Some people who have behaved illegally online may feel that as part of addressing their behaviour, they have to stop all sexual fantasies.
But sexual fantasies themselves are not necessarily a bad thing – it’s what happens in that fantasy or who is in that fantasy that might need to be addressed.
Exercise
Have you recently had a fantasy about a child? If you have, then without thinking about it in too much detail, work through these questions one at a time and see if these help you think about your fantasies differently.
- Where is this fantasy situated?
- What are you doing there?
- Who else is there? What are they doing there?
What this fantasy says about you
- What role does this fantasy place you in?
- How does this fantasy compare to the type of person you are generally?
- How does this fantasy compare to the type of person you want to be?
- How does the fantasy of the content compare to real life?
What this fantasy says about how you view others
- How do you treat the people in the fantasy?
- How do they treat you?
- What if the roles were switched?
What this fantasy says about your view of the world
- What sort of world would it be if you or other people were able to act on this fantasy?
- Is this really the type of world you’d like to live in?
- What is the likelihood of your fantasy ‘expectations’ being met and would you want them to be met?
- What would your close friends and family feel about this fantasy? What would they think?
- How would you feel if your son or your daughter acted out this fantasy with another adult?