Your Erotic Personality

Credo: “A Room of My Own”

Reality is anathema to you. You are convinced that sex in another era would have more erotic appeal than sex in the here and now. You like to revise your own history and consider the sex that might have been possible had you handled things differently. You prefer to fantasize about the glorious future with someone special than to think about the lamentable current state of affairs with them. Your internal world is so much richer than the one you’re forced to live in. You’re the guy who imagines that the girl in the next cubicle will soon come to her senses and surrender to your charms. You’re the girl who daydreams that your UPS man one day will deliver an entirely different kind of package. Most of all, though, you cherish your tried-and-true fantasies—the ones that have gotten you through the tough times!

But doesn’t everybody want to leave reality behind? Maybe, but right now we’re only interested in what you want to do. How would you answer the following question?

You are in the throes of passion with someone you love very much. Without any warning, however, a scene from the movie you watched earlier that day pops into your head and it:

a. puts you right back in the mood it created—right down to replacing your partner with the attractive one in the film.

b. reminds you that you must return the film tomorrow.

c. makes you wish you lived in it, either with your partner or without, just long enough for you to long for your real life again.

As long as you didn’t choose B, it’s safe to say you’re an Escapist.

Profile of The Escapist

It’s impossible not to want to escape from reality. Every fantasy, sexual or otherwise, is based on the premise that some other permutation of the here and now is preferable to the one offered by reality.

Reality can be harsh and cruel, and we often need relief from it. Some need that relief more than others, and not always because reality deals such horrible blows—sometimes a person knows they can assemble a fantasy life so pleasant, so sexually stimulating, that reality can’t hope to compete with it. Escapists are those people.

In some small way, every time we fantasize, we are Escapists. And that’s why this erotic personality type is the mother of all the types.

Every person who takes the quiz at the beginning of this book will have some Escapist answers. (If you had none, please write me—I’d really like to talk with you!) All fantasies spring from our need to imagine beyond the present, which means that without the Escapist type, none of the other erotic personality types would exist.

Every fantasy and every fetish begins as a sizzling little seed of an idea so determined to take root that it blossoms right there in the mind. Every erotic type grows out of what begins in this one.

Now that you’ve got a healthy respect for Escapists, let’s look at what distinguishes them from mere fantasizers.

If you’re hoping to find a way to spot an Escapist in a crowd, you’re in for some disappointment. Escapists populate both genders, so you’re as likely to find a female Escapist as you are a male one. Age plays no role whatsoever, and neither does sexual orientation. They don’t gravitate to any particular industry and they can be extroverts or introverts.

Even if you sleep with them, you may not learn whether they’re in this erotic type. Escapists are notoriously private about their fantasies, but that’s really no surprise. If you had something you valued, you’d probably guard it closely, too. Escapists savor their fantasies and have spent years crafting them. By exposing those fantasies to someone else, Escapists risk losing them to an ill-timed laugh or an insensitive guffaw. So Escapists tend to keep their fantasies neatly packed away, to be opened exclusively for their own enjoyment.

Non-Escapists think fantasies are just fantasies, expendable and disposable. Escapists beg to differ. To them, fantasies are much more than that. Escapists not only bring their erotic fantasies to the sex act but they rely on those fantasies to get and stay turned on.

To get a sense of what it takes to be a bona fide Escapist, see the difference in how the following three people use their fantasies.

Alan’s marriage has been a disappointment since his wedding night. As a result, he finds himself imagining sexual interludes with almost every woman he meets. He can’t even ride an elevator without picturing every woman in the car naked. He feels some guilt about these mental infidelities because they sometimes arouse him so much, he feels like he’s cheated on his wife. But he tries to justify his thoughts by reminding himself that his sex life is terrible and he just needs an outlet. He’s just a healthy red-blooded guy whose imagination needs what his body is being denied, he thinks to himself. Even on the rare occasions when he does have sex with his wife, these images might pass through his head but he relies on no particular act or person to help him perform or stay aroused.

Elizabeth consumes romance novels at the rate of at least one per week. She likes her heroes strong and her heroines feisty. She can often feel what it’s like to live in Victorian England or to be working with an international spy for the good of the world just by reading these books—they are very real to her. She identifies with the heroines to such an extent that sometimes she imagines herself to be them as she goes about her daily chores or sometimes even when she makes love. Pretending to be somebody else gives her a great deal of pleasure, especially when she allows herself to be somebody else between the sheets.

Jonathan is an avid science fiction fan. From Star Trek to Firefly, he knows characters, plots, motivations, and costumes as well as he knows the faces of his own children. He can easily see himself as the captain of a spaceship cruising through the universe, and whenever he thinks about the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, he thinks about commanding Lieutenant Uhura or Lieutenant Commander Deanna Troi to do his sexual bidding. He has vivid images of them complying with that bidding. He’s even given his wife a couple of Star Trek outfits to wear in their intimate moments together. All these people bring their fantasies to the bedroom, so how can you tell which one is the Escapist? It’s all in the details—and the duration.

Alan’s imaginings are frequent but fleeting. They don’t really sustain him—they’re more of a diversion and they’re easily replaced as well as forgotten. Elizabeth creates a fantasy world for herself that she finds quite enjoyable because she immerses herself in it. She builds a world for herself and proceeds to make a home in it. Jonathan has woven some very specific details into his fantasies—details that he returns to again and again for sexual stimulation. Alan may have an active fantasy life, but Elizabeth and Jonathan are the real Escapists.

All of us have fetishes or interests of some sort that never fail to excite us. They’re what we think about when we masturbate or sometimes when we’re making love. They are our erotic triggers—the thoughts that push us firmly into a state of arousal. For the Escapist, those thoughts are necessary for a satisfying sexual experience. For a fantasizer, they’re just a fun visualization exercise.

Escapists are also among the few erotic types who do not need to act out their fantasies. In fact, in most cases, they prefer not to because the reality of the fantasy might not live up to the fantasy!

Other erotic types, such as Tops and Bottoms, feel strong compulsions to move their fantasies out of their heads and into the real world. They don’t feel like the fantasy is complete until they do so. Their fantasies function as extensions of themselves and until those fantasies are experienced, they don’t truly come to life. But with Escapists, the whole point of the fantasy is to keep it separate and distinct from reality, thereby giving them a place to go when real life disappoints or fails to fulfill them. (Alan did rely on fantasy when reality disappointed him, but he didn’t lose himself in his fantasies like Elizabeth and Jonathan did. He didn’t create a real world for himself separate and apart from reality.)

Escapists sometimes feel guilty about bringing their fantasies along when they have sex. They suspect it’s “cheating” to draw from a pool of well-developed, thoroughly defined, and all-too-familiar pictures. Shouldn’t the sexy, desirable people who have agreed to sleep with them be getting their undivided attention? They wonder if it’s wrong to think about something other than the person (or people) they’re with.

Well, if that’s wrong, then nobody out there is doing sex right.

If the story requests that come in to Custom Erotica Source are any indication, fantasies about anything from historic figures to cartoon characters are positively rampant in bedrooms across the planet. People completely in love with their partners, turned on by them in every way, think about bodies and positions that differ from what’s in bed with them. Those thoughts have nothing to do with dissatisfaction and everything to do with the unique erotic wiring of the individuals involved.

Brains will wander and fantasies will be restless. It is no reflection on the owner of that brain or the creator of the fantasy. It’s simply what brains do. Genitals do their thing, imaginations do theirs. Sometimes they’re in sync, but when they’re not, it’s no cause for alarm.

Let’s return to Jonathan as an example. The science fiction playground he’s created in his mind has been in existence since before he met his wife. It has sustained and entertained him for years. Weaning himself off those fantasies would not only be impossible, it might even be counterproductive. Even if he were able to discard them like a bad habit, what would it accomplish? He’d be painfully adrift when it came time to masturbate, and there’s no guarantee his erotic psyche would replace the old images with ones of his wife.

We don’t control our fantasies. They come about from a mysterious convergence of experience and consciousness, exposure and psychological wiring, so what’s the point of feeling guilty about them? Whatever you think about during sexual encounters is entirely your business and unless it involves hurting people without their consent or anything else that’s likely to land you in jail, there’s little to worry about.

Jonathan’s fantasies function separate and apart from those based in any kind of reality. They do not distract him from his wife or the affection he feels for her. They might eclipse her as the source of his lustful thoughts every now and then, but ultimately, the pleasure he derives from sex with his wife is based on her, not Uhura or Troi. Jonathan’s fantasies, then, earn the Escapist seal of approval because he’s likely to find it impossible to find, let alone coerce, the women of the Starship Enterprise to service him sexually.

Jonathan knows these fantasies are safe and harmless. They allow him to escape from reality, and aside from the erotic thrills they provide, that escape hatch is their best feature, as far as he’s concerned.

Escapist fantasies aren’t about former or current lovers that the Escapist would prefer to be with. An Escapist may certainly think about such notions—they are only human, after all—but they understand that those ideas are separate from their usual fantasy repertoire. They understand the difference between fantasies requiring action and fantasies that provide familiarity and comfort.

An Escapist knows, perhaps better than any other erotic type, that fantasizing about former or current lovers (when the Escapist is already in a relationship) is a new and different ball game. When a fantasy propels them to want to take action, the Escapist knows it’s an erotic fantasy unlike any other. It’s no longer the kind that feels familiar and comfortable and sits in the cerebral cortex without demanding anything but enjoyment. Escapists will usually do something to move that fantasy into reality so they can get back to their regularly scheduled programming (fantasywise).

Escapists do sometimes think about people they’ve never been with, people they know and feel attracted to. The idea of acting on those fantasies might tantalize and intrigue them, but the true Escapist knows the difference between the fantasies that must be acted upon and the ones better left in their heads. The ones that endure and fuel the Escapist’s sexual imagination are the ones that are an ingrained part of the Escapist’s erotic mind map. Others may flare up and overtake the old standbys temporarily, but those are the ones that eventually either dissipate or find their way into reality. The Escapist has no trouble making the distinction.

Roxanne has been fantasizing about performing onstage naked to a crowd of oversexed and horny men ever since she can remember. She thinks about it almost every time she masturbates and sometimes when she makes love. The idea just really turns her on. Nevertheless she would never actually put herself in a situation to realize this fantasy in the flesh (so to speak). Lately, however, she’s been thinking about the computer geek in her office with the curly hair who smells like whole-wheat toast. Ever since she saw his fingers fumbling around on her keyboard, she’s been obsessed with the idea of his hands on her body, and these thoughts have begun to invade her masturbatory sessions. She knows that until one of them asks the other out, these fantasies will torment her, and sure enough she’s right. As soon as they go out on a few dates, her fantasies return to normal, with her in the spotlight on stage.

Escapists also like to revise their sexual histories as part of their fantasy lives. It’s not unusual for them to take a scene from their sexual pasts and focus only on what was hot—or what could have been hot. Say the experience had enormous potential but something went dreadfully wrong. The Escapist will use that active imagination of theirs to fix it, forever eradicating the bad memories and supplementing their fantasy inventories with new and exciting material. And they will entertain these fantasies for years, because that’s how long it takes to build a whole separate world.

Escapists are outstanding revisionists. They tend to work with basic story lines or settings and build from there. That means that the players are often easily replaceable. Their attributes may morph a bit, too, depending on the Escapist’s preferences or mood. Roxanne, for instance, might envision a small group or large crowd as her appreciative audience. And maybe her new geek friend is watching or maybe he isn’t. Sometimes she might let the men touch her, and other times not. Maybe she’ll be performing under a huge spotlight in an auditorium or maybe she’ll be in somebody’s living room.

All these details are so malleable, you see, because they are utterly fictional. Because the Escapist keeps them all at a reasonable distance from reality, the specifics don’t have to be accurate. In fact it’s better for the Escapist if they aren’t. There’s safety in fiction.

To ensure that they get the proper distance from reality that they require, Escapists may rely on different historical periods to push their fantasies into the safe and protected zone (and again, to build that world that’s so vital to them). Elizabeth the romance-novel reader frequently imagines herself stuck in the gallows as punishment for being a witch in Salem, Massachusetts, for example, and at the mercy of the men in the village where she was accused. This world is so vivid to her that she even knows what kind of underwear she’s wearing back there in historic New England. She borrows from each novel to fantasize about certain characters in them but in the end, she’s always in those gallows.

Escapists do tend to repeat themselves in their fantasy world, but that’s only because they’ve found what they like and want to stick with it. That’s not boring. That’s efficient.

Do Escapists ever just daydream or fantasize like non-Escapists? Yes, they do. They have a fantasy compartment for new stuff but they aren’t likely to use it the same way they use their regular stashes. Let’s use Jonathan again to illustrate.

An attractive blonde has just started working on the same job site as Jonathan. She’s cute, funny, and has a body he thought only possible through surgical enhancement. He might steal a glance or two and entertain an obscene number of naughty thoughts. When he’s driving home and his mind wanders, it won’t be unusual for him to wonder idly about what she looks like naked or how wild she might be in bed. He’ll picture her, perhaps, on her knees about to give him a blowjob. You know—the usual meanderings of the male mind.

Jonathan is not immune to idle fantasies. He has them, enjoys them, and tosses them away. Just like the non-Escapist, he lets them flow through his mind, just like Alan does with his random women in elevators. When it comes time to seek sexual satisfaction, however, some guys at Jonathan’s job site might keep images of the young blonde at the forefront of their minds. Jonathan, however, will not. When push comes to shove, the Escapist brain turns to the tried-and-true rather than the new and untested. They can enjoy a fantasy and maybe masturbate to it once, but ultimately, they want the fantasy world they’ve worked so hard to create. What Jonathan might do is insert the blonde into a Star Trek scenario but he won’t do this more than once or twice because it upsets the fantasy status quo a little more than he likes.

Sometimes Escapists use this knack for creating entire worlds of sexual stimulation to aid them in improving a bad relationship they’re currently in. Single people involved with married ones often do this—they concoct idyllic images of themselves and their attached partners that contrast significantly with reality. In these fantasies, the partners perform without restraint or guilt and love freely. The Escapist uses these fantasies as coping mechanisms, as well as for sexual stimulation. Yes, it’s delusional, but again, it’s a direct and efficient path to a preferred reality. This kind of relationship frequently has little to no possibility of moving from fantasy to reality, so the Escapist constructs a detailed and sustaining world where the married partner says and does all the right things. The fantasy can continue for many years because reality cannot and does not budge.

Escapists want safety and predictability as much as they want sexual excitement. Their fantasies keep them warm and reassure them. It’s likely that they create them for those reasons, in fact.

Throughout this book, you may notice that the concept of safety emerges with some regularity. It seems that for many types, eroticism can’t flourish in an atmosphere of danger or uncertainty (the Risk Taker is a notable exception). For all the wild and crazy fantasies the human brain may concoct, there’s an equally compelling desire to experience all of it against a backdrop of safety, affection, and trust.

An Escapist’s fantasies provide a great safety net for them. When the Escapist can’t rely on reality to deliver what they need, they know their fantasies wait patiently for them to enjoy at any time. Fantasies don’t break up with you, pick fights, make you feel inadequate, or expect you to look your best all the time. They are reliable, steadfast, and never unpredictable. Sounds like the ideal significant other, doesn’t it?

Best Matches

The Romantic: One step removed from the Escapist in terms of fantasies hoarded, the Romantic understands what it’s like to dwell on a concept or person. Unfortunately, Romantics may prefer to focus on their own obsessions rather than make time for somebody else’s.

The Cuckold: Picture this. An Escapist who fantasizes about being with other partners hooks up with a Cuckold. Boom! Fireworks! That is, unless the Escapist really doesn’t want to lose those fantasies to reality. In that case, both parties may have to keep their fantasies in fantasyland, perhaps sharing them only with each other (which has tremendous erotic potential in and of itself).

The Wanderer: Both of these erotic personalities know the value of keeping secrets. Wanderers keep their out-of-town sexual exploits under their hats and Escapists rarely breathe a word about their active fantasy lives. A healthy environment for mutual respect exists between these two types; if they can confide in each other and cross-pollinate a few fantasies, the erotic potential is rich.

The Name-Dropper: Name-Droppers hanker after celebrities, usually knowing full well that they won’t ever have them. Escapists like to think about things they’ll never do. Is this a match made in heaven or what? Possibly. If the Name-Dropper’s fervor is too extreme, the Escapist may grow impatient. If the Escapist is happy to indulge the Name-Dropper’s antics because it allows the Escapist to enjoy fantasies in peace, then all could go well.

The Show-Off: Show-Offs can’t help themselves—they just always find themselves on display, whether it’s walking around the house in skimpy outfits or masturbating in front of a lover. Should a Show-Off end up in a relationship with an Escapist who nurses fantasies of being a Watcher, Cupid could very well leave his mark here. (Watching can be a passive activity for the Escapist—they won’t feel like they’re acting out their cherished fantasies the way an Escapist with Show-Off fantasies would.)

Types Like You

The women in My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday

Anaïs Nin

Lester Burnham (played by Kevin Spacey) in American Beauty

Most erotica writers

Walter Mitty (played by Danny Kaye) in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Are you the Romantic or the Partier?