What's Your Fantasy? --Writer's Poke #84

For Writers:

In 1963, the Beatles gave us "I Want to Hold Your Hand"; in 2000, Ludacris released "What's Your Fantasy?" Now, I personally don't subscribe to the notion that Western Civilization is in a perpetual downward spiral, but it is amazing the difference 37 years makes.

"What's Your Fantasy?" received mainstream radio play, and its subject matter was anything but subtle. Hell, it made George Michaels' straight-forward 1987 hit "I Want Your Sex" sound down-right respectable.

Ludacris, shall we say, left nothing to the imagination. The lyrics reference a complete catalog of explicit sexual acts and escapades, including but not limited to public indecency, ménage à trois, role-playing, and oral sex.

The song was so out there that it even got on the radar of anti-fantasy advocate Bill O'Reilly, who would claim success in forcing Pepsi to drop Ludacris as spokesperson. Ironically, O'Reilly would face sexual harassment charges from a producer just a few years later, who claimed that O'Reilly suggested inappropriate sexual acts during phone converstations. I, of course, blame Ludacris for putting such dirty thoughts into O'Reilly's otherwise virtuous mind.

Do you have fantasies, sexual or otherwise? What role should fantasy play in "the real world," and in what contexts, if any, is it okay to be overtly graphic about them?

"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead." -- Oscar Wilde

"We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality." -- Iris Murdoch

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