sexual fantasies

For many years, during sex, I would think of masochistic images that put me in a degrading or powerless position.  They did make me excited but I couldn't orgasm.  I felt shame and put myself down for even thinking these things.  I know that some people really do them. What is the real story with fantasies?  Should I try to get excited without them?
Should I deliberately try to fantasize that I am in a position of power?  My husband and I have been together for 28 years.  Before my husband I had many different partners.  The variety was exciting but many times I still didn't orgasm.
Do sexual fantasies help or hinder.  I have some great women's erotica and I tried to get my husband to read aloud to me.  He refused and said that his mother read romance novels, I'm sure she wasn't reading this, and it reminded him of her.

[Vance2335]

This is something you need to talk with your husband about. Communication is the key. For every person things are different so no one can really tell you that fantasies should stay that way or be realized because for each person it is different,

I have some fantasies which I want to keep that way, others I want to make a reality.

[deepdiver]

Vance2335, is correct 100%

[katarina777]

Hi vance and deepdiver!! Shall I contribute to this discussion? Will you tell me what you think?

Marti667...This has been my experience. I think fantasies are great and I think I had more than ever when I was a teenager.
I am not sure though if they ever helped me reach an orgasm, either. they did arouse me.

There is fantasy in your mind, and then there is actually experimenting with that fantasy, or fantasies in reality.

Some of them when I acted them out, and it may have not been the exact scene in my head but in the same direction, were great.

Others I only want/ed as a fantasy in my mind.

But this last thing was my biggest discovery. I did at one time tell a man about a fantasy I had, and it was acted out, and it turned out to be horrible. And in this case it had nothing to do with myself OR the guy I was with but the actual living out a fantasy that had really turned me on.

Lets just say, I was instantly cured of this fantasy, and would never even think of thinking about it again, never mind be turned by it. It actually took me quite some time to heal from it emotionally. Again, it was the fantasy that let me down, not anyone involved.