What is a Fantasist?

This term fantasist is a word I didn’t start hearing much until a decade or so ago. While we may guess at its meaning fairly accurately, it’s good to get more specific and ask: what is a fantasist? Well, we all know what a woman is, and a fantasist isn’t that hard to define either, even though at times they can be hard to recognize. In most uses, a fantasist is simply a polite term for what we used to have another name for: a compulsive liar. This is not just someone who lies a lot, because of various practical motivations, but someone who regularly invents very rich and detailed lies, which we could liken to a fantasy. Many compulsive liars can tell a believable story, full of personal impressions and details which are in accord with real life. They can masterfully interweave real things with their lies. At first telling, a fantasist may even be believed by a police investigator, although over time, in questioning the storyteller from various angles, he will start to see the inconsistencies. Some compulsive liars can actually pass a lie detector test, even coming to convince themselves of their own lies. They have a natural talent for this, and they do it frequently. It usually takes serious consequences for a compulsive liar to admit their lies, although ones who have a deep faith and conscience would find that their allegiance to God demands they finally come clean. Otherwise, they can continue for years, and insist against any who doubt that they are telling the truth.

The fantasist is someone who finds pleasure in their fantasy. There are more than a few people who find marriage attractive, but have failed to find a spouse, along with those who find spanking attractive for obvious reasons. They don’t have it in their life, but it thrills them to make believe, and to feel part of a community of people. Being part of a community itself has its own sense of pleasure, giving support and comfort along the way. These days, in the online world, fantasists do not even need to be great writers, as they can plug what they want into AI, and get AI to write the script. Then they can make any personal adjustments they need. I have received plenty of such letters, and I had one person admit on my asking that they were using AI to compose letters. They did not admit the letters were entirely make believe, but clearly it was not their writing, so it lacked their voice and original thoughts. You will inevitably come upon the same thing online, as it is easier to some to get a program to do your lying for you, than to think of it yourself. You will also find fantasists with a dual personality. That is because if you are lying about being in a relationship, you may want to present the other person in the relationship, and that will require more imagination. Often the spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend is more two dimensional, being a faked personality, but there may be gifted fantasists who can write a unique and three-dimensional character for their other half. Then they’ve got to keep the stories straight, and lying does get very very complicated.

One could go on and one about the various kinds of damage compulsive lying causes, including those who invented convincing stories of abuse, placing false charges on the alleged abuser, or those who literally walk into police stations and confess to crimes they didn’t commit. However, what I mean to speak of today are the fantasists who come on this website and on other spanking forums to lie and lie and lie. I’ve spoken before about fakes online, including those fakes who have malicious purposes, but here I speak mostly of those who are doing it for their own enjoyment, because they get a kick pretending to be someone involved in a spanking marriage. In their minds they don’t mean any harm to me or to anyone else. They’re living out a fantasy and feeling connection to other people. To some that may sound innocent, and you can paint a pretty picture of it if you want, but it’s nothing more than lying. It’s a “fantasy” if you notify people first that it’s a fantasy. Otherwise, it is lying. Everyone knows in their heart that is sin, and everyone has a twinge of guilt for doing it. 

Making up a fantasy life is not uncommon online. You occasionally read about the popular blogger or internet personality who got busted as a totally different person than they were pretending to be. You imagine the various messages that arrive in your inbox proposing a relationship to a good-looking man or woman could easily be someone very different from what they appear in their online persona. It’s very common. However, the common nature of being a liar online does not make it right. It cheats and betrays other people. It misrepresents who you are, and damages relationships. While I endorse and use some level of anonymity online to avoid harassment from millions of people, the basic anonymity many practice does not endorse lying either, which is simply making up stories and pretending to be a totally different person. There is no reasonable justification to do this. Millions of people online may be lying, but millions of people are telling the truth as well, and you can get to know them as real people, including those who maintain a level of anonymity. Real relationships happen that way because countless of us are being truthful. 

The dangers of the lie are many. Obviously, the lie is used as a tool to reach evil ends all the time, whether it is lying to cover up an affair in marriage, or lying on what building materials you used to build your bridge, so that you can cheat people out of money. Lies are used to get unqualified people a job, and then they go on to endanger others by being unqualified. You may say that there is no similar harm to making up a fantasy life and lying to people online, but this is wrong. There is harm. Firstly, lying is an offense to God, so it is always wrong even if you see no immediate harm, and it’s only being done for your personal pleasure. You sin before God and are rightly punished by Him. It is an offense to those whom you deceive, disrespecting their will, since they do not wish to be lied to and ask others to tell them the truth. It is further harmful because it deceives other people, harming human relationships, and causing general distrust among the online community. It creates a world full of distrust, because if one person has been deceiving others at length, then you wonder who else has been doing that. It wastes a good deal of someone’s time, time that the other person would rather be using sharing real friendship and counsel, rather than the fake kind. It’s no more glorious to waste the time of people who want to help others with their marriages, than it is to phone in fake crime-solver tips to the police. It’s a dirty, shameful thing to do either way. It robs the liar as well, not allowing them to have real relationships and real growth, because all the perceived relationships and growth is with a fantasy character, which is no character at all. The liar harms himself by not having those real relationships.

It should be remembered that the lie always aligns us with Satan. For he is the father of lies, according to Scriptures, and when the devil lies, he speaks his native tongue. One casts support for the devil every time one willfully deceives another. You are a child of the devil, regardless of whether you tell yourself you’re not “hurting anyone.” The lie is ultimately what led to mankind’s fall into sin in the garden, as the lie of the devil to Eve led her into sin, and then her husband with her. It wasn’t murder in the garden which did that, but a lie. Every act of suffering, of death, of murder, of rape, stems from a lie. The lie was an intentional attack on God’s creation. You cannot harm God, but if you hate God, you attack His creation. The flip side of this observation is to notice that the lie contradicts God’s nature. God is a God of truth, from whom comes our consistent moral standard, our laws of logic, and the ongoing physical operations which make the creation (the universe) function in an orderly way. We have these things because God is truth. That is why a lie is such an affront to God and a serious sin. We might think of the way that murder is very serious, because man is made in the image of God. An act of murder is an attack on the image of God in man. Similarly, a lie is a contradiction of the very nature of God, to whom we are indebted for all things we have. That’s why it is very serious. The Bible even teaches that no liar will enter the kingdom of heaven, which does not allow us to minimize this sin. That means if the liar’s abode is not in heaven, his abode is in hell, and he will suffer in agony with the devil for eternity. 

What should you do if you have been lying? That includes if you’ve been lying here or to other readers of this website. That includes if you’ve been lying at other discipline forums. Your first obligation is to confess your sins. This is something you do both to God and to those whom you have been willfully deceiving. You also decide to never commit this act again. You cease lying and you pursue truth. You be honest about who you are, even if you desire to maintain anonymity. You drop the fake persona entirely, and learn to build relationships as yourself, and share the true things about you with others. It will be a relief when you finally do it. It will cleanse your soul, and you will be refreshed. You will also find the real relationships you build are much better and more fulfilling than a fantasy. You can share your own insights and questions about marriage. You can speak of your desires when it comes to the topics of this website. You can share advice and encouragement to other readers as well. Perhaps one day you will be living in reality the life you describe, and then you can share your real-life experience in marriage and discipline with others in the community. 

While I fully endorse building real relationships, and present their value, an end to your lying does not necessarily mean an end to your imagination, which must be quite rich. One who has involved and vivid fantasies can simply write fiction instead of lying. A writer can make up stories every day of the week, and never once have to lie. That’s because people know he writes fiction, and they read him specifically to hear those stories. The man or woman who has a serious interest in spanking in marriage, and experiences fantasies about it, may write very useful fiction that others can learn from. They may present a realistic and helpful model through their fiction which shows how marriage can work well, or which examines the feelings and motivations of husband and wife. These are legitimate things to do with the pen, and they do not stain us morally. Your fiction certainly will be welcomed somewhere, and I am not against posting some myself at my website.

You cannot learn and grow from relationships in a mere fantasy life. You cannot gain useful knowledge to apply to your life. You cannot really know another person, who is only responding simply to your make believe. Real knowledge and relationships come with honesty. They share ideas which apply to our real lives. They share encouragement, praise, and correction related to the situations we actually find ourselves in. A fantasy life ruins all this. It is fake relationship. Anyone knows in their heart it is wrong to come into a community and lie about who you are, and continually lie to other people about every facet of your life. However, to stop doing that it takes courage. You have to be prepared to face the shame and embarrassment, and likely criticism for your behavior. While it seems fearful, it is more than worth it to be clean, and to lose the lie. Tell people what you’ve been doing and be penitent. What you gain is worth far more than what you lose. I ask anyone here who has been deceiving others to come clean, even though it seems easier to stay dirty. Be open and honest. Confess. Then have real relationships you will enjoy.

NOTE: This article was inspired by someone who came to me and finally confessed their communications had all been fantasy. 

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