Considering that this is a Substack on pleasure, lately it’s been remarkably tame. The last three posts have been about appreciating one’s adult children, the delights of a winter’s sleep, and the joy of living without time-stress. Any of these could have appeared in a general interest publication.
Today I’m getting edgier, and for this I’ll have to pretend that all my readers are personally unknown to me because I want to write about a subject that’s still somewhat taboo (and so, inevitably, it draws my interest). It would intimidate me to think that people I know in real life will read this, so I’ll just pretend they’re not here.
In fact, 90% of my readers here are total strangers.
“I write for myself and strangers,” said Gertrude Stein, and that is surely the only way to write without fear and restraint. I’ve tried to write that way all my life.
“I write for myself and strangers,” Stein said—but it is only recently that I learned she continued: “The strangers, dear Readers, are an afterthought.”
An afterthought! I love that. When asked why they write, many writers have noble explanations, such as Kafka’s “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” Others want to preserve the past or change the world with their books. But I write mainly to provoke and entertain myself. It’s a real plus if others are also provoked and entertained but in the moment of writing, that’s somehow incidental.
Anyway, sexual fantasy is my subject here, the ultimate provocative entertainment.
The most important thing to know is that sexual fantasy is almost universal among human beings. The practice transcends cultures and demographics. Heterosexuals and homosexuals, teenagers and retirees, women, men, the nonbinary, Europeans, Africans—all create their own mental scenarios that they find sexually arousing. A particular theme or story can excite someone for years before getting stale. Then a new element (they’re being filmed!) can make the fantasy thrilling again.
Decades ago, a friend of mine, then a graduate student, was engaged to be married, but she was worried about something. So she went to the university health services and consulted a psychologist. She told him she was concerned that when she was making love with her fiancé, she needed to use sexual fantasy to achieve orgasm. He asked her why she was excluding her fiancé like this. She didn’t think that was really the case. She just knew she loved to come and when she told herself one of her stories during sex she was likely to get what she wanted.
Today, she might have met with a different response from the therapist. He might have reassured her that such fantasies are not just common but can also play a critical role during sex, intensifying response and satisfaction.
I suppose the trouble is, most sexual fantasies are, well . . . warped! For instance, the single most common fantasy involves sex with more than one person or group sex in general.
In a recent cartoon, a wife begs off sex with her husband, saying, “I’m too tired to think of other people!”
Another common scenario involves power dominance. You’re tied up. You can’t move. He’s taking advantage of you. He’s showing you off to his friends.
These exciting stories don’t reflect well upon you, but their very shamefulness adds to their power.
An unpublished short story I read years ago featured a young woman who needed her boyfriend to make love to her very gently while she fantasized about Nazis humiliating and taunting her. That exact combination of gentleness and sadism put her over the edge.
Other fantasies involve having sex in public places or with inappropriate people. The neighbor. The nanny. The doctor. Transgressive acts are especially thrilling.
Fantasies are a safe way to walk on the wild side. It would be almost impossible to make them come true. Think of the casting, the set design, the costumes, and the rehearsals you’d need—and still, mistakes would be made, dialogue would be muffed, and it would never be exactly right, the way it is in your mind. Fantasies cannot come to life; they must stay within. They can be your own private way to supercharge sex, especially when you know your partner well.
Given the importance they play, you’d think fantasies would be generally acknowledged and perhaps even discussed or shared. But this is not the case. I have no idea what my friends fantasize about. I don’t even know what my husband’s fantasies are. He says they might lose their potency if they were shared
Their secrecy is key. Nancy Friday’s 1973 compilation of women’s fantasies is called My Secret Garden. It sold two million copies. It showed that women were as lusty as men, their imagination as inventive and crude. Now, 52 years later, we’re still shy to own up to the stories we tell ourselves to find ecstasy.
Maybe it’s better that way.
A well remembered cartoon shows a college student entering his dorm room finding his roommate in bed with three women. His roommate laments: "On the other hand, I have no fantasy life worthy of the name!"