Sexual fantasies is not the same thing as having a "wet dream" where you are literally asleep and can't control your dreams. To fantasise means your are leading your thoughts to imagine and visualise and thus stimulate yourself. To entertain such thinking is not moral and thus not normal or healthy. Instead of answering hormones as if they are moral we should understand what sex really is and that only via romantic love does it ever serve a moral purpose. Train the libido, do not pander to it.
Also, by that reasoming, hormonal state excuses what we think or do. I am sorry but that is grossly irresponsible a thought. God made us capable of choosing what we say or do irregardles of how we may feel or how our hormones behave. What about bipolar? A hypomanic episode doesn't mean they lose their mind and no longer understand right from wrong. Your libido kicking up does not excuse what you CHOOSE TO DO. Our hormones are a part of God testing us, not excusing us doing something immoral.
Having sexual fantasies is not normal or healthy. And further more they are not necessary.Our hormones may act out but that doesn't mean you need to reply to them with the wrong answer.Your libido raising up doesn't mean you have to answer it. That is like saying a woman has to eat chocolate because their hormones are making them crave something fatty. I have that "emotion" and I ignore it because eating a ton load of chocolate isn't healthy, and it isn't what I really want.
When my libido raises I just ignore it and it goes away. Don't obsess over it. Ignoring it is not hard when you truly understands it has no value without a truly loved and wanted significant other. Entertaining a fantasy is just as bad as if one had done it. The imagination is a powerful thing, what God gave us is no joke. Any sexual act outside of us being with the person we romantically love and are willingly engaging with is not necessary. Do something good to get rid of that energy.
We sadly live in a world where sex is constantly given a value and role it does not deserve. Partly because people do not actually understand sex. It truly isn't the biggest way to express love or to feel good. Beauty shouldn't be the ignition to want intimacy, love should be, love born from knowing someone for who they are. People raised by other flawed people to think love is sex and beauty equals sex, instead of being taught love is so much more than the extra of sex….
..God granted us to enjoy with our significant other. People are raised to think sex is everything and thus people behave like it is, and it absolutely isn't. Raised to act on every feeling they have "do what ever you feel like doing, do not challenge yourself or master your body and mind". God tests us in so many ways, our bodies are one way. We are supposed to deny the impulse to do wrong, just because one has a hormonal spike such as this does not excuse one, we aren't animals.
To entertain sexual fantasies really is dirtying oneself, it is no better than masturbation.What should be a beautiful and intimate act meant to happen, if it is meant to happen, with your loving spouse, is turned to just another act of self indulgence and blind lust. The imagination is so SO powerful, it is very real. God gave it as a gift for good, not this.Raise people to be strong not weak. This is not a place to say that God only gives us what we can bear,
God does not make us fantasise. Us fantasising is us choosing to fantasise. We take something normal like a libido and we feed it with our chosen thoughts. If we simply ignore the libido the libido is not a burden but a mere passing hormonal occurrence. It is part of the normal hormonal cycle yes, but it does not need to be met like thirsting for water is needing to be met.
With how we perceive things we lower our libido's activity, if one constantly answer their libido with fantasies the libidos activity is prolonged. If one thinks a woman/man is a walking talking reminder of sex, their libido is constantly awakened. When the libido is not pandered to it goes away quickly. If one has problem with the libido passing they can find healthy ways to make it pass like exercising.
If the libido is very high, then it may speak of hormonal imbalance, even mental health issues such as bipolar, one should be directed to consult a doctor and receive help. The libido or our hormones in general shouldn't be treated as an force that we must surrender to and let choose for us above free will. The body has hormonal responses both independent and soul bound (example, hormonal imbalance caused feeling of unhappiness vs. unhappy event+understanding said event= feeling truly unhappy).
Example, an aware bipolar patient recognises the manic episodes as completely not their own emotions and purely as "hormonal emotions", and the soul, the sentience, is feeling its own feelings, but the body is in mania and produces hormones of euforic happiness and even aggression. The patient still has a choice, knowing right from wrong, they refrain from the bad and steer towards the good. God has given the greatest aid besides the second aid of medication, Knowledge of Him, of what is Right.
By these I try to give examples of the soul triumphing over the test. One must want to do good for God and thus learn Right from wrong and act upon Right no matter what. To say no way but God's way will do, in every matter.When we know right, understand right, act upon it, we become better and can recognise far better what is truly us, who God made us to be, and what we shouldn't be doing. Ultimately we choose what we do, the sentient creation who follows Sentience Himself Who teaches us Right
Thank you for your time if you read all these asks, I felt compelled to say something on the matter. Salam.
Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,
I understand your position. To me it is about a cost-benefit analysis: I believe that teaching people to obsess about the wrongness of sexual fantasies is more harmful than teaching them it is a morally neutral thing.
Since we do not have any clear texts on the moral wrongness of sexual fantasies, and since the brain has a strong natural tendency to generate sexual fantasies during the right physiological state, the balanced position is tell people not to worry about it.
Every strict moral ruling we create adds to the cost of religion, until a point comes when a person feels the religion is too demanding, inhuman, and irrelevant to their own inner experience. So I believe telling young people to feel guilty about giving in to sexual fantasies does more harm than good. When it comes to something neutral like this, the path we take should be one of easing things rather than making things more difficult.
Note that I do not recommend religious laxity just to make religion sound more easy to people. As I discuss in my essay The Philosophy of Pornography and Masturbation, since we have good reasons to consider pornography and masturbation wrong, we can take a strict stance toward them. But as for sexual fantasies, I am not at all convinced that a strict stance would be helpful.