cover image The Power of Fantasy: Illusion and Eroticism in Everyday Life

The Power of Fantasy: Illusion and Eroticism in Everyday Life

Gini Graham Scott, Pivar. Carol Publishing Corporation, $19.95 (244pp) ISBN 978-1-55972-239-1

Scott proposes that fantasy can be a constructive way to experiment with different realities, to test personal limits, to regain childhood playfulness, to explore the self or just to have fun. While her survey promises more than it delivers, it is nevertheless an adventurous look at the role of fantasy broadly defined to include daydreams, TV programs, ritualized games and erotic play. Along with interviews of people who fantasize heroic actions, bizarre or hostile behaviors and problem-solving, Scott reports on her own journeys through fantasy realms. She attends an End-of-the-1990s event in San Francisco; participates in a Paleolithic experience devised by the Cacophony Society, a group which stages offbeat adventures; interacts with actors in improvisational theater; and plays fantasy games involving time travel or political parody. She also tours sex clubs and parties specializing in dominance and submission or fetishes, an underground scene she covered a decade ago in Erotic Power. (Dec.)