My Secret Garden (Women Sexual Fantasies) by Nancy Friday Read Free Book Online

Bertha’s fantasy which follows), or if she got her sexual charge by imagining that she was being fucked by some tennis stars she doesn’t even know (as does Bellinda)? What matters is the quality of the real sex, and if a private screening of her own favorite erotica gets her in the mood quicker than a martini, and ultimately gives him a better fuck, then why not? It’s not telling him your fantasy that’s important, it’s telling yourself it’s okay to have it. For some women, fantasy is the strongest sexual foreplay of all; what they should both remember is that it’s the real man she really wants – or presumably she wouldn’t be there.

    Bertha

    While having intercourse with my husband, I will sometimes go over our past lovemaking sessions in my head, ones that were particularly exciting, where we both did and said things we don’t normally do. I’d like it to be that way all the time, of course –with the bed practically torn apart and us ending up on the floor, wet and sticky and happy – but of course it doesn’t always happen that way. So I re-create it, rolling him over in my mind when, say, all he’s really doing is lying there on top of me and thrusting away.
    We’ve had some incredible times in bed and out, especially in the shower playing catch-me-if-you-can with our bodies covered in Sardo oil. Those are the times I remember. I do it especially if I’m not particularly excited and it helps me to reach the aroused state I want. Then when I get there he does, too. My husband 35

    knows of this and fully approves; I sometimes think he even relies on it, say, when he’s tired. It’s as though he were saying,
    "Come on, baby, remember how it was, get us up there."
    We’ve been married two and a half years and enjoy a good sex life. But I’ve invariably found that re-creating these scenes with my husband (in my mind) leads to a more erotic session, which in turn gives me new material for the next time. For me, my fantasies are money in the bank, if you know what I mean.
    [Taped interview]

    BeIlinda

    While I was putting this book together, I met and talked with Dr. Robert Chartham, psychologist and author of The Sensuous Couple. He showed me a letter he’d received from a woman we’ll call Bellinda, in which she complained that her sex life was dreary, that her mind wandered to the day’s trivia during sex, and that she felt guilty that the only sexually exciting thoughts she seemed to have were of tennis star John Harrison’s thighs:

    "Last year," she wrote, "I went to the Albert Hall to watch John Harrison in person play indoor tennis. I was sitting on purpose near the umpire’s chair so I could be near his legs. I just could not take my eyes off him, and when he was toweling down, he stared back for a lovely long moment, our eyes were really locked. He may have been wondering what this stupid woman (me) was looking at, but I prefer to think that my message got through, which was, `My God, I’d like you to thrust yourself inside me.’ If it’s possible for a woman to say that with her eyes, then I said it."
    Dr. Chartham’s advice to her and her subsequent reply follow.

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    Dear Bellinda:
    By believing yourself to be, as you put it, a "sexual dud," you are making yourself one.
    You have quite the wrong attitude toward lovemaking, and your husband seems no better.
    You have got yourself all worked up about sexual responses and the quality of them, when you ought to be fully relaxed, and letting things just happen to your body. Instead of thinking about next day’s lunch while you are being made love to, why don’t you think of John Harrison’s thighs, or better still imagine that those are John Harrison’s hands and mouth caressing you, and John Harrison’s cock that is up you. Try it and see what happens. Let me know.
    We call it fantasizing, and nearly all of us, men and women, have our sexual fantasies – at least from time to time. It’s quite a legitimate way of