Book Review: The Fantasy Fallacy: Exposing the Deeper Meaning Behind Sexual Thoughts

Last week, I finished reading the most amazing book:

O_O

Oh my. And it is a book that I would never pick up.

How did I come across this book?

While talking to my sister Kentucky. I told her about another book I talked about in a blog post and really liked, Walking into Walls: 5 Blind Spots that Block God's Work in You by Steven Auterburn. She purchased the book and REALLY read it. She explained to me one of the concepts of this book that I didn't really get and had meant to go back and read, about the difference between building walls around yourself and setting boundaries for yourself. (I may do a post on that. Some of you talked about setting boundaries for yourself in one of my recent posts).

So my sister started looking around for other books by the author. She came across the Fantasy Fallacy Book, a book where the author of the Walls book wrote the foreword, and liked the sample chapters she'd read.

I was a bit stunned by this. Why was my little sister reading a book on sexual fantasy??

"Let me go look and see what this little girl is reading," I said to myself when I got off the phone with her. "I'ma get her. She know she has no business reading anything like that."

I downloaded the sample chapters on my kindle. Then I downloaded the whole book.

Hear me now, believe me later... That book was AMAZING.  Oh. my. goodness.

Why was it so amazing?

Because it was a treatise on sexual fantasy from a nonjudgmental spiritual and Christian perspective.

Keyword here: nonjudgmental.

I myself was ready to chastise Kentucky for reading such rubbish.

Trust me, it was far from rubbish. And I am surprised that it was narrowed down to sexual fantasy. This material could be easily extrapolated to other problems, issues and addictions. Easily.

Baby, let me tell you though... I know waaaaaay more about sexual issues and fantasies than I care to know now. My goodness.

I myself don't have these issues. Like any other female though, who has been around several blocks, I do have movie reels of past sexual conquests locked away in a room in the dark corners of my mind, and yes I do go and knock the dust off of those and watch them. For in those movies, I am the star, giving an Oscar-winning performance, swinging from chandalier to kitchen counter to chandalier with the greatest of ease.

Not sure we can get away from that.  We will always have our memories. Our memories are something else, aren't they?

Vivid, bold, in amazing technicolor and super HD and 3D imax.

But this book jumps further than that... it goes into the secret places, those shameful places. Those sexual fantasies that we have and the "why" behind them.

And it gets into the dark places of the mind traveled by Christians: adultery, pornography, menage a trois, S&M, bondage, gay/lesbian fantasies, fetishes, rape fantasies, incest fantasies and the like.

Those dark dark places, where so much fantasy occurs that it all incubates, eventually comes out... with the capability of destroying our lives and the lives around us.

It is a dire secret problem. According to this book, 50% of Christians have a pornagraphy addiction. And 40% of church leadership have a pornagraphy addiction.

This is the third time I've seen the latter statistic, so I guess the studies must be true.

My own pastor said you wouldn't believe the hotel porn tally in the hotel rooms during conventions. I thought he was just saying that. But this book has a discussion of that. So I guess it must be real. I can't imagine. Not our beloved leadership. Sigh

Yet no one talks about it. And like I said in another post, when some scandal jumps off, we are all up in arms. When in fact, all that behavior started with some thoughts and fantasies that were well fed and incubated over a period of time.

Interesting. We all have secret lives. And according to this book, you better get with God and examine those areas and get the help you need. Because that stuff incubates in your mind. And at some time, it's going to produce.

I just like the nonjudgmental tone of the book.

I highlighted close to 45 quotes in this book, but here are some that really struck a tone with me.(I don't have page numbers. I only have e-book location numbers).

1. "Internet pornography is the crack cocaine of sexual addictions" (Location 1342). I read that and thought, uh... really? But the book presents an intriguing in depth discussion of that statement.

2. Sexual arousal is an incredible tranquilizer for all kinds of emotional pain (Location 1414).

3, The main reason that we barter with our bodies for the attention and affection we deeply desire is that we don't trust God for the satisfaction we seek, the provision we need, or the comfort we crave (Location 1782).

And the best quote of all, and if you know how I think, you will immediately know why...

"What we see as a flower or a tree or any other kind of plant is just an extension of what's at the root.  You won't see magnolia leaves sprouting from the roots of a dogwood tree, nor will you see ears of corn shoot off a cucumber vine. What we are in the light is determined by who we are in the dark. Our fruit is merely the product of our roots. Only through tending to our mental emotional and spiritual roots will we bear the healthiest fruit possible.  Ignore the roots, and the plant will suffer. Nurture the root and the plant will thrive. (Location 2848)

Whoo-wee! Honey, you know how I holler about seed and harvest and fruit and trees and stuff like that. This was right up my alley.

What was also intriguing was the fact that much of this fantasy is deeply rooted in childhood emotional baggage, and it is the brain's way of trying to deal with some deep emotional pain. I thought that was a little far-fetched, but interesting nonetheless. The author presented a compelling argument for such.

Alas, it is why Kentucky said what she said to me when she finished reading this book: "It is up to you to make sure you're emotionally grounded."

She said a bunch of other stuff with that, but that was the main point. I agreed with her. You have to do the mental and spiritual work to get rid of some of these secret things.

What I liked, as an example of that, is she told someone to get rid of all distraction for a few days, spend some time in the Word, spend some time journalling, and spend some time praying. And when that person did that, they found the root of their sexual issues (I think this woman was sleeping around hard on her husband... with his friends). Hmm...

All in all, this was a good book, with plenty of examples, a few of which made me holla
"SAY WHAT??!!?"  But those people were brave enough to seek out the help they needed.  And that's a good thing.

Definitely an interesting read. And like I said, the discussion could be extrapolated to many other problem areas in life, whether it be bad habits, addictions, and a host of other problems.

I am glad I took the time to read it.