I suppose some might say my fantasy life is sorely lacking in imagination and creativity and my opening lines to this piece might just reinforce that since it begins with yet again another Grateful Dead reference. The phrase that might be thrown at me here would be along the lines of “get a life”. Sort of like the bumper sticker that appeared shortly after Jerry Garcia died in 1995: Jerry is dead, Phish stink, Get a job. Despite the validity of this self-criticism here I go again. The topic of fantasy was brought to my mind as the result of the current four night run by Furthur at Red Rocks and their opening the second set on the 3rd, Saturday night, with the old Traffic tune Dear Mr. Fantasy.
Dear Mister Fantasy play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything take us out of this gloom
Sing a song, play guitar
Make it snappy
You are the one who can make us all laugh
But doing that you break out in tears
Please don't be sad if it was a straight mind you had
We wouldn't have known you all these years
Traffic – Winwood, Capaldi & Wood, 1967.
These are lyrics from a song made popular by Traffic in 1967. Their music was certainly within my sphere of listening influence if not when it actually was released certainly a few years later. This tune though made no lasting impression on me until the Grateful Dead resurrected it in the mid- 1980’s. The tune was brought to the band for then keyboardist Brent Mydland, who was one of a string of key board players for the Grateful Dead over thirty years. Several of them met untimely deaths, Brent included, who did himself in with a speedball in 1990. I suppose shooting a combination of cocaine and heroin is one way to attempt creation of a fantasy or perhaps facilitate fanciful escape. Several other much better known celebrities, based on an Internet search, have blasted out of this life with speedballs most notable perhaps were SNL greats Chris Farley and John Belushi.
What is music but one way to make us all happy and to take us out of our gloom? I am going to veer away from music as facilitator of fantasy though and take fantasy into the realm of Queerdom. Particularly the role fantasy plays in the lives of gay men. The proposition here will be that the creation of fantasy worlds is one of our special powers, one of our great gifts to the larger society and ourselves. We hone our skills at fantasy often in our early masturbatory and sexual daydreams, which we often have to create on our own since the dominant society, provides us with very little sanctioned sexual guidance.
Our fanciful thumbprints are all over many facets of societal escape well beyond the sexual realm from personal grooming, art, film, classical music, show tunes and theatre to fashion and drag of all sorts to name but a few. I am not meaning to say that lesbians, bisexuals and trans folks are not also fanciful just that gay men seem to have really cornered the market on escapism. Fantasy I suppose has a downside as well as its many up sides, especially the social safety valve it provides. An example of the downside, and I am making this up pretty much as I write, is that our desire for escape often goes beyond harmless fantasies and too often gets goosed along with drugs and alcohol. Jerry Garcia once said people do drugs because they make them feel good. Going back to the Traffic lyrics again many of us gay men have certainly used substances to take us out of our gloom.
In order to fulfill many of our adolescent and pre-adolescent fantasies of being swept off our feet by Mister Right and then sexually ravaged until we nearly explode, drugs and alcohol are often used to help us to get over the initial and very powerful societal taboos involved. There has been some speculation over the years that gay men are perhaps more prone biologically to an over use of tobacco, drugs of all sorts and alcohol. I would argue that we are more prone biologically to fantasy.
Certainly not every gay man is into getting fucked though it is something most at some time or the other do fantasize about. This has got to be first explored in the realm of fantasy. Nobody wakes up one morning and out of the blue says ‘gee I think I’ll get some dude to fuck me today’. Any form of physical and emotional intimacy with another man is still so taboo that this remains a real test of character to get over it and move into the realms of positive gay intimacy despite the current minimal societal sanctioning of gay marriage.
There is much more run up psychologically, emotionally and physically to letting a man screw you than for a straight guy to have his first sexual encounter with a woman. The sexual signs posts are everywhere in our society for heterosexuals but don’t exist for gay men outside the realm of fantasy often times. Our sexual fantasies these days are and for decades really have been supported by gay male porn. Inadequate access even in 2013 to peers knowledgeable about the ins and outs of gay sex make the often totally fanciful world of gay male porn very attractive. Gay male sex education even in the world of the relatively tolerant Public Health environment rarely goes beyond the vapid message of “play safe –use a condom.”
In answer to the original question what is my favorite fantasy I am left at a bit of a loss on how to pick one. I sometimes think my entire life is a fantasy or perhaps worse a total illusion. I do think though that one’s favorite fantasy should be something that gets the blood running. I suppose I do also at times confuse my dreams with fantasy or maybe my dreams are pure fantasy. I dream of a socialist utopia where everyone is treated equally, has adequate food, clothing and shelter, the planet is healthy and the whole world is infused with a queer sensibility.
Well enough with taking the high road around my favorite fantasy. Being brutally honest I am going to base my favorite fantasy simply on how often I engage in it. That hands down would be my nearly daily masturbatory fantasies. These are often ignited with a bit of Internet porn but usually reach fruition by recalling a past sexual encounter that ends in my imagination the way I would have hoped rather than how it actually did. I must say though that most days that works just fine.
In closing I’d like to say that in doing these writings for this group I occasionally stumble on a thought that I think deserves much more exploration than I give it. For example the whole idea that the nonsexual fantasy worlds of gay men are actually great safety valves for society in general. I don’t think many would argue that without show tunes the world would be just a bit sadder place. Being the lazy fuck that I am though I rarely delve deeper but too often of an afternoon get distracted into the fantasies at hand.
©
October 2013
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