He is in charge; he decides who gets to have him. He has not at all worked through what his divorce did to him—he simply has a place where she is excluded, even though his unresolved issues with her provide the fuel required to keep his place afloat. The more we keep what is unhealed in us in the dark, the more likely it will show up in our sex lives. Our unresolved wounds—and insufficiently met or badly handled requirements—inevitably show up in our sexuality, however, indirectly, often masquerading as a part of a healthy sexual life, the characteristics of which may be taken as nothing more than natural aspects of our sexuality. What is being acted out sexually then goes unseen, getting no more from us than an undiscerning green light. As such, sex does double duty, on the one hand dramatizing what is unhealed in us, and on the other briefly taking the edge off it.

As a boy, Ryan was heavily rejected by his mother, which led him to assume he was worthless, and he felt unwanted by his father. He grew up expecting and attracting rejection—and found plenty of it—as well as craving full acceptance. As a teen, he eroticized this charge, absorbing himself in his acting career in which he was unquestionably wanted sexually, without any trace of rejection. When watching his movies, you can almost always sex his bare ass gracing the screen from 1997 to 2014. His sexual fantasies became more elaborate from sex with multiple women, orgies, sex with men, and even a fantasy of being chained up, beaten, and raped by a man. He was always surrounded by women and men who ache for him sexually, people who would never reject him.

Ryan may be getting what he wants, at least superficially, but he remains stuck, turned away from what he requires to turn toward: his core hurt, his original wounding. Only when he strips his fantasy of its erotic elements will he clearly see its underlying nonsexual dynamics and start to take care of the deviant man he is. It is very common to unquestioningly normalize sexual fantasies and practices that are not really expressions of our sexuality, but rather of our unresolved hurt and core wounding. Wanting to be chained up, smacked, and raped during sex is not some harmless bit of adult kinkiness, but an eroticizing of having been—especially as a young man—thus struck or threatened with violence (or having repeatedly witness violence up close), the excitation of which (regardless of its negativity) has remained with us, including in its translation into sexual contexts.

Look deeply enough into Ryan to see his psychological, emotional, and social underpinnings. The reason Ryan does not want to change or heal is because he finds his deviant behavior and acting it out amplifying his pleasurable possibilities, and being bisexual may be his only respite from an otherwise unpleasant or tedious life, and he loath to tamper with it. Cutting through the myth of consenting adults is crucial here—recognizing that the “yes” of many of many is not arising from their core being, but from their wounding, their yes of saying “no” or of not being approved or liked. Many people think saying “no” will put them in danger or cause someone to withdraw their love. Many people simply consent perhaps out of concern that they will be met with disapproval or rejection.

However, some people consent to sex as an express of defiance, as against controlling parents, eroticizing their acting out against their wishes. I had a friend, who was upper class, and really wanted to upset his parents, so he started “burning coal.” Being gay was not enough to upset them, so he would sneak dark chocolate African men, living in Europe, into his bedroom at night, to stain the sheets and upset his mother when she went to toss his room in the morning. He felt powerless growing up in a house of affluent politicians and his sexuality was the way to take some control back. Sex with African men, for my friend, became a discharge valve for his unwanted emotional energies, and now, as an adult, all he wants is black men, even though he lost his virginity when an older black man raped him. However, when he focuses on the part of anatomy of black men, he no longer feels lonely, no longer feels cut off from other, being consolingly absorbed in his heated picturing of him.

Many people also wonder, is Ryan Phillippe kind of a predatory? He dates women, who look the same age as his sixteen-year-old daughter, and many people actually are disturbed when they see the two in public and wrongly assume he is molesting his daughter. However, that is not the case. Ryan is still not over his former wife, the beautiful Oscar award winning Mrs. Reese Witherspoon-Toth. Mrs. Reese provided Ryan with a stable home, recognition, and family, she also reminded him of his mother. So when Ryan dates women, he tries to find ones who he continues to view as a version of Mrs. Reese when they first met, although, Reese still does not look a day over the age of sixteen herself, she was the first girl to sir him erotically.

Ryan’s arousal is actually only secondarily sexual, with its primary catalyst being his longing to be distracted from his loneliness and sense of isolation. He likely does not question his pull to women young enough to be his daughter, nor his obsession with that particular body part. Many men have anal sex with women because they have discovered that they like gay sex, and do not want to see the woman’s face in the process, as they often fantasize about being with a man. Just like our dreams, our sexual fantasies are dramas worth exploring, tales that house much who we are, both dressing up and revealing some of our core dynamics. If you are suddenly dreaming of burning coal, or peanut butter, it is likely this is out of defiance for preferences your parents have placed on you.

Our sexual fantasies dramatize what we have spent much of our lives arranging ourselves around. Undress them, stripping them of their eroticism, and you will see their operational roots and bare script—and also you who first sound release or escape from a life-altering core wound. When we are thus absorbed, hermetically sealed into the arousing dramatics of our fantasy, we have no awareness of it, no clarifying perspective, being in the position of a dreamer who does not know he is dreaming, and who could be said to be dreaming that he is not dreaming. Awaken your sexual fantasies does not necessarily bring them to an end, but it illuminates them, giving us options other than our usual or automatic responses.