Whether you're married or single, it's natural to have brief sexual thoughts about other people. These fleeting thoughts occur outside your conscious control and are an integral part of your sexual drive.

It's perfectly natural to find both females and males attractive and to momentarily project desires onto them. Such passing thoughts are nothing to worry about and can be ignored, even if they feel outrageous or ridiculous.

While the Torah teaches us to avoid purposely fantasizing, it recognizes that sexual thoughts are part of being human and difficult to escape even for a single day (Bava Basra 164b).

However, dwelling on these thoughts for more than a few seconds is what we consider a sexual fantasy—a thought, idea, or image about sexual behavior that causes arousal. This is what we'll address here.

When you notice yourself fantasizing, here are two important "don'ts":

1. Don't masturbate to fantasies. While masturbating might temporarily make the fantasy go away, in the long run, it will make them stronger and more frequent. And of course, you're working to avoid masturbation anyway.

2. Don't wrestle with the fantasy. Forcibly pushing sexual fantasies out of your mind is counterproductive. When you try to suppress specific thoughts, they only become more dominant. As Reb Yisroel Salanter said:
   "One should not invest great effort to dispel hirhurim—sexual thoughts, because the nature of the human mind is such that the more one attempts to push away a thought, the more the mind will resist and cause the foreign thought to flare up. So excessive effort to banish hirhurim will cause them only to intensify."

The most effective way to deal with fantasies is to simply ignore them, attend to more important matters, or shift your focus elsewhere. This concept is known as hesech hadaas (diversion of attention). Here's a practical implementation:

Step 1: Acknowledge
Recognize that you're having a fantasy. Tell yourself, "I notice I'm having a fantasy," or "I'm having an image of a fantasy."

Step 2: Accept Without Judgment
Remind yourself that the fantasy will dissipate on its own. There's no need to force it out of your mind.

Step 3: Redirect Attention
Return to whatever you were doing before and give it your full attention. If what you were doing wasn't aligned with your goals and values, choose a different activity—an errand, learning something, or playing a game. The specific activity doesn't matter as long as you fully engage with it.

As you progress in your recovery, the frequency of sexual fantasies will naturally decline. This experience is similar to an old metaphor:

An innkeeper named Moshkeh sold wine and spirits to local peasants. One day, tired of dealing with their drunken behavior, he closed the bar. That night, the peasants banged on his door, demanding their usual drinks.
"Sorry," Moshkeh replied, "from now on, the bar is closed."
The knocking continued for a few weeks until word spread that Moshkeh had permanently closed his business. Over time, the peasants knocked less and less, until only occasional strangers stopped by.

Similarly, once you've stopped watching pornography and masturbating, fantasies will continue but gradually become less frequent—though they're unlikely to stop completely.

While it's important to deal with fantasies when they arise, remember that your main goal is to change behaviors, not thoughts. Hashem made you human and doesn't expect total mastery over your thoughts.

You achieve freedom by eliminating problematic behaviors. When you focus on behaviors and keep yourself occupied with positive activities, your fantasies will naturally become weaker and less frequent.

Remember that each time you apply hesech hadaas to a fantasy, you fulfill the important mitzvah of "ונשמרת מכל דבר רע" (guarding yourself from every evil thing). Rather than becoming upset about these thoughts, celebrate them as opportunities to perform a mitzvah!

• Focused Distraction Ideas

• The Positive Approach (a positive way to deal with thoughts)