Five keys for transforming an addiction to sexual fantasies

Firstly, before going deeper, I want to be clear that I celebrate ALL consensual pleasure - I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with using mental fantasies or porn to  experience pleasure. If you do, and it nourishes you, amazing! But I know how frustrating it can be when a person desires to explore other routes to please, but the old impulses just keep on popping up every time.

Through coaching a bunch of women about their relationship to fantasy and porn in the last few months, I have spotted some key patterns that can underlie the addiction. Here are five keys that could help you understand what function the fantasies might be playing for you, consciously or unconsciously… and some tips on how to invite change if you wish.

Escape from physical discomfort

Mental fantasy can become a natural escape if you are experiencing discomfort in the body during lovemaking and it’s not actually a pleasure to connect with the physical sensations. The discomfort can arise for a myriad of reasons… from numbness/painful spots caused by trauma or surgery, to enduring lovemaking styles that don’t feel good as it’s a challenge to speak up for your real desires. In this case it’s important to do work that supports you to reclaim the natural sensitivity of your yoni and/or create safe boundaries, so that lovemaking becomes pleasurable again. (I made another post about this earlier this week).

Lack of inspiration for what to do instead of fantasise!

In this case, I highly recommend you check out the free Exquisite Pleasure download on my homepage, to give you some guided practices which will teach you ways to connect more with the breath and the sensations in the body, instead of being in the mind.

Avoiding intimacy

Disappearing into mental fantasy can be a way to avoid intimacy and connection with a partner, if intimacy itself feels scary. In this case, how can we support the parts of self that fear intimacy, building an embodied sense of safety so that you feel OK to stay connected to the present moment and your partner? This might involve inner child work or trauma release, to bring healing to the parts of self that are afraid of intimacy.

Expressing a repressed desire

A fantasy may show an aspect of sexual expression that you desire to experience but don’t consciously allow yourself to live out. This could be a kink, or just some aspect of sexual expression that you judge or don’t feel safe to explore in real life. Personally, I desire to experience deep surrender in lovemaking. In the past when I didn’t acknowledge that desire, and certainly didn’t feel safe enough to actually experience it, it used to bubble up in mental fantasies where I imagined being forced to surrender sexually. In this case, it can be really empowering to journal around the themes in your fantasies to discover what your true repressed desire might be, explore your relationship to it, and create a plan for how you could safely begin to experience that in real life if you wish.

Playing out subconscious beliefs around sexuality

This is particularly worth consideration if your fantasies cause you to experience uncomfortable emotions like shame/guilt/fear. If you have internalised beliefs that link sex with shame, guilt, fear or another challenging emotion (even if a person has never experienced sexual trauma this is still very common, because most of us have grown up in a society that shames and represses sexuality), then your nervous system will naturally begin to link pleasure with those emotions. In this case it will be important to meet whatever challenging emotions are currently subconsciously associated with sexuality and then do embodiment practices that can rewire pleasure with love and safety instead.

If you have transformed an addiction to mental fantasies already, I’d love to hear what worked for you. What do you feel was at the root of your fantasy addiction? And if you’re in the process, I’d love to hear if any of these keys resonate with you.

Sending so much love!