Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Is It Wrong To Fantasize About Someone Else During Sex?

Transcript

Is It Wrong To Fantasize About Someone Else During Sex? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:06
  Hi everybody and welcome to the Doctor Psych Mom show.
• 0:10
  I got an interesting question, which is something that plagues
• 0:13
  many women, which is? She's read my articles about
• 0:19
  myths about women's orgasms and other articles about women's
• 0:24
  sexual desire within monogamy, which I can link you to.
• 0:27
  Or really, it is the most of what I write about South.
• 0:30
  It's not hard to find it on Doctor Psych Mom Calm, but she
• 0:34
  writes and the I'll just read it because I think it sums
• 0:38
  everything up. It's not that long.
• 0:41
  I used to feel guilty when I would conjure up different
• 0:44
  scenarios in my head and do mental role-playing during sex
• 0:47
  with my husband. However, after reading your
• 0:50
  articles about women's sex drives and monogamous
• 0:52
  relationships, I felt somewhat relieved.
• 0:54
  However, in terms of getting yourself off is nothing really
• 0:57
  off the table? I have trouble accepting that
• 1:00
  that that idea, especially when it's fantasizing about other
• 1:03
  people. I've never tried that as I think
• 1:06
  it's crossing the line and I'd hate to know if my husband was
• 1:09
  thinking of another woman. My main question is, can you
• 1:12
  really be connecting with your partner during sex if you are
• 1:14
  focusing on something or someone else?
• 1:18
  Well, like, first of all, just seriously, what are you
• 1:22
  fantasizing about, reader? Because if it's not someone
• 1:24
  else, it's your husband and he's there.
• 1:27
  So I mean, you see my point like what?
• 1:30
  What are you then thinking about?
• 1:32
  Like, are you thinking about him doing something else than he's
• 1:34
  doing? Because then you can tell him to
• 1:37
  do that and then you're going to have a better sex life.
• 1:40
  So if we're just talking about that, you're only allowed to
• 1:43
  think about your partner. Your partner's there and he's a
• 1:48
  man, so in most cases he's going to do whatever you ask him to
• 1:51
  do. So if your fantasy is your
• 1:54
  husband acting different in bed, then like, we should address
• 1:58
  that ASAP, because he can do those things and should be doing
• 2:05
  whatever it is that you want in order for for you to enjoy the
• 2:09
  experience more. So this is kind of a logical
• 2:11
  conundrum to me. If you're actually fantasizing
• 2:14
  about him just doing some something else, you could be
• 2:17
  having the sex of your fantasies right now by just literally
• 2:21
  telling him what those other things are.
• 2:24
  So if you want him to be more dominant, like if you're
• 2:26
  picturing him just doing some other shit, I'm telling you tell
• 2:30
  him what to do, and then you're going to be having much better
• 2:32
  sex. So let's just get that out
• 2:34
  there, because that makes no sense why you would be leaving
• 2:42
  anything on the table here. You're actually seems like
• 2:45
  picturing this exact man that you're with just doing other
• 2:48
  stuff and you deserve to have that happen.
• 2:51
  So let's just make it that you know, a definite And after this
• 2:54
  podcast, after listening to this, you're just going to go
• 2:57
  and say, hey, I have this fantasy of you doing XYZ.
• 3:02
  All right, so let's put that aside because that totally
• 3:06
  should be happening now. Then let's address the idea.
• 3:09
  Idea of whether it is somehow wrong to be thinking about
• 3:13
  anything during sex. No, is not wrong to be thinking
• 3:17
  about anything ever. So that's like a magical
• 3:21
  thinking OCD anxiety kind of thing is that there are certain
• 3:25
  thoughts that are wrong. And there is actually a form of
• 3:28
  OCD called Scrupulosity OCD, where people get obsessed with
• 3:33
  what's right and what's wrong and they put their behavior and
• 3:37
  even their thoughts into certain buckets.
• 3:40
  So this is a very slippery slope and ends up with some kind of
• 3:44
  dystopian mind control shit, right?
• 3:46
  So, like, people come in with anxiety, and from writing this
• 3:51
  question and I'm going to guess you have some symptoms of
• 3:53
  anxiety. You know, you're a woman follows
• 3:55
  my blog, a lot of people, a lot of women have anxiety anyway.
• 3:59
  And from writing this question, I'm going to guess that you're
• 4:01
  somebody who likes to do the right thing.
• 4:03
  And that often overlaps with some symptoms of anxiety, if not
• 4:07
  actual anxiety. And so when you're an anxious
• 4:11
  person. So I get people in, right?
• 4:13
  Like with postpartum anxiety That, or think that they're a
• 4:16
  bad mom or postpartum depression or really just new moms who
• 4:20
  think that they would be a bad mom to think that maybe they
• 4:25
  they don't love their baby in the way they're supposed to.
• 4:29
  Right? So I've written a lot about
• 4:30
  this. People that can't bond with
• 4:32
  their baby because they have postpartum anxiety or depression
• 4:34
  or the baby Blues little form of postpartum that affects or a
• 4:39
  lesser form of postpartum that affects 80% of moms.
• 4:42
  And so if you have the thought, maybe it would be nice to have
• 4:46
  waited another year to have a baby, then these people think
• 4:49
  that they're a terrible person. You're not a terrible person.
• 4:52
  What makes a terrible person? I don't know if there is a
• 4:54
  terrible person, but what makes a bad?
• 4:58
  I mean even the definition, what makes a badly behaving person is
• 5:01
  a badly behaving person behavior.
• 5:05
  So you could think anything you want at anytime.
• 5:11
  Your kid could act like an asshole.
• 5:13
  You could think, I fucking hate them, boy, I hate them.
• 5:17
  And as long as you don't turn around and say that, you're
• 5:19
  still a good mom. And you know what?
• 5:22
  We know what you didn't do. You didn't like squash down your
• 5:26
  thoughts. So it's gonna pop up somewhere
• 5:28
  else. When you squash and squelch your
• 5:31
  thoughts, they pop up somewhere else, like a game of whack A
• 5:34
  mole, and you're end up in a much worse position over for
• 5:38
  all. So let's see how that would work
• 5:40
  with the sexual fantasies. So let's say you're fantasizing
• 5:43
  about the UPS guy, because if you work from home, that's the
• 5:46
  only other man that you see, right?
• 5:48
  So let's say you're fantasizing about the hot UPS guy, but as
• 5:51
  soon as you do, then you shut it down and in fact, you reprimand
• 5:55
  yourself. No, that's bad.
• 5:56
  I love my husband. Well, I mean, how is your sexual
• 6:00
  drive, Which if you're married, girl, you need all the help you
• 6:04
  could get, like all of us to do, right?
• 6:05
  You need to use all the tools at your disposal.
• 6:07
  How is your sex drive going to go?
• 6:10
  Going to live and be free and blossom.
• 6:13
  If every time you have a thought, that is totally
• 6:16
  natural. Remember, you've read all my
• 6:19
  stuff about monogamy. Our bodies are not meant to be
• 6:22
  monogamous at the time of ovulation.
• 6:24
  Women, ideally for the genetic diversity of the species, would
• 6:28
  go out and screw another guy right every time you ovulate it.
• 6:32
  And then we would have all sorts of diversity in our species.
• 6:35
  So that's what your body is trying to do.
• 6:38
  But if you every time you have a thought about another man, if
• 6:42
  you squelch it down and tell yourself you're a bad person,
• 6:45
  eventually the entire spigot of your sexuality is going to be
• 6:48
  turned off. You know, I mean that you are.
• 6:52
  You're having totally natural, understandable thoughts.
• 6:56
  And your husband, by the way, when he sees a hot woman, he's
• 7:01
  also he can't even help but thinking about that woman and
• 7:05
  doesn't mean anything. He loves you.
• 7:08
  And when you go to him, if he's a nice guy, he's gonna say no.
• 7:12
  I don't think about anybody but you.
• 7:13
  OK, cool. But in reality, if he is a
• 7:17
  heterosexual man and he sees a hot woman, he notices his body,
• 7:21
  notices he doesn't want to cheat on you, just like you don't want
• 7:25
  to cheat on him. But it's totally normal to feel
• 7:28
  attracted to somebody else. Frequently, though, if people
• 7:31
  think that some form of their attraction is bad, they just
• 7:34
  squel, touch this thought and it comes up somewhere else.
• 7:37
  So then you're gonna have a dream about the UPS guy, if you
• 7:40
  haven't already. But the the point or honestly,
• 7:44
  you know what happens to some people?
• 7:45
  They squelch their sexuality for so long that then they just
• 7:49
  cheat. And I don't think that this
• 7:51
  would happen to you, you know? But sometimes it does, because a
• 7:53
  person is so used to keeping their sexuality in a box that
• 7:57
  when somebody does or says something that really triggers
• 8:00
  that opening of that sexuality, they feel so backed up from all
• 8:04
  those years of squelching that they just respond.
• 8:08
  So my point is this. You deserve to have your
• 8:11
  sexuality and all of your sexual thoughts accepted.
• 8:14
  Any thoughts you have are fine. Thoughts are not bad.
• 8:18
  They're never bad. And in terms of how can you
• 8:21
  connect with your husband when you're thinking about somebody
• 8:23
  else? I mean, how can you connect with
• 8:26
  your husband if you're trying not to think about somebody
• 8:28
  else? Is the question.
• 8:29
  How can you really deeply be present when you're rejecting
• 8:33
  normal aspects of your thought processes and stopping yourself
• 8:37
  from getting attracted to a different idea?
• 8:41
  This doesn't just have to be like the UPS guy.
• 8:43
  You could be thinking about all sorts of shit.
• 8:45
  A lot of women think about other women.
• 8:49
  You know, that's a common one that people don't discuss.
• 8:51
  Women think about scenarios where they're being forced
• 8:53
  against their will to have sex and it's not by their husband.
• 8:57
  Cuz like, how can you even make that happen in your head?
• 9:00
  He's your husband. You can picture your husband.
• 9:02
  You know, like this is being a stranger.
• 9:04
  This is crazy. Like you want to know what
• 9:06
  really is going to make you start to second guess your
• 9:09
  sanity when you start to put your husband in all of these
• 9:12
  different situations. Oh, what if my husband was
• 9:14
  delivering the UPS packages? Like, you don't have to do that.
• 9:18
  You can have any sort of thought you want.
• 9:20
  Your sexuality then will be free to blossom, and you're going to
• 9:23
  respond better to your husband, who, by the way, he can't
• 9:28
  control what his brain does. So if he starts to think about
• 9:31
  some hot other woman, he's not going to tell you, but it's
• 9:35
  going to happen in his head, and that's totally normal.
• 9:39
  So as I talked about in my Polyamory podcast, a lot of
• 9:43
  people get off on the idea of other people considering their
• 9:46
  spouse attractive. But if they are so kind of rigid
• 9:50
  and what they will and will not allow themselves to think about,
• 9:53
  they would never even explore this as a fantasy.
• 9:55
  And sharing fantasies is a major way to be connected.
• 9:59
  So, like for example, I'll just keep going with EU PS:.
• 10:02
  Guy because my Spidey sense tells me you think it's kind of
• 10:06
  amusing. Then it.
• 10:08
  So let's say you told your husband.
• 10:11
  Sometimes I just think about what if when I overspend on
• 10:15
  Amazon EU PS:. Guy who's here like 15 times a
• 10:18
  day, because of my spending habit, he just opens the door
• 10:21
  and ravishes me right there. I mean, a lot of guys would not
• 10:26
  be averse to hearing that fantasy because you know what it
• 10:29
  means? It means something super hot.
• 10:31
  It means that you have sexual fantasies, which the majority of
• 10:35
  husbands truly doubt that their wives have because their own sex
• 10:39
  life over the years has gotten kind of, shall we say, boring.
• 10:43
  And so the idea that their wife thinks about anything sexual is
• 10:49
  a tremendous turn on, right? And so he knows you're not going
• 10:52
  to do anything with that guy, but it's something that you
• 10:55
  would least think about sex during the day and have some new
• 10:59
  idea. Novelty is also super important
• 11:03
  in keeping the spark alive. Otherwise, you're just doing the
• 11:07
  same old thing. Also, role play with your
• 11:11
  husband. What are you guys really doing?
• 11:13
  If you were to role play with your husband, you're not
• 11:16
  thinking he's your husband. That is the entire point of role
• 11:19
  play. And if you were to put on some
• 11:21
  lingerie and a wig or something, he's not thinking it's you.
• 11:25
  That's the whole point. So there is nothing inherently
• 11:29
  bad about having a wide variety of fantasies ready at your
• 11:34
  disposal. You could think of anything you
• 11:37
  want, and you're going to be better connected to your
• 11:40
  husband, not worse, because you are going to feel free, sexy,
• 11:46
  open minded. The idea of thinking of another
• 11:48
  person triggers an entire different part of your brain,
• 11:51
  that new sex part. This is why people do things
• 11:56
  like opening up their marriage. And people, many, many more
• 12:00
  people do things like fantasizing about opening up
• 12:03
  their marriage or even less than that they just get turned on
• 12:06
  when somebody else is into their spouse.
• 12:09
  So many women, I think I told you this in some other podcast,
• 12:12
  but either way, so many of my female clients say, man, I just
• 12:16
  wish he'd get hit on by somebody.
• 12:18
  I just wish that some woman would hit on my husband because
• 12:21
  he was starting to see a lot more sexy and interesting to me.
• 12:26
  So I mean, that could be your slow roll out, aren't you?
• 12:30
  Just When you're fantasizing, why don't you picture someone
• 12:32
  else with him? I mean, maybe that will activate
• 12:34
  some sort of mate guarding, you know, part of your brain, and
• 12:39
  then make you connect with him better.
• 12:42
  Listen, my point is this. No matter what else you think
• 12:45
  about, it's always normal and natural to have a full range of
• 12:49
  sexual thought. It's great that you're even
• 12:52
  thinking about this at all, because it indicates that you
• 12:55
  want to connect better with your husband and to have a better and
• 12:59
  more exciting sex life. So you can't really do that if
• 13:05
  you're just doing the same shit. And if you're like most women
• 13:08
  like doing, like the various positions.
• 13:11
  Oh, here I am, here I am with my husband and we're having sex in
• 13:15
  a different position. You know, I mean, it's like, not
• 13:18
  that exciting. And most women have to think
• 13:21
  about scenarios. As I've said, if all of your
• 13:24
  scenarios involve your husband wearing different hats, then I
• 13:28
  really do think you're doing yourself a disservice.
• 13:30
  And there is a entire Vista of possibility beyond that that you
• 13:35
  should never feel guilty or ashamed of, because that is what
• 13:39
  your brain is doing. It's totally normal, completely
• 13:43
  normal and healthy. And we'll have you respond to
• 13:46
  him better because you're not you're you're you're doing so
• 13:50
  much work now subconsciously whenever any little vision of
• 13:55
  the stalwart U PS:, man comes into your head, you're thinking,
• 13:59
  get out, get out. I'm a Good Wife.
• 14:00
  I love my husband. How are you gonna be responding
• 14:03
  sexually at your best self when you're self monitoring in this
• 14:07
  scrupulous way about whether the morality and the connection and
• 14:13
  all of these things are there? If you happen to let go of the
• 14:16
  reins of your brain for one second, the over control that's
• 14:20
  needed to stop you from having your brain go to a place that
• 14:25
  you don't necessarily like is probably stopping you from
• 14:29
  responding in in as sexy and exciting a way as you could.
• 14:33
  If you felt freer it might also be interesting to talk about
• 14:38
  this stuff with your husband. I am always a big advocate of
• 14:41
  people understanding the full range of them, their own and
• 14:45
  their partner's sexual fantasies and or what they did with exes.
• 14:50
  People that cannot stomach hearing what a spouse did with
• 14:53
  an ex probably are not having the best sex life of their
• 14:57
  dreams because having an excellent sex life usually
• 15:00
  concords with being open minded. So everything.
• 15:05
  If you have like a mantra word for what you think about when
• 15:08
  you're trying to think, where should my sex life be?
• 15:11
  If you're doing a sex life vision board here, open minded
• 15:15
  is really the way to go. The more stuff that you know
• 15:18
  that your husband likes, that you know that your husband did,
• 15:22
  that he knows that you did or you always wanted to do, or
• 15:25
  anything, that stuff will turn you on and will allow you to see
• 15:30
  each other in new and interesting lights.
• 15:33
  Whenever there are hard stops in a sex life that's bad, you know
• 15:39
  that it that indicates that there are you know that people
• 15:43
  feel threatened and threat activates your sympathetic
• 15:47
  nervous system, not your parasympathetic nervous system.
• 15:50
  We should not have any danger, danger, alert.
• 15:54
  You know sorts of thoughts during sex.
• 15:56
  So if you're self monitoring in this manner that activates your
• 16:00
  sympathetic nervous system such that you're perceiving a threat
• 16:03
  right within your own brain that you're supposed to ferret out,
• 16:07
  how can you possibly be relaxing and a truly feeling and and you
• 16:15
  know, sensing in the ways that you would need to in order to
• 16:18
  have a really open and full and genuine and authentic sexual
• 16:23
  experience? In fact, I would argue that the
• 16:26
  sexual experience you're going to have when you're allowing
• 16:29
  your brain to go wherever the hell it goes is more authentic
• 16:33
  and genuine than one when you're policing and making sure that EU
• 16:37
  PS:. Guy doesn't ever get in there
• 16:38
  into your brain Because you are going to be totally open.
• 16:42
  And This is why. You know drunk sex can be good,
• 16:45
  right? Because people losing their
• 16:47
  inhibitions and you are. Instead, you're amplifying your
• 16:52
  inhibitions by telling yourself that there are certain ways in
• 16:56
  which you cannot allow yourself to think.
• 16:58
  There are no such ways. You know, like the only bad
• 17:02
  things are things you do, you know, not things you think
• 17:07
  about. If you're fantasizing about
• 17:09
  another man, it's normal if you call him up bad.
• 17:12
  So you can easily tell if there's any behavior.
• 17:15
  If anybody would, following you around with a video camera would
• 17:18
  say she's being a bad wife, then you're being a bad wife.
• 17:21
  But guess what? Nobody could see inside your
• 17:23
  head. So you know, if your husband,
• 17:27
  for example, saw a hot girl on the subway and he thought, wow,
• 17:33
  she's hot, you think he's a bad husband?
• 17:36
  Of course he's not. He's a regular human being.
• 17:39
  If he then follows her off the subway and asks for her phone
• 17:41
  number, bad husband, I mean, totally take his ass to court.
• 17:45
  I mean, you know, get rid of him.
• 17:47
  I don't care. But he's not a bad husband for
• 17:49
  having a natural impulse. And he wouldn't be a bad husband
• 17:53
  if he came home and he wanted to have sex even more because he
• 17:57
  saw a hot woman. His body and his brain are just
• 17:59
  responding in a normal way. So This is why when people go
• 18:03
  out like dancing and they go out on on vacation and they both get
• 18:08
  looked at and they're dressed up and, you know, one or both of
• 18:11
  them have made eye contact with an attractive stranger.
• 18:13
  They can come home and have really hot sex because they had
• 18:17
  their, they were stimulated by all of these other, you know,
• 18:22
  the different sort of experiences where your brain is
• 18:27
  kind of tricked into thinking that you are going to be with a
• 18:30
  different person, which is what our sexual systems were built
• 18:34
  for. Remember, you know, this is
• 18:36
  evolutionarily what we were built for men to spread their
• 18:39
  seed far and wide and women to have sex with a different man
• 18:43
  every time they ovulate. So you're just doing what's
• 18:45
  natural, and what's natural feels good.
• 18:48
  You're not actually threatening the relationship, but there's
• 18:51
  like a little frisson of excitement similar to what you
• 18:54
  would have if you shared fantasies with your husband, And
• 18:57
  even in your case, if you allowed yourself, if you allowed
• 19:01
  your brain to run the full gamut of what it is capable of
• 19:04
  sexually during these encounters with your husband.
• 19:07
  And don't forget my very first point, which is if you are
• 19:12
  actually having fantasies about your husband doing other shit
• 19:15
  and those turn you on, tell him. Tell him right now.
• 19:18
  Oh my God, he wants to know so bad.
• 19:20
  You are like leaving money on the table, and he wants to know
• 19:23
  so bad what he himself could be doing that you are fantasizing
• 19:27
  about. This is like awesome that you
• 19:30
  are actually doing that to tell him forthwith, immediately.
• 19:33
  All right, so thanks for writing in, and I hope that you enjoyed
• 19:37
  this. I hope it normalizes some of
• 19:40
  your thoughts and feelings and that other people listening feel
• 19:44
  the same and feel emboldened to let their brain do whatever
• 19:48
  their brains naturally going to do.
• 19:50
  And then understand and be grateful for the fact that that
• 19:53
  will likely enhance both your sexual experience and your
• 19:57
  connection to your partner. Particularly if you can
• 19:59
  eventually get to the point where you even talk about these
• 20:02
  things and thereby are new and. At least some way to one another
• 20:07
  again. And that novelty response and
• 20:10
  that infatuation stage feeling can come back only when there is
• 20:15
  some sort of novelty and you have learned something new about
• 20:18
  somebody else, right? And that definitely includes in
• 20:21
  the sexual realm. All right, Thanks for listening.
• 20:24
  Please subscribe. Please rate me on Spotify and
• 20:27
  Apple. And please follow Doctor Psych,
• 20:30
  mom.com. And have a great day.
• 20:32
  Everybody. Please write in with other
• 20:36
  thoughts and ideas for podcasts. Bye, bye.