Sexual Fantasies and Role Playing

The passage below is excerpted from the Scandalous... or Not? section of Sex With God: Meditations on the sacred nature of sex in a post-purity-culture world.

Fantasies and Role Playing

Today we tackle a subject which goes hand-in-hand with yesterday’s topic of masturbation. It’s a logical pairing given that imagining sex so often accompanies acts of self-pleasuring.

When counseling the people of Corinth, Paul writes about the benefits of singleness, and states that it’s not good for followers of Christ to “burn with passion” (1 Corinthians 7:9). Paul recognizes that our bodily needs can create problems when they aren’t met. But how does fantasizing fit into this picture?

Let’s recall something we talked about in the How Not to Do It section, about using others. Remember that people are divine things, beloved of God, and not to be viewed as objects of service to your needs. If your fantasies do that, it’s not a good thing. It’s not a holy or sacred thing. It’s a selfish action of taking.

Can fantasizing ever be holy and sacred? Yes. For example, if you are in a committed relationship, you can imagine making love with your partner, remembering to honor the reality of their body as God’s temple, perhaps envisioning making love to them rather than the other way around. You can even practice your technique while you’re at it.

But what if you don’t have a partner, or don’t like them at the moment? How about imagining God is making love to you? You might recoil from the idea, but God doesn’t. Remember the Song of Songs?

Our Creator longs for oneness with us; the kind of union which scripture describes in terms of marital consummation. God is the inventor of sex, and isn’t afraid of your sexuality, or demeaned by your desire to draw them to the center of it. And God is male and female. Your imaginings can focus on the image of Jesus we get from the gospels and sacred art, or envision a female presence as a visitation from the Holy Spirit, or picture an older masculine figure, happy to encircle you in his waiting arms.

God gave us imaginations as a gift which reflects their own ability to dream things into being. Using that gift in relation to our sexual desires can be holy or selfish, depending on how we apply it.

Well, I’ll say I have an incredible ability to fantasize. I really do. I don’t have to have things tangible to be able to see them, and therefore I enjoy so many things, because they’re in my mind.

Donna Summer

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