Forbidden Fantasies

Product Information

Unlike Lehmiller and Davidson, Fiennes wholeheartedly welcomes the Dear Gillian project. “Anderson’s new book is surely a good thing—lifting the lid on generations of silence. Non- monogamy, partner sharing. These fantasies involve consensual non-monogamy: mate swapping, watching one’s partner with someone else, and polyamory, emotional as well as sexual relationships with more than one partner. More than two-thirds of Lehmiller’s participants reported such fantasies at least occasionally. Milly Evans is a sex educator and author of Honest. When it came to covering fantasies, Evans found that while some of Gen Z are excited to discover what they’re into, some (just like Davidson’s adult clients) feel embarrassed or ashamed about what turns them on: “Often that’s because they’ve either had no sex education and think they’re alone in having fantasies, or have had educators, friends or family members imply that having sexual fantasies is weird, perverted or disgusting—which isn’t true!” Multiple partners. This is Americans’ top erotic daydream. Almost everyone reported having it—87 percent of the women, 95 percent of the men. The top multi-partner fantasy involved threesomes, with moresomes not far behind. Many people fantasized of many men and women playing together (swinging, orgies), while others focused on one person having sex with many others (gangbangs). Most people have sexual fantasies of some description, ranging from heteronormative handsome prince to the rescue scenarios, to outright kinky adventures involving role play and urethral sex toys.

But rather than facing waves of outrage, Lehmiller says the most common reaction he gets from Tell Me What You Want readers is relief: “The single most common reaction I’ve had to the book is something along the lines of, ‘thank you for writing this, I feel normal for the first time in my life’—to me it shows how little most of us know about sexual fantasies.”Passion and romance. Most sexual fantasies involve unrestrained sexual exuberance, but these focus on loving and feeling loved. Passion/romance fantasies tended to be tied to particular individuals, though often not the fantasizer’s regular partner, but former, distant, or deceased partners. More than half of study participants reported these fantasies.

In Lehmiller’s own work, he clarifies the difference between fantasies—what we want—and desires—what we want to do: “Most people have fantasies that are also desires—but few of them have ever acted upon them. For example, about 80 percent of participants said their favorite fantasy is a desire, but only about 20 percent had ever actually tried to do it in real life.” Lehmiller says he adores Anderson and is all for opening up and normalizing conversations about fantasies, but feels puzzled by the submission guidelines. Books that survey sexual fantasies are particularly helpful for people who fantasize about non-consensual sex.

Americans’ Sexual Fantasies: The Largest Study Ever

According to a survey carried out by Lovehoney, light bondage involving being tied up or tying someone up was the most popular sexual fantasy, with 75 per cent of couples saying they enjoyed it. Other popular sex fantasies included domination and submission, making a sex tape and role play. Here's how to get started with 10 of the most common sexual fantasies: 1. Bondage It should come as no surprise that many people fantasise about adding one or multiple partners to their sex play. The idea of several people wanting to bang you can be a major turn on, plus orgies or threesomes can be a sensory overload with so many different bodies to touch, see and explore.