Friday 17 January 2014

Round Table Discussion: Fantasy vs reality


One of the most fascinating aspects of TTWD – and one that has been on my to-write-about list forever – is that of fantasy versus reality. And now it’s the subject of a round table discussion!

Of course, the nature of the things we term ‘reality’ and ‘fantasy’ and the relationship between them is an enormous question, one central to the human condition and one that has exercised minds since before TFD was born. I will spare you my amateur thinks about such matters (picture a stoned girl stargazing with her friends) and focus on the issue in as much of a purely kinky context as I can. Which is just as complex, layered and rewarding a thing to think about. Plus it’s hotter :D

As a reader and a writer I slip between realities each and every day. A lot of my blog material is explicitly reality-bending by design, whether it’s a letter to Santa from Little Penny or a note about my stay at an institute for errant girls (complete with a photograph of my rear during a uniform inspection). But you don’t need to write a blog to blur the boundary between reality and fantasy: each of us do it, each time we curl up with a book or read a story online. We do it when we watch a film (or a spanking video); we do it when we look at a photo or a piece of artwork. When we engage with these things we are, in a variety of ways, escaping our lived reality and entering a world of imagination.

In the case of erotica (and our favourite sub-genre, spanking erotica), this space is one in which all kinds of emotions and sexual sensations are evoked and heightened. The people and the events portrayed in, for example, a non-consensual spanking story might be fictitious but the sensations the story arouses in the reader are quite real. It is a measure of the writer’s skill (and the reader’s tastes and imagination) just how affecting these sensations are. Speaking personally, I find I react to ‘institution’ stories in a profoundly visceral way: my heart literally thumps in my chest as I read of women stripped of their liberty and dignity and subjected to merciless punishments in a potentially endless incarceration. As I read about these poor women’s ordeals I identify with them, I empathise; in a sense I become them, and the fictional world they inhabit becomes (for a time at least) my world, even though I am safely tucked up in bed at home. And it doesn’t seem to matter if the things I read are unlikely or downright fantastical: the suspension of disbelief involved in the reading process – allowing myself to think and feel ‘what if?’ – allows the reality of the textual world to seep into my own life. And to arouse and terrify me in equal measure.

But then this is the power of fantasy; the power of the imagination.

The blurring of fantasy and reality also takes place in other, more physical contexts, something that persons of kink understand better than most. I wrote about the topic of kinksexual roleplay in an earlier round table post and a great deal of those issues are relevant here. Perhaps the most important of these – and one that explicitly links the practice of roleplay with e.g. the act of reading – is the suspension of disbelief. To take an example from my own life, when my partner and I play ‘school’ the action most often takes place in our bedroom. I am fully aware that, even in the most unconventional of educational establishments, a lesson or detention is unlikely to be conducted in such a space. And, verisimilitude of the location aside, however wholeheartedly my partner and I might enter the roles of teacher and schoolgirl, I know that in reality we are simply two adults playing. In other words I always have an awareness of the fictionality of what we do, though that awareness is itself part of its erotic power, part of the fun.

Having said that, it’s tempting, I think, to wish sometimes that the play of fantasy/reality could be 100% reality. The things we fantasise about are things we enjoy, after all, and it’s only natural to want those experiences to be more authentic and enveloping. Whether they would be quite as satisfying as we had hoped – whether we would actually enjoy them when they became our reality, displacing the existing one – is another matter.

Quite aside from the desirability of making the imaginary real, fantasy is much more achievable than reality. One of my most cherished desires is to be a permanent pupil at a strict school, with spankings and canings an ordinary part of everyday life. My imagination allows me to transport myself to such a place, that is just as I wish it to be, in an instant. I can explore it and write about it (and in so doing give my fantasy an existence in the world and share it with others). Yet making my dream-school a physical, lived reality for myself would involve so much that it is to all intents and purposes impossible. Even if I sold a million books and was free to become a full-time lady of leisure, how could I enrol at such a school, as no such place exists? And even if it did, I myself do not correspond with the Schoolgirl Penny of my imagination. I am twenty-five and five sixths, not fourteen; I can’t unexperience my life and adult experiences. It’s the exact same issue that occurs when I play school in my bedroom, and transplanting the action to a St Trinians-esque environment wouldn’t change that.

All of these factors point to something we all recognise: that the exploration of fantasies is inevitably a negotiation; a compromise. But then this goes to the heart of the issue: because what we do when we roleplay is not reality, it is by definition something different, something other, a unique experience that has elements of fantasy and reality but is not fully one or the other. And that unique experience has a value, and a beauty, all of its own.

Okay, those are (some of) my thoughts! I hope they made some sense :) and I would love to hear yours. You can of course respond in any way you feel, but here are some potential questions for inspiration: do you find that you identify with the protagonist of a spanking story, and feel a naughty tingle when s/he is punished? Do you wish that your fantasies could be reality? Do you have a cool word for the fantasy/reality experience? (Personally, I think ‘honkifying’ would be a good one).

24 comments:

  1. Wonderful, wonderful post, Penny. As usual, I agree completely with your analysis!

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    1. Thank you, Emily! It's a ginormous subject and one I can only try my bestest to poke at. So glad it made a little sense :)

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  2. Great post, Penny! Doesn't everyone wish that their fantasies were a reality? But if they all were real life would get pretty boring... I need somewhere to 'escape' to.

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    1. Yes, I suppose that's the central irony... if all our fantasies did become real we would have to find new things to fantasise about.

      Perhaps there's more worth to the 'chase' (the desire that we feel for our fantasies to become real, bitter-sweet though it may be) than we typically recognise. Thank you for a thought-provoking comment!

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  3. This is such an amazing post, Penny.

    I think many of us would not be prepared for 100% reality.

    25 and 5/6...so cute.

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    1. Thanks, Ana! :)

      I figure that fantasy is part of being human, whatever those fantasies - and whatever our individual reality - might involve.

      Birthday in Feb! I'm starting to not like the number ticking up... when did that happen? :/

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  4. I think everyone has a favorite fantasy that they escape to when the moment's just right. Permanent schoolgirl definitely has her appeal, though my favorite retreat is a discrete, nondescript corporate office with a veritable mountain of a man sitting behind the desk. He looks up from the manila file he's been perusing and pins me to my seat with a look as he says, "So, you're here for a spanking, are you? How long has it been, Ms. Smith, since your last one? Because judging by these answers, I'd say you're long overdue."

    Yours was an amazing and insightful post, Penny. :) Thanks for sharing it with us!

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    1. Ohh... lovely fantasy, Maren :) so much going on in there! And all of it hot. Smart, professional people being naughty is just... yum.

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    2. May I appy for that position, please?...)

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  5. Of course I have a fantasy I've often used when the reality isn't cutting it. I can a little tingle just hearing some phrases and often say the threat of a spanking can be as exciting to me as either reading about or getting the actual spanking.The threat doesn't hurt, not that pain can't be fun too.

    Enjoyed the post.

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    1. Glad you enjoyed, Leigh :)

      And yes, you are so right - the pleasure of fantasy (and/or fantasy enactment) is about more than just the physicality of things.

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  6. I think I'm saying this on all the posts on this week's round table - you hit it with knowing it's fantasy even (especially) when the line are blurred. Keep both feet on the ground and have fun - both eyes open :)

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    1. Yes, I think that's it - have fun but don't fall through the looking-glass and lose sight of where you came from.

      Even when you're blindfolded. And possibly gagged.

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  7. The Issue most would have is that The reality would never quite measure up to the fantasy ..

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    1. This is true! And this is why it's important to remember that fantasies aren't necessarily transferrable verbatim into 'real life'. (I'm telling myself that as much as anyone else!)

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  8. Maybe the advantage of fantasy over reality, even played out fantasy is that there is an element of control to direct the events imagined, or real towards what we desire, our desire being very personal and unique to each of us, whereas true reality often has an element, large or small, of going its own way. Anyway, just a thought.

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    1. A very good thought, Jamie, and one I wish I had brought into my post! You're exactly right: fantasies are our own creations, and so we have a different relationship to them - and they have a different internal dynamic - to the non-fantasy world.

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  9. "Oh reality is no good to me and it make me laugh" ..I never iget the chance ndulge my spanking fantasies in r/l so imagination and fantasy are very powerful I enjoy reading and writing stories about womens prisons/reform schools etc and imagine myself as the strict but fair officer.

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    1. Imagination and fantasy are very powerful, I quite agree. Can you imagine life (and culture as we know it) without them? I can't!

      And your fantasies sound very erotic :)

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    2. Thank you somuch Penny. Big Hugs You never know I might find a woman who will want to take part in my stories in r//l one day.Suppose stranger things have happened..)

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  10. Yes, I also see fantasy as its own reality. What we think, dream, feel, what we want to be or do is as much a part of who we are as what we actually do. How deeply we're able to embrace fantasy, and to the exclusion of reality, varies, but the inner worlds you share on your blog exist. They exist for me when you share them. I don't really want anyone to be a permanent pupil at a strict school. That's oppression. Spanking, the freedom to act, is about some kind of love. It's much better that you want what you want, that you're free to play with it and to share your intimate thoughts about it.

    I think I always want to identify to some extent with one or more characters in a spanking story. If and how I identify depends on the story, and in some cases, the author. I want to be moved by the situation, emotionally, intellectually, and/or erotically. I do wish that some of my fantasies could be realized. All are not impossible.

    Hugs,
    The Ancient One ;)

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    1. Thank you for such a wonderful comment, Ancient TFD! You and I think along similar lines, and you put it all much better than I ever could :)

      My scribblings are an expression of love, just as the things I do away from the computer are, and I love that the worlds I create have a reality for you. I feel the same way about all the amazing people who share their thoughts and work with the world.

      Hugs!

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  11. HONK!
    sorry, I got lost at honkifying :D.
    Hm, maybe I have a different set of fantasies... I read spanking fiction especially, but really most erotica as something outside myself, something I empathize with less

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    1. Interesting (as always), Joelle :)

      Different fantasies, and different reading experiences, are some of the things that make us unique; I love the limitless variation that people bring to things, just by being themselves.

      HONK!

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