I finally discovered what you must have known all along… to get a woman to share her sexual fantasies is not an easy task. However, chased by curiosity and a deadline, I refused to give up – and ended up not only with a fantasy or two, but also with a new philosophy about porn…

It all started when I mentioned on Facebook that my female friends should inbox me with their sexual fantasies. Amongst my female friends are a sex addict or three, an ex-pole dancer, a few cougars and even an erotica writer or two. I could only imagine the dark and deep sexual secrets they would be able to divulge. I waited… and waited.

Nothing.

Again, I posted: “Tell me your sexual fantasies!” Nothing. A faint memory was triggered. I remembered being asked by that very question by men, only to answer vaguely, “Oh… you know…” Of course it was not always that way. Fresh and new to the world of sex, I LOVED my sexual fantasies and could not WAIT to share them with the world. Therefore, every time I had a new lover, I would present my fantasies to him with excitement and aplomb. Said lover would then either burst out laughing or clutch his heart in shock. Worst was when he would actually try to fulfil my fantasy. The combination of my complicated fantasies and an over-zealous lover often caused me to end up in the most bizarre situations. One of them occurred when a string of beads broke while being used in a sexually intimate way and got stuck where beads should never, ever get stuck. (Note: use love beads, and not fake plastic pearls that you got from your mother.)

The ensuing bead-rescue operation made me rethink another fantasy I had which involved a gold fish… I had read about this in a book by Shirley Conran called Lace. In this particular scene the heroine was seduced by an Arab prince. Basically it involved a gold fish, a non-squeamish Prince and a vast amount of animal cruelty. You see, the poor little fish was inserted where the sun doesn’t shine and then sucked out again. However, it did not deter me from trying other adventurous situations, and I can tell you today that you should never, ever play with soap, that carrots and cucumbers are more eco-friendly than latex and that making love on beach sand simply isn’t worth it. I also nearly broke my nose in a public loo, was sexually assaulted by a kreepy krawly in a pool and once almost broke a glass dining room table.
I never did try the gold fish though…

In the end, it became simply easier to fulfil his fantasy – mainly because male fantasies are quite straightforward, normally do not involve a plot, and require just a few role players in fancy dress, props and a soundtrack. I normally found that any sexual position that he hadn’t tried, a black G-string or a soft spanking, would fit into the realm of the average male fantasy. And, of course, a ménage à trois or watching a woman pleasure herself would fit the bill. Women’s magazines, bless their pampered, innocent little hearts, are forever going on and on and on about the fact that you should tell your partner what you want in bed. Then again, what you want in bed and a sexual fantasy is not always the same thing.

This important difference occurred to me while having a discussion with my Friend the Pole Dancer.
“What do you mean by sexual fantasy?” she asked. “Are you referring to something that is on my TO DO list, or a fantasy that should rather stay a secret?” She was right. Some fantasies are doable. Others are punishable by law. Just how dark and dirty female fantasies can get, became clear in the 1970s when author Nancy Friday wrote a book, My Secret Garden. It sent shock waves through the world. I read the book one night and remember shivering with lust and repulsion as I read accounts involving gang rape, humiliation and even the odd Alsatian or two. The magic word here was “fantasy.” These images were mainly material used for arousal and had nothing to do with an actual desire to harass the neighbour’s pet poodle.

When I started to research the concept of sexual fantasy, it became increasingly clear that a fantasy might not even have its basis in reality. Say you fantasise about your sexy neighbour having sex with another woman – you may have no reason (based in reality) to believe that she would be having a gay affair with someone or that she would let you watch them give each other tongue. However, as they say… never let the facts interfere with a good fantasy…

When you look at what has been reported about the sexual fantasy life of women, the range of fantasies is wide. A few fantasies, such as being overpowered or seduced during sex, keep coming up, as do certain fantasies such as the doctor and pirate fantasy. Have no idea what this entails? Well, the doctor scenario goes like this: female patient visits handsome (very sexy, very virile) male doctor. He flirts with her. He gives her dark, piercing and sexually charged looks. Then, he leads her to his private examining room (and here a romantic soundtrack will start to play, the lights would dim and the examining table could morph into a double-bed with 200% thread-count sheets at any minute) where his examinations become increasingly more intimate, sending shivers of anticipation and lust down her body.

The pirate fantasy is more violent. It involves a sexy pirate (no… NOT Jack Sparrow or Captain Hook), a sword, ropes and lots of bodice-ripping, rip-roaring, swashbuckling, wave-making sex.

But that is just me. What about other women? Finally, finally… after weeks of nagging on Facebook, this is what I got:

  • • “I love watching a man masturbate.”
  • • “Having sex somewhere you could get caught.”
  • • “Him having me in a lift/elevator.”
  • • “Sex in the Woollies changing rooms.”
  • • “Sex with two men. I also fantasise about being made love to by three men.”
  • • “Having sex on a plane. Or a surf board, just bopping in the waves!”
  • • “Meeting a man for lunch, but no food is involved!”
  • • “Having him touch me in a restaurant under the table cloth.”
  • • “Blowing my boss under his desk. Having his PA walk in without knowing what is happening and watching him having to conduct himself while I am giving him the time of his life.”
  • • “Being told what to do.”
  • • “Not being allowed to touch or reach an orgasm.”
  • • “Taking charge and taking what I want.”

So some of them told me some of their fantasies. Still, I wasn’t satisfied. Come on… I am a woman, I know how dirty our minds can get, and this was NOTHING. Then, one day, the Erotica Writer told me that she got turned on when a man cupped her face in his hand while kissing her. “You know, pirate-style,” she said. I knew exactly what she meant. She meant, that while doing that, he should also be pulling her head slightly backwards by her hair, so I sent her a picture. A black and white photograph of a man kissing a woman with authority, with power – holding her face in his strong, capable hands, her face slightly tilted back in surrender. She went ballistic. “This is an awesome picture!” she wrote in an online message. “Now check THIS picture out!” And she sent me a picture that took my breath away… of a man holding a woman down, his hand over her mouth, teasingly kissing her exposed stomach. Soon we were happily exchanging pictures, until the idea came to her to start an online group where women could share the visual material that turned them on.

I am happy to say that this group has been growing steadily, the pictures being posted are mind-blowing and of course, it gave me a much clearer idea of what women really, really want. Most of the pictures have one thing in common – they are mostly artful and stylish photographs of a man and a woman making love. In different poses and different settings but very seldom is it just a man on his lonesome. There are sex-scenes on tables and sex-scenes in water. Lots of ropes and tying up and an underlying undertone of being seduced and subdued. There are a few pictures of the cunnilingual kind and then just plain weird ones such as that of the woman being seduced by a dragon…

Which brings me to my new philosophy on porn. While these posted pictures can’t strictly be classified as porn, they were all highly sexually charged and left me far more open to sexual suggestion than say, paging through a woman’s mag looking at fudge recipes. Is there place for porn in the female psyche? Or, at least, for a sexy pic or two? It seems so… More importantly, it seems that more women are more comfortable illustrating their fantasies visually, rather than having to spell it out. So next time you need to know what’s on her mind, ask her to show you pictures.

Then, simply follow the instructions until you are picture perfect.

By by Erla-Mari Diedericks

Published by Playboy SA January 2012