Read My Secret Garden (Women Sexual Fantasies) Online
Authors: Nancy Friday
Sexual fantasies are a great leveler among women. It’s a shame women can’t speak to one another as directly or be as honest about themselves in reality as they are in their fantasies. In fantasy, everyone speaks the same language because everyone wants the same thing. I sometimes think that’s what men essentially get out of their sessions in the clubhouse locker room: there, stripped of everything, they can talk of everything without pretense or bullshit, slipping each other a little sexual 210
identification they find nowhere else. Who knows? Through this book women may also lose some of their feelings of sexual isolation, may find some mutual identification, perhaps even a sense of female camaraderie. Sure they’re "dirty" thoughts, but we all have them, men and women, and what makes them "dirty"
anyway, except possibly their secretiveness? This secretiveness is one thing women do share, and it’s nowhere more apparent than in their fantasies. Deprived of any real feeling of sexual identification with other women, they resort to solitary exploration within their individual fantasy worlds.
Having looked to literature for insights and answers to their own deepest desires and sexual reactions, women have found that most of literature’s insightful revelations have been directed at men by men, and when the same men try to tell how it is for women, no one knows more quickly than a woman how far off the mark they are. Even the new women-for-women’s books talk around it but not of it – as if the necessary vocabulary didn’t exist; meanwhile, women continue to sigh and say, "No one has ever really described ìt.’ " Is it so surprising that in exploring the mysterious "it" in fantasy, that they employ the strongest, crudest, most "pornographic" terms and imagery to make real, emotionally, something they’ve never had defined and which they
know
to be just as potent and earthshaking as every pornographic description they’ve ever heard or read of the male "it"? The gutsiness of female imagery may belie the beautifully turned brims on their Adolfo hats, or the pencil pleats in their Villager calico dirndls, but the images and the words are universal and classless – only incidental grammar and place names give any identity away.
But where in the world, Pretty Lady, sitting in your high rise fiat surrounded by diapers, or behind the tinted glass of your trolls Royce, did you get an idea like that? Those lips that never swore an oath, much less caressed a man’s cock, and that neat little mind that "seems" to dwell on the children’s education, the 211
new job, or an even newer summer outfit, where oh where did you get the
idea?
And as often as not, should the lady deign to answer, the reply would be, "Why, from when I was a little girl and just happened to see…"
From such tiny seeds – a blink in childhood – springs a full-blown sexual fantasy, embellished and altered over the years perhaps, but all begun with a glance, a child’s quick flash-in-the-pan peek into the secret garden. The fact that the seed grew – and to such proportions – just shows what secrecy and prohibition can do; what growth potential there is in "don’t."
For instance: A young girl for the first time happens on a grown man peeing behind a tree…sees a bright red tip suddenly shoot from a woolly dog’s prick…is provocatively’ bullied by an older boy on the way home from school…or forced to undergo the sexual trauma of a sadomasochistic experience at school (read Mona’s letter below and weep)…what is she to do with this mysterious and often unsettling new information? No one wants to know, to hear, or to talk to her about it – she’s "not old enough," the subject’s "not nice," and she knows that hearing about it would make Mummy "nervous" – that much she does know. All this only makes the forbidden bits of knowledge more provocative. And so these thoughts join the other odds and ends of exciting, sometimes disturbing sensations, daydreams, the other secrets she’s been accumulating – or repressing – while growing up. By the time she’s stopped playing with dolls, during that long lull before she begins any meaningful contact with boys (I don’t necessarily mean sex), she’s got enough powerful imagery packed away in her head to stagger the horniest writer of the most exotic porn she ever found in her older brother’s room.
Not specific knowledge that she can put together with any understanding, but exciting pieces to elaborately embroider, all on her own, and all the more imaginatively for her ignorance (which the vulgar often call "innocence"). Forbidden things, locked away in tight, dark places, grow out of all proportion.
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And so, in time, that tiny seed, the glimpse or idea that instantly sparked her imagination, emerges as a fantasy, clothed in more outrageous gear and language than books, TV, films, or dirty jokes can offer.
By the time you or I hear the fantasy – ten years or even twenty after the seed (women are incredibly faithful to their first fantasy, and often return to it after new and less potent ones have strangely lost their zap) – by the time she tells us, it is usually impossible to recognize the original seed. But she knows.
Women remember important firsts.
Theda
The first sexual fantasy I had was on viewing a teacher’s very rotund posterior. I would have been not more than seven or eight.
He wore a very short coat, was fat, and his bum filled his trousers, sharply outlining his cheeks. I remember it giving me a definite sexual feeling even at that age, also of finding an excuse for going to bed early in order to have the privacy for being able to dwell upon those inspiring orbs. This was before I masturbated, but the infantile urge to slide my hand down his bum cheeks and round to "the front" compelled me even then.
After being introduced to masturbation, my main problem was obtaining the privacy in which to indulge. I had to sleep with a younger sister who was aware of the slightest movement. The movement of my hand had to be extremely surreptitious and slow and the fingering of the clitoris would be prolonged to exquisite lengths. This would inevitably invite sexual fantasy, based on what I’d heard from other girls…my age could not have been more than fourteen…who had seen their brothers’ cocks. One girl in particular, Monica, was a great source of fantasy. She allowed boys to feel her while she undid their flies and "tossed them off."
The phrase still excites me, and on endless occasions I have mentally substituted myself for Monica. Monica’s mother took in 213
a lodger, and after I had been sworn to the greatest secrecy, Monica told me how she had witnessed him masturbating, and the size of his genitalia. The idea of his orgasm in truth enraptured me, and was the basis for more than fantasy: It became an ambition. I still masturbate fantasizing myself as the voyeur of this lodger’s solitary pleasures. [Letter]
Lindsay
My fascination with men and the whole idea of sex began when I was about ten. I had never seen a penis before one day when I was in the woods near our home and saw a man piss. I was absolutely fascinated by his penis, but he saw me looking and whisked it out of sight. I hung around those woods every spare moment I had, hoping to see another one. If a man even stood still for any reason at all I’d think, This is it! and saunter over hoping for a glimpse. I spent hours trying to visualize just what it had looked like and thinking up words to describe a penis-proud, dominant, pulsating. I could go on. For years I would lie in my little virgin bed and think about that glimpse of my first penis. All those hours spent in the woods, hoping for another chance, it’s a wonder I was never raped or murdered.
[Conversation]
Fiona
When I was young, I played the usual "doctor" and "house"
games, exposing my genitals and exploring my little friends. I know now that the strange, warm kind of quivery feelings I had were of a sexual nature. At that time I associated urination with these feelings, and often fantasized that I was sitting on the toilet with my legs spread far apart, while one of my little boy friends urinated into the toilet between my legs. [Letter]
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Felicia
The earliest fantasies I can remember involve my parents, or my father and my older sister (which made me very jealous). I cannot remember actually fantasizing about my father and myself, but I do remember that I had a strong sexual attraction to him.
I also fantasized about my parents and our boxer bitch. I suspect that some experimentation actually did take place, as they were very open-minded and at times had our dog shut in the bedroom with them when she was in heat. We also had a stud dog who would mount anything that moved when our bitch dog was in heat. Our parents never knew it, but one of my sisters and my brother and myself used to get on all fours and let him mount us for a few seconds – and then we’d turn chicken. I have since fantasized about going through with the act and being penetrated by a male dog. My husband and I had a magazine with pictures of a woman and a male German Shepherd having intercourse.
When looking at these pictures I would become excited and would have my husband mount me from the rear, simulating the actions of a dog. [Letter]
Sonia
When I was about eleven or twelve I used to sit in the back seat of the car on trips and cross my legs very tightly. Our car made a very bumpy ride, and by sitting clear to one side each little bump and vibration would sexually stimulate me. The first time I experienced this I looked out of the car window and saw a horse in a field with his penis dropped way down. Every time after that I imagined the horse was entering me. I didn’t have an orgasm then from this fantasy, just stimulation. But now when I masturbate and think of being penetrated by a horse, it brings on a terrific orgasm. [Letter]
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Phyllis
When my husband fucks me, I often think of a former employer who gave me my first view of an erect penis when I was a virgin, then sixteen. It made such an impression on me that I have always remembered it, and like to picture the scene as it happened. He opened his trousers and took out his cock and I was amazed to see it standing up, so broad and stiff. He did not fuck me, but in my fantasies I see his big prick and try to imagine what it would have felt like if he had pushed it into me.
I always fantasize when I masturbate, which is usually when my husband is at work. I picture a scene at school when I was caned. The cane made me smart so much that I pissed in my knickers, which made me feel sexually excited afterward. In my fantasies I can see the headmistress with her cane, and when I picture how she gave me those smart strokes, I soon reach a climax.
I have not discussed my fantasies with my husband, but we both use four-letter words freely during fucking, as we find that the use of such words comes naturally to us and increases our excitement. Please excuse me if my tendency to use such words has caused me to use them too much in writing to you.
I think my first sexual fantasy was on seeing a man peeing when I was about eleven years of age. I did not actually see his penis (hence my surprise when I saw one for the first time, as I said), but I could plainly see his stream of urine as he stood to urinate against a tree when I passed close by. Seeing one of the opposite sex standing to urinate instead of squatting like I did made me so excited that I have always remembered it. I take my fantasy further in imagining him deliberately exposing his prick to me and rubbing it to the point of ejaculation. [Letter]
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Marlene
I am twenty-four and have been married five and a half years. I usually fantasize when my husband is making love to me, always have, and I believe he does, too. It has nothing to do with any inadequacies on either of our parts; I have always found him exciting in bed and he can never seem to get enough of me. It’s just that when you’re married, and always with the same man, no matter how great he is in bed, it varies the routine to think of other men. With me it used to be a guy who worked in my office; I was seducing him. Or I’m making it with a handsome black guy on TV, again with me as the seducer. Whoever it is – I’ve even seduced priests in my fantasies – I like to imagine that it is someone who has not had sex for a long time and is therefore ravenous.
The most important detail in my fantasies, even when I masturbate, is my breasts. As young as five or six I was fascinated by breasts and used to try to imagine what it felt like to have them. I would stare for hours at photos of film stars. Not naked breasts. My images were always of breasts with material stretched tightly across them. They strained and pushed against the fabric as if trying to burst through it. My own breasts, in reality, are fine; no one’s ever complained. But in my fantasies my figure is truly fantastic; my breasts are enormous and they are my greatest weapon in my seduction scenes. I just have to close my eyes, turn on this picture of my bigger-than-Raquel-Welch breasts, and no man can resist me. [Letter]
Kay
I was a bit of a tomboy at age ten and I remember dressing up as a pirate, pulling the trousers up very tight against my crotch, and putting one of my father’s old leather belts very tightly around me. I didn’t know what the reason was, all I knew was 217
that it felt good "down there," and that I ended up playing pirate a lot. When I was eleven or so, I used to get distinctly excited by
"strapping" myself very tightly around my genitals and immersing myself in a cold bath more or less fully clothed.
Around this age and later I had dreams about wrestling people in a pit of slushy mud, completely encased in a wet suit, and being completely buried in the mud. While thinking this I’d rub myself against the scam of my pajama trousers. [Conversation]
Trudy
Only now as I’m writing do I remember that my sister and I used to pretend that we were making it with our dog. He cooperated quite nicely. My fantasies about dogs still continue, so that when my husband is entering me from the back, I think of dogs humping, something I remember seeing frequently since I was three or four years old. [Letter]
Mona
I hope you will keep my name confidential, as I have never told anybody this before. From what I’ve read, I think that I am a sadist. I may be a masochist as well, as I very often daydream about being tortured.