A couple days ago, I sent this e-mail to my boyfriend:
Say, for argument sake:
Before you met me, you were admiring a girl that you were physically attracted to, but never got the opportunity to talk to her. You probably liked her so much that you would imagine doing things with her–not necessarily being with her, though, because it’s not like you know her or anything. You’re just physically attracted, and wanted to talk to her.
After meeting me, and eventually becoming interested in me, and now dating me–you still see this girl fairly regularly, but have still not spoken to her.
Are you entitled to still fantasize about her (as in, is it wrong to fantasize), even though you’re in a relationship with me? And if you’re not entitled to fantasizing about her, but still find yourself doing it–even though you know nothing is going to happen, and you’re not going to let anything happen–what would you do to help you to not fantasize about her?
My personal opinion is that talking to the girl would probably bring you back to reality, and would help you to stop fantasising, but I want a second opinion.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from his response, but I there was nothing really surprising about what he said in his reply. He didn’t think that talking to the person would make things better, and could instead have potential to worsen the situation.
I agreed; However, I’m still thinking about something that he mentioned in his response, and that he had explained to me before, as explained to him by his ex-girlfriend: the concept of “Mind-Bun.”
Mind-bun is the Jamaican way of saying that you’re cheating on your significant other through thoughts and fantasies, which I suppose isn’t as bad as cheating on them with a body part or two. This makes sense, if you don’t rationalise it too much, I suppose, but then it makes me wonder who is really guilt free of that sort of cheating.
Especially when pornography is the material most people use to facilitate ‘sexy time’ alone. You’re not going to mentally replace Sasha Grey’s head with your girlfriend’s face–I’m pretty positive it doesn’t work like that.
For girls, it may be a bit different–porn is so male oriented that it is easy to imagine that a girl would not be fantasising about the woman she’s watching get hammered by a faceless penis. If the man’s face and body is as prominent as the woman’s, then there is a 90% chance that he is not what we have been taught the ideal man should look like.
Porn, on the other hand, presents what men have always been taught is the ideal woman, and so I think it is only natural that they would fantasise about porno female actors, while for women, the last thing we would want to do is fantasise about the typical porno male actor.
So, if guys are allowed that window of opportunity to think dirty about someone other than their significant other, is it so wrong for a girl to fantasise about the guy next door, random guys in the supermarket or her physics professor?
The simple answer would probably be “no, it’s not wrong, it is only fair” but I know it’s more complicated than that when your fantasies surround people in your everyday life, rather than people that are as far removed from your life as say, Beyoncé.
Still, theses are the things I think about.
