Are Celebrity Crushes Realistic?

“I’ll never cheat on you unless (insert celebrity here) walks in…”

I’m sure you’ve heard something like that before. If you haven’t heard it in your personal life, I’m sure you’ve heard it in pop culture to some extent. It’s the concept of “celebrity hall pass.”

A “celebrity hall pass” for couples is defined as an agreement between couples that if they ever get the chance to be with (sexually) their favorite celebrity or “hall pass” they can do so without any consequences from their relationship. Why do they call it a “hall pass?” It is a metaphor from our school days when roaming the hallways was forbidden unless you had a pass from the teacher to be in the hall. The concept is fun to think about. It allows some fantasy into your relationship to dream about which celebrities you would cheat with if you had the opportunity.

But why fantasize about cheating even if it’s with a celebrity? This is a double-edged sword. It is said that healthy couples should be able to watch a movie together or sit in a restaurant and look comfortably at the opposite (or same) sex while still being secure in their relationship, but doesn’t it always leave some unrealistic expectation that your partner is lacking compared to your celebrity crush? Really, it depends on how you feel. I have read many articles including this one by the website SheKnows.

The author, Kacie McCoy, discusses the pros and cons of celebrity hall passes. McCoy states that couples shouldn’t take hall passes seriously, and they should discuss the boundaries of what is considered cheating as a couple. She also reminds her readers that they would not want their significant other fantasizing about a certain celebrity during sex. Cheating of the mind is still cheating, so discuss this with your partner.

I wanted to know what other women thought about this topic, so I posted a poll in my Girl Talk group on Facebook. Fifty-one women voted in my poll, and forty-three of them said that they openly talk about celebrity crushes and hall passes in their relationships, six women said they had no opinion either way, and two women thought that thinking about another person in their relationship was cheating even if it was a celebrity. This also sparked a lively debate in the comments of my poll. The consensus from these women (the ones that voted yes) was that the idea of a “hall pass” with their significant other was a joke because (as I stated above), in what world would that happen?

The poll I posted in my GirlTalk group.

I believe in looking but not fantasizing because, as mentioned by Christen in our Podcast, in real-world Texas, it is unlikely that we would run across our fantasy crushes in real life. It’s a nice daydream though. Honestly, if I ran into a celebrity on the street, I wouldn’t even recognize them unless I was actively looking for celebrities. While we are talking about it, though, my celebrity crush will always be Leonardo DiCaprio from Romeo and Juliet, because I teach high school English. My students hear enough about him leading up to the reading of Shakespeare. Essentially, I like the idea of Leo (Romeo) at that moment in time from the 90’s Romeo and Juliet movie and probably not the real-life DiCaprio.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes

I want to hear from my readers. Please, tell me in the comments what you think of the “celebrity hall pass” idea. Also, tell me your celebrity crushes!