Viva Sexual Fantasies

Hope you all had a nice weekend! As the work week begins, it’s back to porn stash studies for me. We’ve done the pictures, now it’s time to move on to the good part: the words. Pictures may indeed be worth a thousand words, but when it comes to arousing me, the right thousand words always do a much better job. It could be that I’m just a more auditory, language-focused person, but even at 14, it wasn’t the pictures in Viva that kept me coming back for more. It was the monthly feature called “Sexual Fantasies” by Dr. Robert Chartham.

I know I read these smutty confessions tons of times, settling on particular favorites, but really enjoying them all. The early 1970s marked the discovery of the sexual fantasy in American culture—or rather the willingness to recognize and exploit this aspect of our eroticism in a self-conscious way. Because of course, all pornography is a sexual fantasy of a sort. But with the publication of Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden, suddenly even the minds of ordinary women--gasp!--were goldmines of dirty thoughts and scenarios. However, unlike Penthouse’s letters, these shocking, taboo-busting fantasies were considered safe to read only if they were properly “analyzed” by a trained professional.

Enter Dr. Robert Chartham who presents his insights into erotic fantasies including “their Meaning, Significance, and Contribution to the Human Sexual Condition.” Each issue of Viva generally ran three different fantasies (at first it was just men’s fantasies, but quickly went co-ed and females tended to dominate 2 to 1). Each fantasizer was identified by a first name with last initial and described in terms of height, weight, health, job, marital status. The reader was thus encouraged to think she was dealing with a real person, not by any stretch of the imagination the output of some professional writer who was given an editorial prompt to write something about gangsters or threesomes (more on that next time!) The fantasy is then presented in frank, titillating language which can definitely get you worked up if you're in the mood for it. It’s not unlike an erotic story or even a Penthouse letter, although the action is of course acknowledged as pure imagination. After each confession, Dr. Robert Chartham comments at length. Back in the summer of '76, I read these commentaries with great interest, part of me hoping this expert would enlighten me as to what my own fantasies meant as well as give me insight into the minds of those strange creatures called men.

Yet, even at 14, still subject to whims of teachers and other authority figures, I knew there was something a bit off about Dr. Chartham. He definitely played favorites. Rereading his comments now, I declare the guy a total fraud and complete mind fucker. Talk about having complexes! You only need to read a few issues to see the pattern. Dr. Chartham basically chides all the males for their politically incorrect dreams, whether it’s sleeping with a mother and daughter or transforming a plain Jane into a sex goddess. In the former case, the two fantasy women “are probably his way of compensating for his lack of sexual stamina.” In the latter, Dr. Chartham issues this sermon: “What selfish men these Pygmalions are…they feel like gods to whom women ought to be grateful…I have always based my sexual activity on the equality of the partners. Insofar as I am motivated by a certain degree of selfishness, I frequently have a strong desire to be the entirely passive partner. But I’ve always believed that ‘share and share alike’ gives both partners the best of both worlds. I am not, therefore, in sympathy with Richard (the fantasizer under scrutiny who claims to have lived his fantasy of transforming plain women into beauties many times), and I am sure no woman would be who had been through his hands and dumped.”

It may be true that “Richard” or his real life counterpart is a jerk, but surely a trained therapist should not be in the position of judging a fantasy as sympathetic or worthy or indeed assuming to know what others think? Or on the other hand seeing it as an expression of inadequacy, as if any human being on earth is without unfulfilled yearnings and needs. Although the feminism of the 1970s did express a lot of anger towards men, even then, I knew that belittling men was not the way to go. And to do it under the guise of an expert opinion is bordering on the downright dangerous. It’s true that women suffered far more abuse than men at the hands of mental health professionals, but to see someone, man or woman, reveal themselves in this way (even if it is all fictional) and then be held in contempt just, well, it pisses me off!

Dr. Chartham does not redeem himself in my eyes by treating the ladies more gallantly. If your name is female, it doesn’t matter what sort of fantasy you have, the good doctor is there to support you—and probably invite you over to his place to show you his black-light posters later. Yep, he’s full of crap, but I still have to share this little love letter to a writer named Martha W. who fantasizes that she’s at a swimming pool and a dozen gorgeous men come up and service her in various ways. Here’s what the doctor has to say from his professional perspective. I wonder, fellow writers, if you agree?

“The full-time writer’s job is a lonely one. If you write fiction, the experience is even more lonely. People your pages with all kinds of imaginary characters, make them as real and as solid as you can; but not one of them can rise from the page, put his or her arms around you, and provide the emotional and sexual solace you crave. It’s a hard life and it’s a lonely life. No wonder one fills one’s fantasies with crowds in a dolce vita setting.

“You and I, Martha, being writers, experience our sexual potential vividly. Because of the austerity of our working conditions, we have become fantasizing sybarites, seeking the practical comforts our lives deny us.

Let me be honest: I like being made love to slightly more than I like making love. You seem to feel similarly. And while I fantasize that my cock is capable of satisfying countless numbers of women, you fantasize that your cunt can make happy countless numbers of men. [blogger’s aside: one of these scenarios is more realistic than the other ;-].

(Caption from Viva cartoon: My mommy says when I'm older I can have as many of those as I want.")

In my fantasy, odalisques bathe all my sensitive zones with expert fingers and mouths. It is delicious, and so softly inspiring.

In fantasy, we are omnipotent. You say, ‘Stand in line, boys; you’ll all be accommodated.’ I say, ‘Stand in line, girls; my cock is there for anyone’s pleasure.’ Of course, both of us are sexual show-offs. We both need to be the center of sexual attention. But by God, we know we can deliver the goods! And it is this which gives us our sexual power and our sexual satisfaction.

No, I don’t think you are strange in the least! Take time off from your work, and use your ingenuity to find a real lover for yourself. [blogger’s aside: time to provide your phone number, doctor?] Or check out the group-sex scene, where you may find others who are in search of the same pleasures.”

Whew, well, he has us female writers pretty much pegged, but at least I’m not sick like those two weirdo guys! Ah, Robert Chartham, what happened to you in the intervening years? Did you merely pass on to the next world one afternoon as you lay passively in bed being serviced by a dozen female patients? Is this perhaps another research project to pursue in my endless quest to unlock the history of eroticism in America?

Next time—another light bulb goes on when I see how the good doctor inspired one of my first erotic publications!