Wish Fulfilment vs Reality
I was ruminating on a variation of that old perennial of what would one do if one had the money to be free of the usual responsibilities. Where my mind turned to was that this was a form of fantasy wish fulfilment. Some of those wishes may be grounded in some reality but are generally unobtainable for now.
What I mean by that is that they could potentially be obtainable if one is prepared to endure hardship, stress and extreme discomfort. Most of us are simply not wired that way.
There are vast troves of wish fulfilment porn out there. The Mind Control archives and the TG Stories archives come to mind. It’s all very badly cliched – or was when I used to visit. The genres fall roughly in to these categories:
- Planned and consensual transformations
- Accidental or mishap transformations
- Magical transformations; could be tender, accidental or malicious, often non-consensual.
- Hypnotic transformations; generally non-consensual
- Non-consensual, often extreme cruelty à la snuff porn
There’s plenty of overlap and sub-categories. In almost all cases they leave a reader with submissive and especially transgender tendencies declaiming “I so wish that would happen to me.”
There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does highlight something interesting about the human view of the world. It’s very much a part of the human condition to wish that all your perceived problems were gone without requiring effort. Some times it’s envy of another person and wishing to have their lifestyle. For others it is a wish for life to be completely different and obviously a perfect life is one where all fantasies come true.
For categories 1. & 2. a small percentage of tales will acknowledge the effort, struggles and pain of being transformed in to another person or gender, even when it’s done willingly.
Then we get to the crux of the matter. Most are not interested in a long and painful journey, they want their wish fulfilled now. They want to snap their fingers and instantaneously enter their new life without all that hard work stuff. It’s why there’s so much written that involves magic. Be it pills, spells or potions, the essence is that any new life comes seamlessly and virtually instantaneously. The same goes for hypnosis, to many it is akin to magic where they wake to a new life.
It can really be quite an attractive way to pander to fantasies. Many people have a picture of what they might want to be, they know that under normal circumstances that they don’t have the wherewithal, or fortitude, or resources for such wishes to be practical in their real world. It’s easy to see why the idea of magically fulfilling those wishes without effort can be so appealing.
This is especially true when it comes to gender. For every individual who has the imperative to overcome every obstacle, to endure pain, contempt and penury in order to become what they need to be, there are perhaps millions with degrees of wishful desires for the same outcome without the journey. I’ll take a guess that there is virtually no one who at some point in their life hasn’t wondered what it’s like to be of the opposite gender (yes, I know that’s a binary statement, but would be too convoluted to address any other way). For most that’s just part of human curiosity and it’s going to be a fleeting thought that barely recurs. As you move along the gender spectrum such thoughts become more frequent and stronger.
If there was a pill that would turn me female overnight, would I take it ? Probably not. At least not right now. Like all such wish fulfilment thoughts, it is tempered with some practicality. How would I support myself ? Could I maintain the comfortable lifestyle ? I don’t yet have the resources to be completely independent of such considerations. I can, however, see a point in the future where I could have the resources – it’s a bit of a dreary equation that everyone considering how and when they are able to retire encounters. Basically, can I support myself until I die ?
In facing such a question it also changes the perspective on those wish fulfilment fantasies. If you have the resources to be able pursue them in reality and don’t need the approval or validation of others, then would I consider that these were no longer fantasies but a reality I wanted to explore ? Or put another way, if the personal barriers to taking a ‘magic pill’ are no longer there, are the barriers to non-magical means still there ?
This change in perspective as I’ve got older and that question of retirement resources looms larger is also probably why I have been able to more properly acknowledge being transgendered. The responsibility in making such a choice can at some point be entirely mine and not reliant on anyone else.
It’s a rather weird personal answer. I can see that I could endure all the potential downsides, all except penury. In a way, that has always been my personal answer, just that for the longest time the idea of being free to make the ultimate decision has seemed a fantasy of it’s own that made all the other fantasies totally unrealisable.
I wouldn’t definitely say that with no concerns about money that I would seriously consider transition. Just that as I approach that point where I can see the equation turning positive it’s an interesting question to face.
And the tantalising question to ask is “am I bluffing myself ?” Of course, a big lottery win would be handy just to bring that question forward by a few years.