Catherine suspects that her boyfriend has been watching porn. Not just any porn, not just people having sex, the other kind, the kind she doesn’t like – the kind with a subtext of humiliation.

She could ask, but she doesn’t want to. What he does in his own time is his business, she says, it’s nothing to do with her. She just wishes he’d leave the fantasy at home and not bring it into her bed.
He called her a dirty bitch and this was a turn-off. I wonder if this is because deep down she feels guilty about being a sexual person. Her parents are not just Catholic, they are true believers and Catherine, unmarried and no longer a virgin, is a constant disappointment to them.
Then again, maybe she just doesn’t like being called a dirty bitch. That’s fair enough – it’s not my favourite kind of erotic talk either. It’s lazy and unimaginative with a pejorative, prudish streak of implied judgment of female sexual behaviour.
He asked if he could ejaculate on her face, she says.
No, she told him, I don’t want your spunk in
my eyes.
Close them, he suggested.
Or my hair, she countered.
You’re going to wash in the morning anyway, he said, unwilling to drop the subject.
That’s not the point, she replied. I just don’t
want to.
How about on your boobs? He suggested.
She gave in, reluctantly, just to shut him up.
Catherine likes sex to be sensual and romantic – face-to-face, looking deep into her lover’s eyes, making a physical and emotional connection with them. Her boyfriend likes this too, but not exclusively.
“Am I being a prude?” she asked. “I just don’t see anything in it for me.”
I don’t know that there is a definitive answer to this one. Yes, perhaps – one should be willing to try new things. No, maybe not – sex should be enjoyable for both people.
How do you cross the chasm between two separate people’s sexual needs, fantasies and desires? How do you compromise if and when your tastes are very different?
Nathan likes to wear rubber and latex. He likes cock and ball torture, whips, anything to do with pain and humiliation. His girlfriend doesn’t. Because of this, he has a second life, one she knows about, but doesn’t want to be reminded of. Every now and then he visits a dominatrix, carefully removing and replacing his gear from the box he keeps hidden in the attic. She knows this, but doesn’t want the details, so he is discreet. It doesn’t interfere with life, nine to five, but at times he hates himself for this. He wonders if it a compulsion, some sort of psychological sickness. Maybe that’s just another form his masochism takes – feeling guilty for having needs and a sexual life his girlfriend doesn’t want to share.
Sandra is conflicted between her desire to be faithful and her desire for multiple partners. She is monogamous, but only up to a point. When she can’t take it anymore, and when her boyfriend isn’t around, she has one night stands with strangers. These give her a sense of relief – and a huge dollop of guilt. She suspects that one day she’ll be caught and all hell will break loose. She also suspects that her partner isn’t completely faithful either, but it’s not a conversation she is anxious to have.
When they’ve been drinking, people tell me their sexual fantasies and problems and secrets. Sometimes these conversations are sexually charged, but mostly they are not. Because I write this column they want my opinion and the questions uppermost in their minds are always the same. Am I normal? Is there something wrong with me?
I have this fantasy where I am a prostitute, says Meg. Not a high-class call girl or anything like that – a really cheap streetwalker. My pimp makes me have sex with the most disgusting men, and I do it because I have no choice.
I had a dream about a friend of mine, says Ronan, a male friend. I can’t stop worrying about it. Does that mean I’m gay?
I like to read the casual encounters personals on Craigslist, says Janine, the ones looking for no-strings fun. I keep thinking that one day I’ll act on it but so far I can’t bring myself to do it.
Lucy doesn’t have fantasies, she says, not really. She says her sexual dreams are tame – a man, a woman, sex, but nothing fancy. She asks me, do you think that’s weird?
Which begs a question: what’s normal anyway? Is there even any such thing? To want to settle down and have children and be with one person for the rest of your life – that’s normal. To crave the attention of many lovers – that’s normal. To be gay, straight, bisexual or somewhere in between – that’s normal. To dream of love and romance – normal; to dream of sex with strangers – normal. To want to feel special – that’s normal; to want to feel used and abused – that’s normal too.
Fantasies and desires may tell us interesting things about what we want – or what we fear. They may be a way of exerting control over the past or a way of relinquishing responsibility over aspects of ourselves that we cannot in our waking lives. They may feature people and scenarios we are not consciously aware of wanting. They may tell us we crave excitement or intimacy. Sometimes they don’t mean anything at all.
If you’ve ever had a desire that bothers you or makes you question your sexuality – you are not alone. The erotic mind takes many shapes and forms, some of which may seem socially unacceptable or morally objectionable or just plain strange.
Assuming that they involve adults, desires are outside the moral conventions of right and wrong. There is a big gap between what we do and what we dream about in the dead of night or fantasise about during our waking hours. The only real consideration is whether or not to act upon these wishes and if so, how they impact on others.
Let me give you an example. Rape fantasies are common. Many women have them. This does not in any way mean that women want to be raped.
The fantasy and the reality of this horrific experience do not bear any relation to one another. Rather these are fantasies about losing control or about being with a man so irresistible that no is not an option.
These kind of fantasies happen most frequently when a woman’s life involves a great deal of responsibility, either at work or by caring for others. In essence this is a desire to escape her responsibilities, not a desire to be raped.
Likewise, a dream, in which you perpetrate a rape does not mean that deep down a man really wishes to commit this crime. Instead it is likely to be a result of feeling powerless in your own life, perhaps after the loss of a job or the end of a relationship.
To play this scenario over and over again with a view to acting upon it is of course terribly wrong; to have this fantasy come unbidden in your dreams is not. As I said, there is a big difference between what we dream about and what we do.
In real life, there is consent or coercion; reckless actions or smart; safe behaviour or risky – as long as you are on the correct side of those, then as far as I can see, there’s very little about sex that is genuinely right or wrong. The erotic lies somewhere in the ambiguous murk, the grey areas between what we want and what is expected of us, between our needs and those of our partner or partners. Traversing it takes skill, the ability to communicate and an open mind.
Let me make this plain.
Is there something wrong with you? No.
Are you normal? Yes, you are.
If there is one thing I have learnt it’s this – between consenting adults, the difference between the desirable and the disgusting is really nothing more than variations of predeliction(s)
and taste.