Gillian Anderson opens up on 'unfiltered' sexual fantasies
I don’t know if my computer analyst mother owned a copy of the novelist Nancy Friday’s cult classic, My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies; I was barely five years old when it was published in 1973. As liberal as my childhood was, it wouldn’t have been something that she left lying about on the coffee table.
I first came across this groundbreaking book when I was preparing for my role as the sex therapist Dr Jean Milburn in the TV series Sex Education. The letters and interviews were astonishingly intimate and their unfiltered and painful honesty shook me; they seemed to come straight from the mysterious heart of women’s innermost yearning.
So much has changed in the 50 years since then. As a society, we habitually put women into boxes: the enticing sexual partner, the caring mother, the smart career woman. Yet what our sexual fantasies demonstrate is that no woman has one sole identity. The human imagination has few limits, and our sexual desires and fantasies are no different.
For many, fantasies fulfil a vital role as a means of escape, a retreat from the pressures and demands of work and parenthood, the mundanity of everyday life. They can be a place where we control the action and choose to do whatever we want, with whomever we what, with however many people we want – without fear, societal judgement or consequence.
When I sent an invitation to women across the globe to share their sexual fantasies, many detailed their dreams of being dominated and ceding control while describing careers that come with great responsibility and power, and of being largely responsible for keeping their home and family lives on track. (I identified completely – to cast everything off my plate at the end of a day and be consumed by something else entirely feels like welcome liberation).
Others imagined threesomes and group sex (current research shows this is the most ‘common’ of sexual fantasies). And we were spoilt for choice when considering any number of fantasies about office sex, sex in front of an audience, sex with strangers, or the risky kind of sex where someone might catch you in flagrante.
Some women wrote that they were unable to include their real selves in their fantasies, often imagining they’re the man at the centre of the action, or a different version of themselves, one that doesn’t worry about needing perkier breasts or having hairy legs.
In the end, we received enough entries to fill eight volumes. Clearly, there was a need, and the degree of intimate detail divulged indicated that women want to share, and be heard, seen and validated. You have no idea how much joy it gives me to imagine these women pouring their deepest wants, desires and secrets on to the page, and how happy I am to share some of them here.
From being worshipped to having sex in the great outdoors, below, six women share their deepest sexual desires...
'I fantasise about my husband fucking another woman'
I fantasise about watching my husband fuck another woman. It’s not a fantasy I would ever share with him, because I don’t know how I would feel if it actually happened. But it’s always the same. We were on a cruise about 14 years ago and, on an excursion off the ship, there was a beautiful woman with us who was flirting with him. Later, I saw her on the ship and she was wearing a form-fitting white dress. I fantasise that I bring her back to our cabin and tell my husband that I’ve brought him a surprise. The woman unzips her dress and strips totally nude and I tell him he can do whatever he wants with her. Then she tells my husband that she’s been dreaming of fucking him all day and he tells her he wants to see what she’s been imagining. I watch her ride him until he finishes inside her. This is my go-to fantasy and I always orgasm from the thought of it.
Heterosexual, married/in a civil partnership
'I want to be possessed by someone'
My God, sometimes I just want to surrender. My whole body, all of me – hand it over and let it be completely possessed by someone. No choices to be made. Just hands on the back of my neck and a solid body crushed against mine. To be grabbed, pushed – filth whispered in my ear along with the sounds that tell me I’m wanted. It’s not BDSM, exactly. The accessories don’t really interest me. It’s the look in the eyes of someone coming towards me that says they’re willing away the space between us. Their pleasure rooted in mine. Not ticking boxes but going with the tide of desire. I must have you. I’m going to taste you. You want this, don’t you? Beg.
Bisexual/pansexual, married/in a civil partnership
'My greatest fantasy is to be worshipped'
My greatest sexual fantasy is to be worshipped. I envision myself to be a goddess of some kind, a divine creature, powerful and strong and beautiful. I’m a fairy-tale character, someone and something beyond their wildest dreams. I envision myself naked, or in a fantastic, long, flowing gown and there’s always moonlight. In this fantasy, I want my partner to be so obsessed with me that they can think of nothing else, like they absolutely must have me or they’ll die. I want to hear them beg for my attention. I want them to try to convince me they are worthy of my time. I have so much control that I can make my partner take the lead and still know that I am completely in charge of the situation and everything they do.
Bisexual/pansexual, married/in a civil partnership
'I fantasise about my boss'
I fantasise about my supervisor at work. We both do maintenance, which makes it easy for my mind to run wild. Doing physical labour, sweating on the trail in the summer heat, how could it not? I watch him carry heavy lumber with ease and think about how easy it would be for him to get me into whatever position he wants. The sweat glistens off his forearms and I imagine him on top of me. I want to hold on to his forearms for dear life as he makes me forget my own name. His hands are strong, firm, smooth and calloused. I watch intensely as he repairs a small pipe. He puts his finger inside to feel if there is any debris, runs his fingers around the outside to clean the threads. It’s like the universe is playing a sick joke on me. Internally I am screaming, ‘Me! Please, PLEASE let that be me!!’
Bisexual/pansexual, married/in a civil partnership
'I fantasise about having sex in nature'
I’d often fantasise about having sex in nature. I would walk along a beach and daydream about someone taking me up into the dunes. I’d imagine us stripping off and running into the sea, grabbing each other under the water and feeling so alive. Exhausted, we lie at the water’s edge, letting it lap up at our legs as we make love in the wet sand. On a forest walk, I’d imagine gripping a tree trunk as he took me from behind. I don’t think it is the excitement of being caught in public in the fantasy, but more the utter freedom of any place, any time.
Heterosexual, married/in a civil partnership
'I want to be mothered'
I want to be mothered. I want a slightly older woman to take care of me and hold me and then, yes, also have sex with me gently, patiently. I want this woman’s fingers tangled in my hair and tracing my breasts, and while she does that, I want a cocoon to form around us and shield us so that no bad news can reach us. She is older and surer of herself than me. Her quiet confidence will guide me to reach into myself to find my real desires instead of another young woman’s panicky doubts compounding with mine. As I lie there in bed with this older woman, my fear gets softly lifted up and it floats away.
Gay/lesbian, single
Extracted from Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous by Gillian Anderson (Bloomsbury), out now
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