Dear Confused and Repressed,
Despite what many of you (wrongly) deduced from our answer to "Pornless in Peoria" last week, we're not the sexual thought police. In fact, we don't even want to know what gets you off up in the cranium, let alone legislate it — other people's fantasies give us second-hand embarrassment. (Seriously, we don't even share our own with each other.)

But that's the whole point. Your fantasy life is your own private triple-bolted sex lair and you can retreat there to get off whenever you damn well feel like it. Whatever you keep in that lair is your own business — editing its contents would be like censoring your own diary, and only pretentious wannabe memoirists do that. As long as what goes on there isn't negatively impacting your relationship, your job, or how often you call your mom or clean your room, then anything goes. You can fantasize about bending over a carburetor dressed in cheesy, scratchy lingerie with your hair teased, sprayed, and back-combed for all we care. (And the reason we're so much more forgiving of that particular fantasy than its porn rag incarnation is that in a fantasy, no actual dollars are handed to the corporate publisher of a mainstream mag that peddles a ridiculously cheesy, insulting, Barbie-fied notion of femininity. And no amount of decent fiction makes up for that.)

Thinking about something, no matter how much you "enjoy" thinking about it, does not necessarily mean you want to do it. Did you ever have a Little Orphan Annie (or Oliver) fantasy when you were a kid? Chances are, you never freaked out that your Daddy Warbucks daydream meant you actually wished your parents dead. Most kids have active, colorful imaginations, but somewhere along the line, we give up the day dreams for the day job. We're taught that daydreaming means we're not happy with our lot, and fantasizing means we're not happy with our lover. But if you thought a make-believe adoption fantasy was fun, just imagine the whole scenario turned X-rated! Now who's your daddy?

And why bother fantasizing if you're not going to explore stuff you'd never want to try out? Your actual sex life might be compassed by jealousy, insecurity, fear of STDs, fear of embarrassment, fear of the law, fear of your parents walking in, fear of heights. Or maybe it's just governed by a strict moral code, strict sexual preferences, or strict monogamy agreements. There's no need for your fantasy life to be impeded by such fears or limited by such ethics. Fantasy doesn't even have to abide by the laws of physics. It's like Pixar animation or Time Warner Cable: Anything's possible.

You're a straight girl with guy-on-guy fantasies? Totally normal! (After all, nothing's really abnormal when it comes to fantasies.) Guys get to see their "normal" girl-on-girl wishes played out on TV/in the movies/in ads/on the dance floor at the local nightclub all the time, so they don't have to think too hard. Women, on the other hand, have to make do with the oh-so-rare man-on-man kiss in movies like Dude, Where's My Car? And while gay porn may be strong enough for a woman, it's certainly not made for her.

Or you're a decidedly uncreepy chick who dreams only of creepy men? Fine! Applying a phrase like "politically correct" to your fantasy is like trying to insert a vinyl 45 LP into your iMac: Does. Not. Compute. Taboos are sexy; breaking them — as long as you're not breaking any laws in the process — is sexier (we think we read that in a personal ad somewhere). And sometimes, the sexiest taboos to break are the self-imposed ones: There are lots of things a politically correct sex positive feminist like yourself would never do in real life (e.g. being a fifties-style subservient housewife), but if imagining yourself as such gets you off, then more power to you.

Fantasies that may seem counterintuitive to who you are in the real world don't automatically reflect some deep-seated repression, neurosis, or "issue," either. It's like with dreams: Sometimes they're inspired by something as shallow and meaningless as what you were watching on TV when you dozed off (despite what Freud said). Yeah, your persistent degradation fantasy could represent some internal struggle: Maybe you're feeling pressure at work to be perfect, or deep down you resent your seemingly perfect boyfriend. But that's nothing worth fretting over: Everyone's daily stresses, career goals, and relationship quibbles interfere with their sex drive and sexual preferences at times — it's as normal as the peas sneaking into the mashed potatoes. Or your fantasy could just be a way to balance the scales of control and submission in your life, like you said. It's a tired old cliche that the high-powered career man/woman can only get off by being dominated in the bedroom. But getting off on a cliche is just another taboo that's fun to bust. There's nothing to be guilty about — though, of course, exploring things that make you feel guilty may just be part of your fantasy. If overanalyzing your fantasy reveals the inner workings of your soul and improves your sex life, then we say head-shrink away. But don't be surprised if you discover it was just last summer's trashy beach reading that gave your imagination a kick in the ass.

Look, it's not like orgasms (especially female ones) grow on trees. Take them however you can get them. Women often need a little scenario playing out in their minds to help convince their genitals to come along for the ride. Let your mind go to its naughty place, and your body will follow. (And if guys need a little raunchy visual stimulus to get their genitals moving, okey dokey! We just recommend they choose their transportation responsibly, as we discussed last week: Think Hybrid porn, not Escalade smut.) And don't put even more pressure on yourself by trying to change your fantasies; accept them just the way they are, in all their fucked-up glory.

Once you've made peace with your fantasies, you might even consider sharing them with a partner you trust. Of course, with people like us talking about getting queer tingles from Playboy and other people's fantasies, 'fessing up to yours may not be easy. Take comfort in the fact that those who protest too much are the ones who have the weirdest mind movies. Then tell yours to someone you love. If they don't run screaming, buy them dinner. And if they help you fulfill them, at least a little, in the safety and privacy of your own bedroom, consider a marriage proposal.

Sex goddesses in our own minds,
Em & Lo