The Dilemma I am a woman in my early 20s, about to graduate from university and consider myself very independent with a healthy, normal, happy life. About two years ago I started watching porn. I didn’t even know what to look for, then I began to develop my own tastes and searched for specific things. What worries me is that my searches are for simulations of abuse – something that doesn’t reflect at all what I feel about the subject. I hate patriarchy and rape culture. Another issue that worries me is that now, when having sex with my boyfriend, I invent abuse stories and play them in my head in order to reach orgasm. I don’t like to role play any of those fantasies, I like to feel loved when having sex. I feel like none of this is healthy nor nurturing for my self development. Is it really that worthy of preoccupation?

Mariella replies It’s food for thought. Many women (and men) have similar fantasies and, as you have found, it doesn’t mean they want them made real. Nor does it mean there’s anything wrong with you or detract from all the other more wholesome qualities you ascribe to your life and personality. Fantasies, like dreams, are generally an outlet for emotions and psychological undercurrents we can’t or don’t want to include in our everyday experience. How lucky we are to have brains that can conjure the places we don’t want to go.

Rape is an act that asserts power in the basest, most violating way possible. It is not about an uncontrollable desire for another human being. It’s no coincidence that as a fantasy it’s more common among those in control of their day-to-day lives, rather than those who face such acts of sexual violence as an everyday danger. It’s not abnormal to be stimulated by the abstract idea of helplessness and subjugation. It certainly doesn’t mean when you walk down a street at night you are hoping a man will emerge from the undergrowth and take your right to choose what you do with your body by force.

It’s not abnormal to be stimulated by the abstract idea of being helpless and subjugated

One of the most intimate expressions of sexuality is role playing with someone we trust and desire. It’s not a game that’s open to strangers – except in our imaginations. This is tricky terrain and it’s only with those we feel closest to that we can even admit to such instincts. Whether fantasising about perpetrating sex crimes or imagining being the victim, it doesn’t mean we’re asking for it to happen.

It’s the same literal thinking that connects a promiscuous woman with an open invitation to sexual violence, a scenario we still see played out in courts when a victim (generally female) has her sexual lifestyle paraded as an example of why rape was an inevitability. Should we only be allowed to imagine what is politically correct or gender sensitive? It’s a gross hypocrisy when the loud champions of free speech come down hard on what they consider to be the unsayable.

When I published Desire, an anthology of erotica, last year, an author I greatly admire wrote a long censorious piece about the inclusion of stories that she felt were unacceptably violent or had strong misogynistic undertones. Yet it was an issue I addressed in the introduction to the book, and I clearly sectioned off these stories as Darkest Desires.

As adults we have a right to choose. There are yearnings deeper in our psyche than rational thought and it’s a restrictive view of feminism and womanhood to think we should be incapable of imaging acts and ideas that take us beyond philosophically acceptable terrain. Pretending our instincts are entirely tameable and explicable reduces the scope of human experience. Controlling the desires we can’t rationalise, or that open us or others to harm, is part of our responsibility as evolved animals. Evolution isn’t capable of wiping out the instincts we have been imbued with, but we have powerful tools to diffuse and direct them.

I’m not a fan of pornography because, in extremis, which is where the journey often winds up, it makes literal what should remain fantasy. Like all stimulants, it can create a hunger for greater highs. My feeling is that it’s your diet that needs regulating more than your imagination. Certainly your craving to be controlled and overpowered is worth exploring with an expert and might reveal aspects of your psychology that would be illuminating and perhaps helpful. It’s the domain that therapists exist to help translate and if you are troubled or feel dominated by sensory desires you aren’t comfortable with, do seek professional help.

Meanwhile, in a world where Fifty Shades of Grey sold in the millions to readers who wanted to imagine a domineering sexual dynamic they certainly weren’t campaigning for in real life, I think you can relax. We are complicated creations and exploring our fantasies is as vital as fuelling our bodies – as long as we aren’t causing harm to ourselves or others.

If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. Follow her on Twitter @mariellaf1