, sexual satisfaction decreases.
B. Accept
If you have an accepting attitude, it means that you believe that people don’t need to be responsible for their fantasies. Any thoughts are normal and have no effect on the relationship.
C. Celebrate
If you have a celebratory attitude, it means that you are a sex explorer and you think you can try various changes through harmless sexual fantasies.
It can be found that your reaction to sexual fantasies outside your partner is related to how you think such fantasies will affect the relationship.
What kind of influence will it have on the relationship if you want to think about others?
Then, after imagining others, do you necessarily have to recognize the situation and give up fantasy?
Actually not necessarily. Israeli psychologist Gurit Birnbaum (2019) found through research that there is no connection between sexual fantasies outside a partner and behaviors that damage relationships. Fantasy belongs to fantasy, and most people don’t really cheat on thinking about it.
After all, after being together for a long time, people may also develop a kind of “relationship burnout” and feel that they lose their passion with their partners. At this time, fantasy outside your partner can help you maintain loyalty to your partner in reality. It allows people to seek and satisfy their desires for novelty and diversity without threatening the relationship.
In other words, since you did not act infidelity, fantasy is harmless~
However, there are still many people who worry that although they have not done anything, will such fantasies make them less and less interested in their partners?
Birnbaum et al. did an experiment:
They placed the subjects in two situations that would trigger sexual fantasies-
The first type: the subjects have sexual fantasies about their partners, the second type: the subjects have sexual fantasies about people other than their partners; then the subjects are asked to rate their partners’ sexual desire.
The results show that both kinds of sexual fantasies help to increase the sexual desire for a partner! Eating the bowl and looking at the pot is an artifact of the new era.
However, in some cases, fantasies outside the partner may become problematic.
Recently, a study published in the journal “Sex and Relationship Therapy” proved that when people are not satisfied with their sex life, sexual fantasies outside the partner can act as a buffer for the relationship and protect one’s evaluation of the current partner. .
It can be said that the ideal object in your fantasy fills you up for your dissatisfaction and prevents you from criticizing your partner.
However, when sexual satisfaction is already high, fantasizing about others may actually lower your evaluation of your partner (Rainville, 2019)!
This is because you may compare your sexual fantasies with your real partner, and start to feel that your partner is less and less ideal, making you think “Why can’t he be as perfect as the person in my fantasy?”
You will like:Full of secrets between partners? The open relationship of informed consent may be a new interpretation of morals (part 1)
How to deal with sexual fantasies outside a partner?
Since most studies have confirmed that extra-partner sexual fantasies are common and sometimes beneficial to the relationship, then extra-partner sexual fantasies may become a way to improve sexual satisfaction or relationship satisfaction between you and your partner Way?
Krauss Whitbourne, PhD in clinical psychology, thinks this is possible.
“Bring your imagination to the bed. It turns out that those fantasies about others may be replaced by fantasies about sharing intimate moments between you and your partner.” She pointed out that it is right or wrong for us to struggle with fantasies about who we are with (whom). It is better to consider the therapeutic effect of fantasy content on relationships.
In other words, we don’t have to pay attention to the irrelevant object in the partner’s external sexual fantasies, but just keep those fantasies that make you feel pleasant and exciting, and then try to bring them into your current relationship.
In fact, there have been couples treatment studies that attempt to use extra-partner sexual fantasies to promote intimacy between partners. In order to avoid the potential risk of sexual fantasies outside your partner (mentioned above, when sexual satisfaction is high, it may reduce your evaluation of your partner), we combine the method proposed by Rainville (2019) and give the following suggestions.
The specific method is when it comes to your mind:
STEP 1: Don’t evaluate it, treat it as a form of meditation
Sex therapists believe that meditation and sexual activity are similar. Both need to be removed from daily activities, both need a quiet and comfortable environment, and both need to concentrate.
Therefore, we have to accept all thoughts during sexual fantasies, nothing is wrong. Allow yourself to explore them objectively, rather than trying to repel them. Doing so may give you some new insights into the fantasy content and understand your real needs and desires.
STEP 2: Extract your sexual fantasy programs (fantasy repertoires)
Regarding your partner’s sexual fantasy as a show, what you need to do is to extract the content attributes of the show, such as:
The characteristics of the fantasy object: domineering, strong, gentle…
Scene: school, company, movie theater…
Role relationship: teachers and students, superiors and subordinates, strangers…
Then go to Cosplay happily!
STEP 3: Redirect sexual fantasies between you (reorient partners to each other)
Esther Perel is a proponent of sexual fantasies. She regards sexual fantasies as a bridge between reality and unfamiliarity and the glue of long-term relationships. She believes that when a couple loses their desire, they actually lose the ability to look at the same person from a new perspective in their imagination.
Although we stay by our partner’s side, we are at a comfortable distance from each other in our own minds. You can extract those elements from the previous step and put them back on your partner.
In those scenes, people we know become mysterious and strange again, and this freshness is the source of desire (Personal Life Media, nd).
Extra screening:When “sex unity” becomes a moral framework like “being chastity before marriage”
If a certain sexual fantasies make you feel particularly exciting, you can also try to communicate with your partner to see if your partner is willing to make the fantasies a reality with you.
But you don’t have to tell each other the details of every fantasy. You can keep some private thoughts and some mystery.
In the final analysis, sexual fantasies have opened up an independent, private and free space outside of the various constraints and restrictions of our daily lives, allowing us to truly express and release ourselves.
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