Why Santa Is the Ultimate Fantasy
The erotic power of getting what we want without having to ask
The erotic power of getting what we want without having to ask
Santa Claus takes away all the effort of learning to ask for what you want, leaving behind only the indulgence of getting it. With Santa, you never have to tell your mom or dad what you need. You don’t need to go to therapy or do another goddamned healing-the-inner-child workbook. Just straddle a snowy-haired man’s lap and cry out for what you want, and it will materialize, a few days later, while you are sleeping. You don’t even have to debase yourself by saying “thank you.”
This easy generosity makes Santa Claus sexy. But he’s enticing for many other reasons, too. He’s luscious, warm, and red, the color of flushed genitals, fire embers, the devil, and the heart. He’s vividly alive, with a winsome grin that says he’s as down to fuck as he is to make us a quiche or rub our feet. As we find ourselves balls deep into cuffing season, what more could we ask for than a supple, flush-faced lover, forever equally ready to cuddle on the couch?
Santa blends familiarity with self-indulgence, childhood innocence with greed. He’s a boyfriend, a loving father figure, a servant, and a God.
Santa’s whole existence is that of a proxy, a person who will meet the needs you’re too ashamed to request from the person who can actually meet them. He’s a childhood wish-fulfillment fleshlight. He is also a less judgmental, capitalism-friendly proxy for Christ.
Whereas Christianity has salvation and sins, Santa has only the vague notion of naughty and nice. In Santa-ism there is no hell, no prayer, no apologizing, no debate over whether you were born saved or if you must earn salvation. Santa offers the grace that God promised but hasn’t followed through on. You may live in fear of being punished with coal, but in the end, daddy’s gonna give you what you need, and all that fear of having been naughty will have just been foreplay.
It’s so hard to tell the difference between self-care and greed.
Open your presents, baby. It’s not that you’ve earned it—receiving was inevitable. Santa’s a giver, and it’s your job to take. If you were born into the right kind of house with the right kind of socioeconomic status you were always going to be lavished no matter what dirty deeds that elf on the shelf saw you do.
The historical Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of seamen, repentant thieves, sex workers, pawnbrokers, and children. Legend says he once saved three impoverished sisters, who were about to resort to sex work in order to survive. St. Nick visited their house every evening, throwing bags of coins in their window until the women had enough money for three dowries.
In another legend, Santa found the bodies of three dead babies, whom a butcher had murdered and then pickled. Through some kind of Christmas magic, he was able to resurrect their corpses, and their greenish, sickly bodies danced around him in gratitude. This may be where the idea of Santa’s elves came from.
Santa is a comforting balm, a small-scale solution that doesn’t challenge the injustice that required it. He’s not going to ask why some kids have more toys than others, he’s just going to give those poor kids one special, nice day where they get more than they’re used to. Don’t worry about how hard their parents had to work and scrimp and save in order to create that illusion. Just enjoy the illusion, darling. Isn’t it lovely to see all that bounty?
It doesn’t sound like I’m describing a saint, does it? It certainly doesn’t sound like a moral actor. Santa’s far from it. He’s a man of concrete comforts, not ideals. And we can lie to ourselves and say that we’re not the same way, but here we are. Out there, beyond those doors, is the world, with all its problems and horrors, and we made a choice today, and it wasn’t a moral one. It was an indirect way of meeting a need.
It’s so hard to tell the difference between self-care and greed. You deserve it. You have to be selfish. Put your oxygen mask on first. Treat yourself. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Stop ruining every good moment with guilt. Just lean back and let that gorgeous, supple man tease you with the fantasy of having your hunger fed. Pretend that someone loves you perfectly. Pretend that this is religious. Sometimes pleasure does feel spiritual. It’s just that the God being worshipped here is yourself.
Santa-ism makes us all Gods and gives each of us a small kingdom the size of a living room. It’s nice to be the center of the universe once in a while. It’s nice to see everything rendered so small and put into perspective. It makes it possible to relax for once. Normally there’s just too much to worry about. Every breath you take feels like you’re stepping on somebody’s toes.
Santa is the ultimate, forbidden American fantasy. We want what we want but we don’t know how to ask. We want to be selfish without anybody seeing it. We all want a nonthreatening sexy daddy who will fill the various holes— real and metaphorical—that our emotionally incompetent parents and puritanical-yet-consumerist society created. And maybe it’s morally bankrupt, but admit it: It’s ecstasy to be naughty while being told that you’re good.
This piece was originally performed live as part of Write Club Chicago. At Write Club, a writer/performer is assigned a topic and must defend that topic in under seven minutes. My prompt was Santa.