Daydreams and Transgressive Wishes in Contemporary Syria

Based on an analysis of dreams and daydreams of young Syrian men, this essay examines the fear of and desire for transgression of gender and genealogical taboos. Episodes of the use of Internet pornography, desires for humiliation, and anxieties about religious authority, violence, and sex suggest new kinds of global exchanges in intimacy, where the rules structuring paternity and gender no longer hold. The paper concludes with an argument about how a focus on the intersubjective, which accounts for the researcher in the situations studied, indexes wishes and fantasies about change, suggesting future communicative possibilities.