part0008

H ave you ever wondered whether your sexual fantasies are normal? If so, you’ve come to the right place. I’m going to answer that question for you in this chapter. But before I do, let me first establish what I mean by the term normal. As a scientist, saying that something is normal is basically the same as saying that something is statistically common. In other words, a normal fantasy is one that a lot of other people have. Just because a fantasy is normal doesn’t mean it’s healthy or appropriate to act on, though—that’s an entirely separate issue, and one that we’ll get into a little later. So, for now, let’s just focus on which fantasies are normal in the sense of being common.

My analysis of Americans’ favorite sexual fantasies revealed seven major categories that can be considered normal. If you’ve fantasized about these things before, chances are that you probably don’t have anything to worry about—it’s likely that your fantasies are pretty typical.

The results of my investigation reveal that the single most popular sexual fantasy among Americans today is—drum roll, please—group sex. More than one-third of my participants described it as their favorite fantasy of all time, and when asked if they had ever fantasized about multipartner sex before—not just whether it was their favorite fantasy—the vast majority of both men and women agreed. In fact, it was rare for people to say they’ve never had such a fantasy—we’re talking just 5 percent of men and 13 percent of women. In other words, group sex is perhaps the most normal thing there is to fantasize about because almost everyone has been turned on by the thought of it at one time or another.

So what do people imagine doing in a sex fantasy with multiple partners? There were really two main types of group sex fantasies I observed: those that involved threesomes, and those that involved a larger (usually unspecified) number of participants who took part in an orgy or gangbang.

So who do Americans want to have threesome with? Do we tend to have specific people in mind, or does the appeal of a threesome simply reside more in what you can do—and see—when there’s an extra person in bed? For their favorite fantasy of all time, I asked my participants to rate the importance of three different components of that fantasy: the activity that took place, the partner(s) involved, and the setting. What I found was that, for those who said group sex was their favorite fantasy, both men and women rated what they did as the most important aspect of this fantasy, and they rated it as being significantly more important than both who their partners were and where the event took place. It turned out that the partners themselves were rated as only moderately important, and the location as relatively unimportant. To me, what this suggests is that the appeal of threesomes has more to do with the fact that this activity creates a state of sensory overload than anything—it’s really about amping up our arousal by bringing in another body that we can look at, touch, and experience in an overpowering way that allows us to get lost in sensations.

In light of this, it’s probably not surprising that so many participants who had threesome fantasies described their partners generically. For example, as one straight guy in his twenties put it, “Me and two very hot chicks in any and every position possible!!” A lot of the threesome fantasies I received from men (gay and straight alike) were similarly generic and succinct. By contrast, women’s group-sex fantasies tended to be a little more elaborate (this wasn’t surprising, given that women’s fantasies in general were more elaborate); however, I still found that many of the women didn’t spend any time at all detailing who their threesome partners were, such as this straight woman in her forties who described her threesome fantasy in terms of an endurance contest with two random dudes: “My greatest fantasy is to be with 2 men at the same time. While one is fucking me the other is licking me. Then they switch. Then I Iay on the bed and they take turns fucking me but I will not let them cum. They both get to thrust into me 5 times and then switch. They see who can go the longest without cumming.”

There were certainly some folks who cared more about who their threesome partners were, though, and that included people who were in romantic relationships. Partnered individuals often made their spouse or lover part of their ideal threesome, which tells us that people who want threesomes aren’t necessarily in troubled relationships, nor are they looking to replace their partners—instead, they’re usually looking to share an experience together that everyone will enjoy. For example, one straight guy in his thirties said his ultimate fantasy included both his wife and his ex: “A threesome with my wife and a woman I used to have wild sex with in college. It would be planned, beginning with my wife and the other woman going down on each other and using their mouths in other ways. I would watch. Then I would be pulled in and have oral performed on me while going down on one of the women. Sex would happen in multiple positions and would finish with me cumming on the women’s breasts and faces. They would then lick up the cum off each other.” Likewise, a pansexual woman in her thirties included her partner in her threesome fantasy, but at the same time, she described the third person as a generic man: “Both my fiancé and I are bisexual, but I have rarely gotten the chance to see him in a sexual situation with another man since we’ve been together. My favorite thing to fantasize about is having a threesome with another bisexual man, and to watch him give and receive oral and anal sex. I almost always fantasize about having him inside me while another man is inside him, and all of us climaxing at the same time.” This particular fantasy stood out to me because this woman described her partner as the center of attention in her ideal threesome. In most of the other threesome fantasies I received, people described themselves as being the center of attention, such as this heterosexual woman in her twenties, who made it explicitly clear that she would be the focal point: “I am part of a threesome with a man and another woman. I am engaging in reverse cowgirl with the man and the other woman is in front of me and between the man’s legs, performing oral sex on me. The focus of this threesome is me, and not the man.” It makes sense that most people want to be the center of attention in their threesome fantasy. For one thing, it’s likely to increase feelings of personal validation—you’re likely to feel more attractive and desired when you’re getting most of the action. Plus, for those who feel a little insecure, being the center of attention would likely allay any potential concerns that your romantic partner is into someone else more than you. And then there’s the fact that you’re being pleasured by not just one but two people, which is going to feed into those feelings of sensory overload that I mentioned above.

One other interesting observation I made about threesome fantasies is that the gender ratio of the partners involved varied quite a bit. While some preferred scenarios featuring one woman and two men (WMM), others preferred two women and one man (MWW), and yet others preferred that everyone was the same sex (MMM or WWW). However, I noticed an important difference in the preferred gender ratio between men and women, a difference that has been noted by previous researchers. 1 Specifically, heterosexual men are far more likely to prefer MWW to WMM threesomes, whereas heterosexual women’s interest in threesomes doesn’t depend quite as much on the gender ratio. Put another way, straight women are more open to threesomes with a partner of the same gender. Heterosexual-identifying women are also more open to the idea of an entirely same-sex threesome than are straight men. Remember these findings, because they’re the first of many that will come up in this book suggesting that women may be more erotically flexible than men when it comes to the gender of their partners.

Of course, threesomes are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to group sex, which Britney Spears alludes to at the end of her song “3”: “Let’s do it you and me… or three… or four on the floor.” Some people fantasize about large numbers of partners, as in an orgy or gangbang. Although these sex acts weren’t quite as popular as threesomes, the majority of both men and women I surveyed reported having had these kinds of group-sex fantasies before, too. They were similar to threesomes in the sense that most people fantasized about generic partners (unless they had a current romantic partner) and wanted to be the center of attention in these acts. However, they differed in that, in these larger groups, many people also described a desire to watch others have sex and/or “put on a show.” Thus, there are some additional layers of stimulation to be had when sex takes place in a larger group setting.

Rivaling group sex for the most popular fantasy theme in America is bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, and masochism—or BDSM for short. I’ll define all of these terms for you momentarily, but generally speaking, what we’re talking about here are sexual desires that invoke themes of power, control, and/or rough sex. More than one-quarter of my participants described this as their favorite fantasy of all time, and even if it wasn’t their all-time favorite, most people said they had fantasized about at least one BDSM act before. In fact, it was rare for people to not have any BDSM fantasies at all—just 4 percent of women and 7 percent of men had never had them. Clearly, BDSM—like group sex—is a very normal sexual desire, and as a result, it shouldn’t be any surprise that a book and film series like Fifty Shades of Grey caught on.

Before we move on, I should say that it isn’t uncommon for group-sex fantasies to incorporate elements of BDSM, especially in the case of gangbang fantasies, which typically feature one person being sexually dominated by several others. Thus, BDSM and multipartner sex often go hand in hand.

So what exactly is a BDSM fantasy? Upon hearing this term, many folks immediately conjure up an image of a medieval-looking dungeon full of torture devices of the worst kind. Although it’s certainly the case that some BDSM practitioners do have (or want to have) their own dungeons and some of them may enjoy (or fantasize about enjoying) intense pain, it turns out that BDSM rarely takes this form in fantasy or in reality. BDSM actually refers to a very diverse set of practices, and they can range from mild to wild.

To better demonstrate what I mean, let me break down this acronym for you—but before I do, let me clarify that there is a lot of overlap between the different elements of BDSM and that people often fantasize about more than one type. In addition, keep in mind that what one desires when it comes to BDSM can change across contexts. This means, for example, that someone who fantasizes about being dominant in one setting might fantasize about being submissive in other settings, depending upon who their partner is and how they’re feeling. To use the lingo of real-life BDSM practitioners, people who like to change up their role are known as switches.

Bondage involves taking pleasure in the use of physical restraints. For example, some might take a cue from Christian Grey in Fifty Shades and bind their partner’s hands with a necktie, whereas others might use handcuffs or shackles, and yet others might use a spreader bar (a rod that attaches to both ankles in order to keep the legs apart). What all of these activities have in common is that they involve one person surrendering control of his or her body to another, often with the intent of allowing him- or herself to be used as a sex object. For example, a pansexual woman in her thirties described her desire to be bound and used, but in a “loving” way: “Being tied up by my partner—they can do whatever they want to me. Though I’m completely under their control, they treat me lovingly and pleasure me while I’m tied up. They use my body to get themselves off, but it’s in a way that can only be described as lovingly.” Of course, not everyone wants to be tied up—some want to tie up their partners, such as a straight man in his fifties who described his favorite fantasy as “my partner being tied up and I would be allowed to do everything that I can think of.”

My survey results suggest that Americans like bondage. A lot. More than three-quarters of participants reported having had bondage fantasies before, and about one-third reported having them often. I suspect bondage is one of the most popular forms of BDSM in part because it’s easy. It doesn’t require a lot of skill or imagination, and you don’t necessarily need any special equipment, either—I mean, we all have plenty of items in our closets that could work in a pinch. This is why bondage tends to be people’s first stop in exploring BDSM, as well as a gateway to more, ahem, advanced practices.

Like bondage, discipline also involves one person surrendering control to another; however, it is very different in that neither is playing a passive role—the partner who is being disciplined is an active participant who must comply with orders and commands, or else suffer (enjoy?) the consequences.

Discipline isn’t quite as popular as bondage. Just over half of participants reported having discipline fantasies before, and about one-fifth reported having them often. Compared to bondage, discipline requires more active participation; you’re not just a passive recipient of physical sensations but rather an actor who is playing a role. In some ways, then, discipline can be thought of as surrendering both body and mind to another. Not everyone is comfortable giving up quite so much control, which may help to explain why bondage tends to be a far more popular fantasy theme than discipline.

The submission fantasies I received took a lot of different forms, but they were fundamentally about giving oneself over completely to another person to be used for that person’s pleasure. For example, one straight guy in his thirties described his desire to submit to a dominatrix as follows: “I have a fantasy of being sexually dominated by a woman. I want to be made to totally submit to her every need and desire. I want her to penetrate me with a strap-on. Be told to bend over and take it like a man. I want to be taken with a strap-on until she is exhausted. Then I want to be made to lick her all over until she orgasms.” Likewise, a bisexual woman in her late teens expressed the desire to submit to a man who will have his way with her: “Being put on a leash and forced to my knees, then a man writing words like ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ over my body, spitting on me, and forcing me to do whatever he wants me to do to him, calling me worthless and his slave.” In both of these cases, the fantasy holder didn’t just want to submit but to be humiliated in a way, too (e.g., being made to “take it like a man,” being “forced to my knees,” being branded “slut” or “whore”). What’s the deal with that? Why do some people find humiliation to be a turn-on? It’s likely because psychological pain has the same effects on us as physical pain, due to the fact that both of them activate the same areas of the brain. 2 One such effect is increased mindfulness, or feelings of being in the here and now. What this means is that pain, whether physical or psychological, makes us focus on our immediate sensations, and in doing so, it allows us to experience everything more intensely. 3 This means that if sexual stimulation follows some kind of pain—like being humiliated—you might find sex even more pleasurable than you otherwise would. It’s akin to when you step in from the bitter cold and sip some hot cocoa—the pain of the cold makes your drink taste even more intense than usual.

The dominance fantasies I received were really interesting because the people who expressed them usually went out of their way to clarify that, while they wanted to dominate someone, they did not want to hurt them in any way. A bisexual woman in her thirties discussed the importance of caring for the men who are submissive to her: “My favorite sexual fantasy involves dominating two men. I always have control of what the men will do sexually. I engage freely in sexual activities with both men, and they both adore me and worship me. They both do whatever it takes to please me. I can have them both at the same time or they can even take turns. I tend to romanticize the aspect of having sex with two men at once by taking the role of the dominant who cares for her submissive men.” As these examples illustrate, it seems that people with dominance fantasies recognize that power comes with responsibility and that those in the dominant role need to look out for the well-being of their submissive partners. In other words, dominance fantasies are not about a desire to harm someone else and, therefore, shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a sign of a pathological personality.

The vast majority of my participants reported fantasizing about both dominance and submission; however, more people reported submission fantasies, and they reported having them more often than those who had dominance fantasies. Thus, it seems that more Americans want to give up control rather than take control during sex. This might be, in part, because some don’t want the responsibility that comes with taking control; however, it is likely also due to the fact that submission psychologically changes you from a person to an object and helps to take you out of your head. This is something that may be appealing to people who are easily distracted or tend to be anxious during sex.

Finally, sadism and masochism refer to obtaining sexual pleasure from giving and receiving pain, respectively. Obviously, this can mean a number of different things depending upon one’s personal preferences, from spanking and slapping to whipping and flogging to humiliation to putting clamps or clothespins on the nipples to dripping hot wax on the skin (as Madonna infamously did to Willem Dafoe in the Razzie Award–winning 1993 film Body of Evidence ). Some live on the edge and elevate their pursuit of pain to dangerous and sometimes lethal levels by practicing activities like cutting, administering electric shocks, and undergoing oxygen deprivation (a practice that allegedly caused the death of actor David Carradine in 2009); however, these practices are relatively rare in both fantasy and reality. Most people who are into sadism and masochism report an interest in relatively mild pain that remains within consensual and very controlled limits and occurs in a context of mutual trust, care, and concern. For instance, this bisexual woman in her twenties described her favorite fantasy as “being spanked and dominated sexually…. Having someone who is loving in the care afterwards. Being tied down to a table in a kneeling position and being whipped and touched. Whatever the other person wanted to do within the limits.”

Spanking, biting, and whipping were among the more commonly mentioned acts of sadomasochism in my survey. In describing these activities, participants were usually quick to clarify their limits: “gentle spanks,” “forceful, but not aggressive,” or “just rough enough… but not enough to inflict real pain.” Some of my participants described desires for intense pain, including a few who said they wanted to be “beaten.” For the most part, though, the ideal amount of pain seems to be in the mild to moderate range, enough to cause the desired effects in the moment—like increasing mindfulness—without leaving a mark or doing any kind of lasting damage.

Most of my survey participants reported having had both sadism and masochism fantasies. Generally speaking, however, it was more common for people to fantasize about receiving pain in some form than it was to fantasize about giving pain.

Most of my participants with forced sex fantasies described them as “rape.” Though that’s the word they chose to use, it’s probably not the most accurate one, given that these fantasies really tend to focus on token resistance and feature a scenario in which the fantasizer remains in complete control at all times and is not harmed. For example, a bisexual woman in her twenties described her forced-sex fantasy as follows: “I love it when my husband dominates me and it ends up escalating into a mock rape. It used to bother me to have this fantasy, due to the fact that I myself am a counselor and have worked both with rape victims and offenders. But after getting into my current relationship, I was able to explore a fantasy I never acted on in a safe, honest, and communicative relationship. And knowing that ‘no’ will still mean ‘no’ allows me to let go and enjoy the experience.” As you can see, she describes her fantasy as “mock rape” and talks about the importance of safety and consent. Other participants included similarly important caveats, like “I know I’m safe and he knows my boundaries.” These scenarios bear no resemblance to actual rape and instead are about a sex act that occurs on one’s own terms.

Forced-sex fantasies are more common than you might think. In fact, nearly two-thirds of the women I surveyed reported having them. It’s not just women who have forced-sex fantasies, though. More than half of the men I surveyed fantasized about being forced to have sex, too! Though women tend to have fantasies of this nature more often than men, they are not unique to one gender (or sexual orientation, for that matter).

It’s worth mentioning that I received a handful of forced-sex fantasies that were quite intense. For instance, a straight woman in her twenties said: “I want to be naked, tied up, and humiliated. I want to be shown zero mercy. I want to be beat, slapped, and spanked like I deserve. I want my partner to force me to do anything he wants no matter what. I want him and 10 of his buddies to hate fuck me while I cry because I secretly enjoy it. I want to be bent over and taken in public…. I want to feel like I am being raped and have absolutely no control and no say.” I read thousands of fantasies in putting together this book, and this is among the few that have really stuck with me, because of the way this woman described wanting to get “hate fucked” and to be “shown zero mercy.” If you found this language disturbing, you’re not alone. However, if you read it carefully, it’s clear that this woman (like everyone else with forced-sex fantasies) doesn’t truly want to be raped, given that she talks about wanting to “feel like” she has no control and how she “secretly enjoys it.” This scenario is only appealing to her because it takes place entirely in her head, where she remains in control the entire time.

To be clear, there is a spectrum when it comes to forced-sex fantasies, and the example included in the paragraph above comes from the most intense end. Therefore, it should not be viewed as representative. I simply mention it here to demonstrate how much variability there is in the content of forced-sex fantasies and how they sometimes include sadomasochistic elements, such as behaviors that make one feel degraded.

We’ll return to the issue of forced-sex fantasies a bit later in the book because these fantasies pose some special safety concerns for those who wish to act them out with a partner.

The third most popular sexual fantasy in America revolves around themes of novelty, adventure, and variety. Specifically, what I’m talking about here are: (1) sexual activities, like oral or anal sex, that one has never done before or would like to attempt in a new way; (2) having sex in unique settings, such as on the beach or in an airplane; and (3) having unexpected, surprising, or thrilling sexual encounters, such as getting it on in public or trying out a new sex toy. In other words, I’m talking about fantasies that take one’s sex life in new and exciting directions. Fantasies like these were extremely common among my survey participants: about one in five described novelty as their favorite fantasy of all time, and far more said they fantasize about novelty on occasion.

Undoubtedly, there’s some overlap here with fantasies about group sex and BDSM, both of which are appealing to many folks precisely because they represent a new or different way of having sex. However, it made sense to keep group sex and BDSM separate because it wouldn’t do them justice to say that they’re nothing but a yearning for novelty. As you’ll see later on in this book, those fantasies have psychological origins and motives that go well beyond simply wanting to experiment with something different.

It’s important to highlight that “novelty, adventure, and variety” is one of those things that means different things to different people. What’s new and adventuresome for one person may be considered routine or dull by the next. Novelty is therefore one of the most diverse fantasy themes we’ll consider. For ease of discussion, let’s break this theme down into desires for new and exciting sexual activities and desires for sex in varied settings and locations.

Like group sex and BDSM fantasies, the thing that turns most people on in novelty fantasies is the sexual act itself—what they’re doing is usually more important than who their partner is or where it takes place. It therefore shouldn’t be any surprise to learn that these fantasies tend to focus on things like oral and anal sex rather than the most traditional sex act of all: missionary-style penile-vaginal intercourse. Among my survey participants, there was certainly a lot of variability in which specific activities people wanted to engage in, but it was clear from a number of their descriptions that many were drawn to these acts simply because they weren’t a part of their regular sexual routines. For example, one gay man in his forties summed up his favorite fantasy of all time simply as: “Oral sex, since I don’t receive it.”

Beyond oral and anal sex, participants described desires to switch up their usual intercourse positions. “Doggy style” was the most frequently mentioned position in Americans’ favorite fantasies, and in general, it was men’s favorite and women’s second-favorite position to fantasize about, as you can see in the table below. Interestingly, both men and women fantasized more often about their partner being on top during intercourse rather than them, something that ties in well with the previously mentioned finding that people tend to fantasize more about being submissive than about being dominant (that, or maybe it’s just a sign that a lot of Americans are lazy in bed).

Beyond fantasizing about new sexual acts and positions, there are a lot of other ways people imagine adding variety to their sex lives. For instance, nearly 40 percent of participants reported having fantasized about experimenting sexually with food. I asked these folks which foods they usually think about, and, perhaps not surprisingly, whipped cream, chocolate, ice cubes, and strawberries were the foods of choice for most. The rest had some rather, um, interesting tastes, including blue cheese dressing, corn on the cob, dog food, and “gum from the Willy Wonka movie.” The least picky of my participants wrote in, “Anything that a man can ejaculate on and can be subsequently eaten.”

Even more respondents (two-thirds) had fantasized about incorporating technology into their lovemaking. Of course, some fantasize about both food and tech, echoing the activities of Seinfeld ’s George Costanza in a 1997 episode entitled “The Blood.” George tried to achieve what he termed the “trifecta”: having sex while watching a portable TV and chowing down on a pastrami sandwich. Unfortunately for George, it turned out that his girlfriend wasn’t quite as into the idea as him because, well, he got a little too consumed by the other activities.

Playing sex games and sexual role-playing were other common ways people fantasized about adding variety, but perhaps the most popular—reported by 85 percent of participants—was using sex toys. BDSM props, such as blindfolds and handcuffs, were the toys most commonly mentioned in Americans’ favorite fantasies, followed by strap-on dildos. Some may be surprised to learn that many women—gay, straight, and bisexual—said they had fantasized about wearing a strap-on and giving anal sex to someone else, while a lot of men—heterosexual and bisexual—said they had fantasized about receiving anal sex from a woman wearing a strap-on. This activity is known colloquially as “pegging,” and there’s sometimes a BDSM component to it, as you can see in the following fantasy submitted by a woman in her twenties who identified as “sexually fluid”: “Currently one of my biggest sexual fantasies revolves around pegging—to be more specific, pegging a very masculine male. I find the idea of engaging in sexual activity with a masculine, large, muscular, submissive male, to be very hot.” Why is pegging so popular? Part of the appeal is probably that it’s a novelty in the sense that it goes against traditional gender roles, placing women in a dominant position and men in a submissive position; however, there’s a bit more to it than that. Of course, the fact that it’s taboo may make it appealing to some, but there’s a biological explanation, too: anal sex can stimulate the male prostate gland (sometimes referred to as the P-spot), which many men find results in very powerful and intense orgasms.

It should be clear by now that Americans want their sex lives to be filled with diverse and varied activities. They don’t just want to do one thing forever—they want to experiment and mix it up. As further evidence of this, check out the table below, which details the most common sexual activities Americans fantasize about and how they differ for men and women. The key things to note from these data are that (1) both men and women want a lot of variety in their sex lives, and (2) while there are obviously some differences in the numbers, there’s actually a lot of commonality when it comes to the activities that men and women desire (the only exceptions being that men were a bit more likely to fantasize about sixty-nine-ing and giving anal sex). However, one especially fascinating thing to note from this table is the striking similarity between men and women with regard to fantasies about receiving anal sex—nearly two-thirds of each sex had fantasized about this before. Considering that my sample was predominately heterosexual (72 percent), this tells us that a heck of a lot of straight guys seem to be getting off on the idea of pegging and, presumably, P-spot orgasms. Of course, because I did not ask about who they wanted to receive anal sex from, some might interpret these results as a sign that some straight guys might not be quite as straight as they claim to be.

Novelty and adventure aren’t only about trying new sexual acts and positions—after all, the human body can only contort in so many ways (Cirque du Soleil performers notwithstanding). As a result, many of us seek to inject novelty and adventure into our sex lives by performing our favorite acts somewhere other than in our own bed. Although it’s not quite as important as the sex act itself, I found that the setting was still a very important component of many people’s novelty fantasies—and in fact, my participants said that the setting was a more important element in their novelty fantasies than it was in their group sex and BDSM fantasies.

As I read through my participants’ favorite fantasies, “public” emerged as the preferred setting. “Public” can, of course, mean a lot of things, but for some folks, the specific location doesn’t really matter as long as they are having sex in a place where other people are (or could be) around. However, some folks did include very specific public locations in their fantasies—most commonly, places like an office, bathroom, elevator, bar, locker room, or park. Most of these fantasies about public sex seemed to be driven by the same thing: a sense of adventure and the thrill that one could potentially be observed or caught in the act. Many of my participants explicitly said something to this effect, including a straight man in his fifties who described his favorite fantasy as “making love to a stranger in a semi-public place with a risk of being discovered.” A straight woman in her thirties expressed similar sentiments: “Sex in public. In a slightly private area but with some chance of exposure, like an empty courtyard.”

As these examples reveal, people with public-sex fantasies don’t necessarily want others to watch them have sex—they just want there to be a risk of it happening. In this sense, these fantasies are very different from exhibitionism fantasies or scenarios in which people truly want to put on a show (we’ll get to those shortly). Public-sex fantasies are therefore more about enhancing sex by inducing an element of risk and fear than anything else. This makes sense in light of a large body of research finding that people have a tendency to mistake strong emotions—like fear and anger—for sexual arousal. 4 Why is that? It’s because these emotions stimulate our bodies, causing our hearts to beat faster and our breathing to become heavier, among other things. Although these bodily changes aren’t sexual per se, it’s easy for us to mistakenly interpret them as such, especially if they occur in the presence of a powerful sexual stimulus, such as someone you think is pretty hot. For example, heterosexual men who are asked to jog in place for a few minutes (and therefore amp up their physiological arousal levels) prior to evaluating the attractiveness of a female stranger find her to be sexier than heterosexual men who are sedentary. 5 In other words, the exercisers’ feelings of arousal seem to transfer to the stranger in a way that intensifies their overall feelings of attraction toward her. The key idea here is really that if we fantasize about sex in a setting that evokes a lot of strong emotions—such as doing it in public—it has the potential to produce a far more intense state of sexual arousal than the thought of sex in a less novel location, like your own bed.

Beyond public settings, the next most common locations people mentioned in their favorite fantasies were—in order—on a beach, outdoors or in nature, and in the shower. In fantasies about beach and nature settings, participants were often (but not always) quick to clarify that these areas were meant to be remote or secluded, indicating that it’s not so much about the risk of discovery but more about how the setting itself makes them feel—free, relaxed, sensual, romantic—and how that enhances the sex. One straight man in his forties summed up this idea perfectly: “One of my main fantasies would be to be outdoors—the wind blowing on our bodies, very stimulating. No fear of getting caught at all.” Interestingly, he didn’t even mention sex in this fantasy—it was almost an afterthought! Women’s fantasies about novel settings tended to be a bit more elaborate, taking a lot of time to set the scene. For example, one straight woman in her twenties told me her fantasy involved “walking on the beach during a warm summer night. The beach is empty and there is just me and my partner breathing the sea air. We have a bottle of champagne that is still crisp. We lay down directly on the sand and we begin looking at each other. Then we start taking off each other’s clothes while aggressively making out. Then we start making love and do it throughout the whole night.” This particular fantasy is a great example of one in which the setting has a profound effect: the warmth of the summer air, the scent of the ocean, and the taste of the champagne all come together to create a multisensory experience that enhances the sex. If you think about it, fantasies like this are really aimed at producing the same mental state that many BDSM practitioners are after: mindfulness, or being in the here and now. These elaborate fantasy settings are all about promoting relaxation and eliminating distractions in a way that allows one to more intensely experience both sex and the environment in which it takes place.

I asked my participants how often they had fantasized about sex in a number of specific locations and discovered that most people fantasize about having sex in multiple places. More than three-quarters reported fantasizing about sex in exotic locales (beaches and waterfalls), bodies of water (hot tubs, swimming pools, and showers), nature (forests and fields), hotels, and motor vehicles. Fewer, but still a majority, reported fantasizing about sex in highly public settings, such as in the workplace, at school, in a library, and on an airplane. People who fantasized about any one of these settings were more likely to have fantasized about the others, which suggests that settings are simply more important or desirable to some people.

What ties together the three major fantasy themes we’ve discussed thus far is that they’re all fundamentally about changing things up when it comes to sex—varying partners, sensations, activities, and settings. It makes perfect sense that fantasies about sexual variety are so popular in light of a mountain of research finding that our arousal tends to habituate or lessen over time in response to the same sexual stimulus. In order to get the juices flowing again, so to speak, we need to mix things up. This observation has been dubbed the Coolidge Effect, borrowing its name from a popular anecdote about former president Calvin Coolidge and his wife, Grace. 6 The story goes something like this: the first couple visited a chicken farm together, and on their guided tour, the president trailed a bit behind his wife. While visiting the hen yard, Mrs. Coolidge took note of one particularly potent rooster that went from one hen to the next. She asked the tour guide to be absolutely sure to point out that rooster to the president when he came by. The guide obliged. When President Coolidge arrived at the yard, he was informed of the rooster’s sexual prowess and, further, that his wife was the one who thought it should be brought to his attention. The president paused for a moment and responded, “Tell Mrs. Coolidge that there is more than one hen.”

Scientists have documented the Coolidge Effect by looking at what happens when people watch the same exact porn clip each day for a week or longer. What researchers typically find is that both men and women exhibit less arousal the more frequently they see the same erotic material. 7 By changing things up, not only can we reverse this trend, but we can potentially have more powerful orgasms, too. In one study, researchers asked straight men to masturbate to scenes from the same porno featuring the same two actors over a period of two weeks. 8 (Incidentally, I can only imagine the effect this study must have had on participants’ social lives: “I’m sorry, but I can’t go out tonight. I need to masturbate. For science.”) When these guys were finally given a new porn clip to watch at the end of the study (one in which the only real difference was that it involved a new actress), these men didn’t just ejaculate faster but also produced semen containing a greater number of active sperm. In other words, it seems that straight guys actually become more sexually potent upon seeing a new attractive woman!

So what’s behind the so-called Coolidge Effect, anyway? Increasingly, scientists believe there’s an evolutionary explanation, with some arguing that perhaps the Coolidge Effect evolved in order to support a nonmonogamous approach to mating. Think of it this way: being titillated by novelty decreases the odds that we’d pass up perfectly good mating opportunities. We can’t say for sure that this is why the Coolidge Effect exists, but the fact that it exists at all can help explain why so many of us find things like group sex, BDSM, and novel scenarios to be arousing: they offer just the kind of variety necessary to kick-start waning levels of sexual desire and solve our habituation problem.

The three major things the American id is craving are sex with multiple partners, BDSM, and sexual adventure/variety. As you’ve seen, each of these fantasies can take many forms, but certain forms are more desired than others. For instance, when it comes to multipartner sex, threesomes are preferred to orgies and gangbangs. With BDSM, Americans seem to want to spend a bit more time on bondage, submission, and masochism than they do on dominance and sadism. And when it comes to adventure/variety, Americans seem to care a little more about trying new sexual positions and activities than they do about having sex in new settings.

Any way you look at it, though, if you’re fantasizing about these types of things, you’re in good company, because almost everyone else is, too—due at least in part to the Coolidge Effect. However, these are far from the only kinds of fantasies that could be considered “normal” (in the sense of being statistically common). As I read through the thousands upon thousands of fantasies that I received, four other important themes emerged. Although they were less common than the big three fantasies, they were certainly still popular and clearly reflect other normative elements of the American id. So what kinds of desires are we talking about? Let’s take a look.

At the same time, though, the id has its gentler, more romantic side: Americans also crave passion and intimacy with the ones they love. We want to feel that sense of irresistible attraction to our partners—the kind where you and your lover literally can’t keep your hands off of each other. But we want to feel an emotional, sometimes spiritual connection to our partners as well. So it’s certainly not the case that our ids are one-note, inevitably calling out for sexual debauchery—they are also yearning for romance and comfort. Let’s start by talking about the debauchery, though. After all, it was a bit more popular.

Most of us have fantasized at one time or another about “forbidden fruit”—sexual activities that are considered taboo by our culture, society, or religion. In some ways, these fantasies are an extension of the novelty and adventure fantasies we discussed earlier; however, the specific sexual desires we’ll consider here are distinctly different from run-of-the-mill novelty fantasies in the sense that (1) taboo desires are more likely to be considered disgusting (like licking someone else’s feet); (2) some of these desires, like voyeurism and exhibitionism, would be illegal to act upon; and (3) almost all of these desires have been formally classified as paraphilias by the mental health community.

As we’ve already established, the term paraphilia necessarily implies that a given sexual interest is “uncommon” or “unusual”; however, my survey results suggest that taboo desires are actually pretty widespread. In fact, in my analysis of Americans’ favorite fantasies of all time, taboo activities emerged more often than did fantasies of love and romance! In addition, when asked whether they’ve ever fantasized about a number of different taboo and forbidden activities, most of my participants reported doing so at least once before. This isn’t to suggest that all taboo desires are common, though. The more deviant and extreme the desire, the rarer it tends to be. So what we’re going to focus on here are the three most common taboos that Americans get off on thinking about.

By far, the most common taboo activity Americans fantasize about is voyeurism. What we’re talking about here is the desire to watch other people undress or have sex without their knowledge or consent. Believe it or not, most of my participants (60 percent) reported having fantasized about this before! The point of voyeurism fantasies is to observe others without being seen. For example, one straight man in his fifties described his voyeurism fantasy as “being unnoticed and anonymously watching beautiful naked women masturbating.” “Spying” would therefore be another way to think about this.

Voyeurs imagine a wide range of scenarios. They include everything from snooping on other people’s sexual exploits through hidden video cameras (like Billy Baldwin’s character did in the 1993 erotic thriller Sliver ) to watching people undress through a peephole in the wall (à la Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Psycho ) to being invisible and sneaking into people’s bedrooms (as Kevin Bacon’s character did in the sci-fi flick Hollow Man ).

To be clear, voyeurism isn’t about becoming aroused in response to any and all visual sexual stimuli. Therefore, people who like to make love with the lights on, who enjoy visiting strip clubs, and who watch a lot of porn aren’t really displaying voyeuristic behavior. True voyeurism is nonconsensual in nature because it involves someone being spied upon without their awareness. Given that consent is lacking in these cases, voyeurism is illegal when the fantasy becomes reality.

Although it’s very common for people to have fantasized about voyeurism at least once before, not many people fantasize about it often. Most people prefer partnered, physical encounters to this more solitary activity. Most of us don’t want to risk being arrested, either. Research suggests that those who have voyeurism fantasies regularly tend to have difficulties establishing conventional sexual relationships, which tells us that very frequent voyeurism fantasies may be a sign that one has a deficit when it comes to sexual and/or romantic skills. 9

Fetishes are another popular taboo that appears in many Americans’ sexual fantasies. In fact, nearly half of the Americans I surveyed (45 percent) reported that they fantasize about fetish objects—objects that one relies on for feelings of sexual arousal. When this object is present during sex or masturbation, one typically has an easier time becoming and staying aroused and reaching orgasm. Some fetishes are very mild, meaning that the object isn’t absolutely necessary for one to enjoy sex. However, other fetishes are more intense, in the sense that one’s ability to become aroused and enjoy sex just isn’t the same in the absence of that fetish object.

People can have fetishes for virtually anything. Among the more unusual ones I’ve read about are cars, dirt, and medical devices (including, surprisingly enough, pacemakers—I wonder, is there an element of BDSM to this one?). More commonly, fetishes tend to involve articles of clothing, such as stockings, shoes, boots, or panties (sometimes well-used panties, like the contraband undies Piper Chapman peddles from prison in Orange Is the New Black ). People with fetishes may wear, look at, fondle, and/or smell their preferred item during sex. For example, a straight man in his forties described his favorite fantasy to me as masturbating while watching a woman model Lycra pantyhose: “My biggest fantasy has no intercourse involved. I place an ad in Craigslist looking for a woman who enjoys watching a man masturbate. The only catch is when she gets to my apartment, she puts on control top pantyhose, preferably made from Lycra. She doesn’t have to get nude, she can have a bra and panties on underneath. Or even a t-shirt. As she’s sliding her legs into the hose, I’m masturbating. After she’s done adjusting, she poses for me and encourages me to cum.” The question many of you are probably asking after reading this fantasy is, “Why Lycra?” Well, Lycra (or, as it’s more commonly known, spandex) is a very form-fitting fabric that essentially creates a second skin—you can still see someone’s body shape and features underneath it. Lyrca is one of the most common fabrics people develop fetishes for because it doesn’t hide anything, it can enhance the appearance of certain body parts (such as by making legs looking thinner and smoother), it has a unique texture, and people associate it with the genitals, since stockings, swimsuits, and underwear are often made from this material. The latter reason is probably why articles of clothing like bras and panties (regardless of material) tend to be among the most common fetish objects—they’re endowed with erotic significance by virtue of the fact that they come into contact with the breasts and genitals.

Body parts that aren’t typically a focus of sexual desire—things other than penises, breasts, vulvas, and butts—represent another common fetish object. Among the more common body parts that people sexualize are feet. In fact, one in seven survey participants reported having had a fantasy before in which feet or toes played a prominent role. For example, one “mostly straight” guy in his late teens described his fantasy in terms of touching, smelling, and licking other men’s feet: “We both lie in the bed naked. He suddenly, slowly moves his feet towards my face. We talk a little bit while I slowly massage his feet. I take multiple whiffs of his feet. He laughs, and I start to lick his soles and his toes.” Beyond feet, some find stomachs or abs, belly buttons, hands, or armpits to be sexually arousing. I should also clarify that breasts, genitals, and butts can rise to the level of fetish objects when people find that (1) they are only turned on by these body parts and (2) these body parts need to take on a very specific appearance in order to stimulate arousal. Think of straight guys who only go for women with extra-wide rear ends (as in, baby really got back), as well as straight women and gay men who only go for dudes with massive penises (the “size queen” fetish, as it has been dubbed in popular culture).

Where do fetishes come from? Most fetishes seem to be learned, in the sense that the people who have them can often tie their interests back to a very specific sexual experience in which their fetish object happened to be present when they had a very intense orgasm. This is something psychologists call one-trial learning, which refers to the idea that sometimes we learn associations between a stimulus and response on the very first try.

Something that contributes to this learning process is the fact that new sexual experiences are, in a way, giving us new types or kinds of orgasms that differ from those that came before. 10 This occurs because new sensations—things that we can see, smell, taste, hear, or feel—are modulating how aroused we are in that moment and how pleasurable the experience is. The sensations that we come to associate with greater pleasure and better orgasms then go on to become the focus of our sexual desires. Another way to think about this is that when it comes to sex, we don’t necessarily know in advance what we’re going to like until we try it. When we discover new sensations that we particularly enjoy, it can end up adjusting our threshold for orgasm and, ultimately, what we desire in future sexual encounters.

But how does that explain why we sometimes come to associate things with sex that gross a lot of people out, like feet? The other important part of this story is that sexual arousal reduces our disgust impulses, meaning that when we’re horny, the things we normally find to be gross don’t seem quite as bad. Consider a study in which young heterosexual men were asked to rate the appeal of twenty different sexual stimuli under two conditions: once while they were masturbating, and again while in an unaroused state. 11 The stimuli included a lot of things most people think are disgusting, from sex with animals to watching a woman urinate. Subjects rated these stimuli on a laptop in a private room. (The laptop was covered in plastic wrap to protect it from any, ahem, accidents.) Participants in the masturbation condition were explicitly told not to ejaculate and instead to maintain a “sub-orgasmic level of arousal.” In the end, it turned out that nineteen of the twenty stimuli were rated as more attractive in the masturbation condition. In other words, when these guys were aroused, almost everything and everyone seemed more attractive to them.

The question you’re probably wondering about is why —why would sexual arousal change our disgust response? Perhaps because sex itself can be a little messy. Some scientists believe that this is an evolutionarily adaptive response because toning down our disgust impulses might help to ensure that we don’t miss out when a good chance to reproduce comes our way. The unintended side effect, though, is that it opens the door to developing all kinds of fetishes and unusual sexual interests. It also helps to explain why so many people feel ashamed of themselves after they reach orgasm while watching porn—their disgust response kicks in before they can close all of their open internet browser tabs. I suspect this is why the Command-Option-W shortcut on Macs was invented.

Following closely on the heels of fetishism in popularity was exhibitionism, which involves exposing one’s genitals or engaging in a sex act while others look on. There are really two types of exhibitionism that differ based on the desired reaction of others to what you’re, um, “exhibiting”: Do they want to see it, in which case they’ll enjoy the show? Or are you planning to take them by surprise, in which case they’ll likely be shocked or offended? The former—consensual exhibitionism—was about four times more common among my survey participants than the latter, nonconsensual type (42 percent and 10 percent, respectively). This suggests that, in most exhibitionism fantasies, the goal is not to violate or offend onlookers—rather, the hope is that others will like what they see, such as in the scenario this straight female participant in her thirties described: “My male partner and I are in a storefront of a building on a very busy street. Instead of a window, it is a one-way mirror (people can see in, we can’t see out). We’re having sex while unknown passersby stop to watch.”

Consensual exhibitionism fantasies are similar to the public-sex fantasies we previously discussed. However, whereas those public-sex fantasies emphasized arousal from the prospect that one could potentially be observed, the fantasies we’re talking about here focus on people who know for a fact that they are being observed. In other words, consensual exhibitionism isn’t about arousal from the fear that one might be caught but rather arousal from knowing that others are watching—and taking pleasure in what they’re seeing. So there’s a certain amount of pleasure derived here from the simple knowledge that others think you’re hot.

Nonconsensual exhibitionism is quite different in that it’s necessarily illegal when this fantasy becomes reality because those who are observing aren’t willing participants. As was the case with frequent voyeurism fantasies, those who have a strong desire for nonconsensual exhibitionism tend to have difficulties establishing conventional relationships and may be lacking in social skills. 12

Related to the previous category of taboo and forbidden sexual desires are fantasies about nonmonogamous relationships—relationships in which people are free to pursue more than one sexual and/or romantic partner at the same time. Given that monogamy is the norm in modern America, departures from it tend to be considered deviant. Of course, nonmonogamy fantasies also overlap with multipartner fantasies in that they are fundamentally about having more than one sex partner. However, the difference is that nonmonogamy fantasies don’t necessarily involve several people having sex as a group; rather, they’re about having a relationship in which the partners agree that certain forms of outside sexual activity are acceptable.

Most people who have nonmonogamy fantasies are in monogamous relationships themselves. For the most part, these folks want to keep their partners; however, they want to augment their relationships by bringing other sexual and/or romantic partners into the mix. Most people want to do this consensually, though, meaning these fantasies aren’t necessarily about infidelity per se. Instead, in nonmonogamy fantasies, one’s partner has provided their consent or blessing. Also, it may surprise you to learn that these folks aren’t just fantasizing about being nonmonogamous themselves; they may fantasize about their partners being nonmonogamous as well—and sometimes a partner’s nonmonogamy is an even bigger turn-on.

Like all of the other fantasy themes we’ve considered so far, nonmonogamy fantasies can take many forms; again, though, these fantasies reflect an element of mutual consent more often than not. In fact, fantasizing specifically about nonconsensual nonmonogamy—that is, cheating and infidelity—was actually quite rare when I combed through my participants’ favorite fantasies of all time: less than one-half of 1 percent specifically described their favorite fantasy of all time as “cheating,” “infidelity,” or “adultery.” By contrast, it was almost ten times more common for people to say their favorite fantasy reflected some form of consensual nonmonogamy (CNM). Likewise, when I looked at whether participants had ever fantasized about cheating or certain forms of CNM, like, say, having an open relationship or being polyamorous, both men and women were far more likely to say they’d fantasized about the latter. This suggests that Americans find the prospect of mutually agreeable nonmonogamy much more arousing than the secretive and deceptive kind.

So what does a CNM fantasy look like? Being in an open relationship was the most common form this fantasy took (79 percent of men and 62 percent of women had fantasized about it before). In an open relationship, the partners consent to a set of rules that allow one or both of them to pursue sex with others. As described by a straight man in his forties, “I repeatedly fantasize about being in an open relationship with my wife. Whether it is her or I with other people, either strangers or acquaintances, this is my biggest fantasy that I’ve never shared with her.” As this example illustrates, what we’re really talking about here are relationships in which people maintain one long-term romantic partner, but each person has some amount of outside sexual freedom.

Polyamory was the next most commonly fantasized about form of CNM, reported by 51 percent of women and 70 percent of men. Polyamory is different from being in an open relationship in the sense that the partners agree to have multiple sexual and/or romantic relationships simultaneously. Thus, polyamorous individuals may maintain several intimate, committed relationships at the same time. For example, a straight man in his forties described his favorite fantasy as “a full polyamorous relationship where all parties are both emotionally and physically compatible and involved.”

Following open relationships and polyamory in popularity was swinging, which 66 percent of men and 45 percent of women said they had fantasized about. This refers to the desire to temporarily exchange or swap romantic partners, such as when two heterosexual married couples swap spouses for an evening. Other swingers engage in full swap, in which each person involved has sex with everyone else, regardless of gender, such as in this fantasy submitted by a man in his thirties who identified as “mostly straight”: “I am bisexual, but only interested in a physical relationship with another man. I fantasize about fulfilling this with a full swap with my wife and another couple. Obviously, the other man would need to be bi as well.”

Some swingers prefer for everyone to have sex in the same room during the swap because they find it arousing to watch their partners receive pleasure from others and/or because they want to make more than one swap. However, others are unsure of how they’d feel about seeing their partners have sex with someone else, like this straight man in his thirties: “My top fantasy is swinging. I don’t know if I would feel comfortable or not seeing my wife with other men, nor do I think she would enjoy seeing me with other women. However, the thought of open sex between a group of friends is highly arousing.”

Related to swinging is a practice in which people agree to let their partners have sex with other people, as long as they can watch it happen or at least hear about it later. In colloquial terms, this is known as cuckolding or cuckqueaning, depending upon whether the observer/listener is male or female. In psychological terms, it is known as troilism, and it has been classified as a paraphilia.

Interestingly, a majority of men who took my survey (58 percent) reported having had this fantasy before, and more than a quarter of them said they fantasize about it often, suggesting that, at least for men, this is far from rare or unusual, as the paraphilia label implies. These fantasies were a bit less common among women (just over one-third of female participants reported having them), but they certainly weren’t unheard-of.

The men I surveyed were more likely to fantasize about their partners having sex with others than they were to fantasize about having sex while their partners looked on. For women, however, the reverse was true. This suggests that men and women find different roles more arousing in cuckolding scenarios. To illustrate this idea, consider this fantasy submitted by a man in his fifties who identified as “mostly straight”: “I would like to see my wife from a distance sitting at a bar in a classy restaurant and being picked up by a complete stranger. They would make out a little before leaving the restaurant and then—after having the most amazing sex—come back. He goes his way, after which my wife joins me at the table where I was sitting in the first place. Then we get into our car and make love and have steaming sex before we go home.” In this case, the man didn’t necessarily even want to see the sex his wife was having—he just wanted to know it had taken place. Most of the guys I surveyed wanted to watch their partners in the act, but for some, it clearly wasn’t essential.

By contrast, consider this scenario, submitted by a straight woman in her thirties: “I am currently living out my sexual fantasy in my marriage. A mutual friend of ours comes over at least once per week and fucks me hard while my husband sits in the corner, watches me, and strokes himself. It is so hot. I love having the confidence to stare in my husband’s eyes and tell him how great my lover’s cock feels as he is thrusting in and out of me.” Most of the women I surveyed who reported fantasies about cuckolding described scenarios along these lines, in which they had sex while their partners watched or they simply told their partners about it after the fact. However, there were a few women who wanted their partners to go out and have sex with others, like this straight woman in her forties who said: “I love watching my husband have sex with other women. I like to be a part of the start of the relationship through to the sex and have sex with my husband after he’s been with another woman. I don’t get jealous and nothing arouses me more. If I don’t get to watch, I love him to describe his encounter in graphic detail as we have sex.”

As you may have noticed, cuckolding fantasies often feature elements of submission and masochism, and this appears to be especially true in heterosexual relationships where the man plays the role of observer. In these fantasies, the man is often humiliated, sometimes for having a small penis, such as in this scenario submitted by a straight man in his fifties:

In heterosexual men’s cuckolding fantasies, the men are ceding all power and control to their wives or girlfriends and taking on a rather submissive and sometimes masochistic role. This frequent overlap with BDSM makes cuckolding stand out from other nonmonogamy fantasies.

Although open relationships, polyamory, swinging, and cuckolding are all practiced very differently, they do share some similarities in terms of their psychological origins. Of course, all of these forms of nonmonogamy can potentially be explained through the lens of the Coolidge Effect in the sense that they offer sexual variety and therefore help fend off habituation of arousal. However, they can also be explained through self-expansion theory, the idea that humans have a need to continually grow and expand the self in order to be satisfied with their lives. 13 We can meet this need by having new experiences, learning new things, and developing new relationships. From this perspective, then, fantasies about consensual nonmonogamy can be viewed as an outgrowth of our ongoing quest for self-expansion. An alternative way to think about this is that monogamy has a tendency to thwart self-expansion because monogamous sex can easily become predictable and stale if the partners aren’t careful. Consensual nonmonogamy allows one to maintain a valued relationship while also introducing an avenue for continually fulfilling one’s expansion needs.

In contrast to the consensual nature of open relationships, polyamory, swinging, and cuckolding, some people fantasize about straight-up infidelity or adultery. However, among those who described this as their favorite fantasy of all time, the arousing part seemed to be the thrill of sneaking around or potentially being caught more than anything else, such as this bisexual woman in her late teens described: “I’m cheating on my boyfriend with my coworker while waiting for my boyfriend to come home so we have to be quick and it has to be dirty and fast.” For others, the appeal of cheating fantasies is more about doing something “bad,” such as this “mostly straight” woman in her twenties told me: “Having an affair with an often older, married, influential man. I just like the idea of doing something wrong and immoral—perhaps even a little ‘gross’ because they have many more years on me. I don’t really fantasize about living with or being in the life of this man—I basically just want him around for me to tease and have sex with whenever I want. Plus the allure of sneaking around is attractive to me.” As you can see, compared to CNM fantasies, infidelity fantasies appear to have quite different motivations behind them. Infidelity fantasies seem to have more in common with the adventure/variety and taboo fantasies we discussed earlier.

The fantasies we’ll consider in this section are quite different from the others we’ve seen thus far in that they typically have a strong emphasis on emotional fulfillment. This can include everything from just wanting to feel desired to sharing a deep, intimate connection with another person. In other words, these fantasies go well beyond simply gratifying a sexual urge—they also help us to meet profound emotional needs, especially something called the need to belong. 14 Social psychologists believe that human beings have a fundamental need to develop and maintain strong social connections throughout their lives. This need is second only to basic survival needs—things like thirst, hunger, and safety. It’s really that important. In fact, when our need to belong isn’t met, our physical health and psychological well-being deteriorate. And if we go for a prolonged period of time without meeting this need for social connection, there could potentially even be implications for how long we live. We can meet our need to belong in many ways, including through our families, friends, and coworkers. However, perhaps the single most important way we can do this is through our romantic and sexual relationships. In fact, for many people, romantic partners are their ultimate source of need fulfillment, which is why losing a partner to death or divorce can be so devastating. In light of this, fantasies about emotionally connecting with a partner can largely been seen as an outgrowth of this very powerful need to belong—the need to establish, or in some cases reestablish, a strong social connection.

Perhaps not surprisingly, desires for intimacy and emotional connection tend to be tied to particular people, as opposed to, say, just another hot body with a generic face. The specific partner involved in these fantasies is often just as important—if not more so—than the sexual activity that’s taking place. What may surprise you, though, is that fantasies about meeting emotional needs don’t live up to gender stereotypes. Fantasies about being desired, validated, loved, and bonded to a partner are common among both women and men—and in part, that’s because the need to belong is not something that’s specific to one gender.

First, people who described their favorite fantasies in terms of passion, desire, and lust tended to be looking for just one thing: intense sexual attraction. Beyond that, the connection between the partners didn’t necessarily go any deeper. In some cases, my participants described a strong attraction that was mutual, meaning the partners couldn’t keep their hands off of each other; however, most of them described an attraction that flowed more in one direction than the other. Most commonly, this involved fantasies about being sexually irresistible, such as this straight woman in her twenties who said: “I love imagining myself with a man who is crazy about my body, especially my breasts. I love that feeling when I imagine that I am his fantasy girl and my body is his fantasy body.” Another woman, also in her twenties but who identified herself as “mostly straight,” described a similar desire to have a male partner who is totally mad for her: “I guess it’s just that my partner comes home and wants me so bad that he throws me against a wall, rips off all my clothes and fucks me right there in the living room. Not super kinky or weird, but it’s nice to be wanted that much, you know?” Women aren’t the only ones who fantasize about being wanted, though—a lot of men do, too, such as this straight man in his thirties whose ultimate fantasy is “to be wanted and desired over everything and everyone. For me, the technicalities don’t matter. I only fantasize about my partner (or crush if I don’t have one).” His point that the “technicalities don’t matter” is emblematic of this type of fantasy: the specific sex acts themselves are secondary; what matters more than anything else is the intensity of passion and attraction.

By contrast, people who described their favorite fantasies in terms of love, intimacy, and romance tended to be looking for strong sexual attraction coupled with an intimate emotional connection—something along the lines of the epic love scenes you may have observed in films like Ghost, Titanic, or The Notebook. In other words, these fantasies tend to involve very passionate sex that is either an expression of the partners’ deeper underlying feelings or a way of strengthening—or creating—an emotional bond. As you’ll see below, these fantasies tended to be much more detailed than the passion-only fantasies, with participants taking a lot of time to set the scene. For example, one straight woman in her twenties described a very elaborate romance fantasy that begins on the beach: “I fantasize about making love to my partner in an intimate and romantic setting surrounded by the beach, listening to the sounds of the waves as I’m in his arms. He will caress me intensely, pulling my body close as we make love to the sounds of the ocean from morning until sunset. We will engage in multiple positions and in multiple sections of the house, with wet, soaked bodies entangled amongst one another. With passion, connection, and endless love.” These fantasies aren’t just about feeling connected to a current partner, though—sometimes they’re about reconnecting with “the one who got away.” For example, a “mostly straight” guy in his late teens said his favorite fantasy ends with him getting back together with his ex-girlfriend:

My favorite fantasy is one in which I am back together with my ex, whom I care about very much. We would be making out in bed and I would slowly strip her clothes off. She would let me kiss my way down her body before pleasing her orally…. She would then mount me and we would make love for a while. In the throes of passion, she would leave long scratches down my back and maybe a few bite marks on my neck and shoulders. I would stand up and support her weight against the wall as her legs wrap around my waist and we continue in this position. Afterwards, we would transition to the bed and she would let me take her doggy style. Leaning over her, I would kiss her neck as I pump in and out of her. After having her climax once or twice, I would be nearing my own orgasm. She would kneel beside the bed and let me finish on her face and breasts…. We would then spend the day in bed, having sex and making love in various positions all day long…. I would cook her a romantic dinner…. We would eventually fall asleep together, spooning. In the end, we would know that the next morning, we would both wake up having the love of our life next to us.

Other times, these fantasies are about creating a sense of intimacy with a completely new partner or someone with whom there is no prior sexual or romantic history. For example, a straight woman in her thirties talked about her desire to emotionally connect with a good friend through sex: “I fantasize about a man that I have desired for over a year…. I am hoping once I am divorced, one day we can explore a physical relationship. The fantasies are always different, perhaps like a future encounter. In some, I fantasize about him being confident, demanding and passionate; other times sweet, gentle, unsure. Perhaps they reflect what I need from him at the time. I have also fantasized about trying new sexual experiences with him. But most often it is achieving an emotional connection with him during urgent, hot, erotic, passionate sex.” And yet other times, these fantasies are about the emotional connection one hopes to feel during one’s very first sexual experience. In other words, people often romanticize the thought of losing their virginity, such as this gay man in his twenties:

I like to imagine what my first time having sex will be like…. My partner and I are in bed together naked. We both initiate foreplay by kissing each other… caressing, cuddling, and whispering sweet, erotic things to each other. He then moves on top of me and starts licking my nipples and kissing the rest of my upper body as he makes his way toward my private parts. He then proceeds to give me fellatio. Sometimes I give my partner fellatio too. My partner then proceeds to give me anal sex and he gently thrusts into me while we hug and kiss each other. We both climax together and we simply finish by lying together, cuddling and kissing each other.

When looking at my participants’ favorite fantasies of all time, passion and romance were nowhere near as popular as group sex, BDSM, and novelty. However, they turned out to be extraordinarily common when I looked at whether participants reported having ever had them. In fact, most of my participants—male and female—reported having previously fantasized about loved ones (current and former partners), about fulfilling a wide range of emotional needs (such as feeling loved, desired, and reassured), and about having sex in romantic settings. So, while these things don’t tend to appear high on the list of people’s favorite fantasies, it’s clear that they do exist in almost everyone’s fantasy repertoire. What this means is that most Americans don’t just fancy an endless stream of mechanical sex acts—we also want to have sexual experiences that make us feel something. At least sometimes.

The final major fantasy theme I identified involves the desire for flexibility with respect to one’s gender and/or sexuality. In other words, we’re talking about fantasies in which people fundamentally reject binary notions of gender—that everyone is either male or female—and/or rigid notions of sexual orientation—for example, that being heterosexual means you can only be interested in partners of the opposite sex. In these fantasies, people are basically “bending” their gender or sexual orientation, such as by literally transforming into someone of a different gender, having a transsexual partner, or being heterosexual and desiring a same-sex experience.

This fantasy theme overlaps, to some extent, with both the novelty and taboo categories because it involves interjecting something new, exciting, and different into sex while simultaneously breaking cultural norms and rules for what people of a certain gender or sexual orientation are “supposed” to desire sexually. However, I thought it was important to cover these fantasies separately from the others because they suggest something far more important about Americans’ sexual psychology than the fact that we’re turned on by doing new and naughty things. These fantasies are revealing of an underlying sense of flexibility and fluidity in how Americans think about their gender and sexual identities.

There are really two broad categories of fantasies here. First, we have what I term gender-bending fantasies, in which a person may imagine cross-dressing or changing genders, or having sex with a cross-dressing or transgender partner. Second, we have what I term sexual flexibility fantasies, which feature sexual desires that are seemingly inconsistent with one’s own sexual orientation. To give you a better flavor of what each of these fantasies is all about, we’ll consider them separately below.

If we look at the participants whose favorite fantasy of all time was gender-bending, the most common words used to describe their desires were “cross-dressing,” “feminization,” “genderplay,” and “transgender/transsexual.” Although these words obviously have very different meanings, I see them as really reflecting just two things. On the one hand, you have those folks whose interest in gender-bending involves getting it on after changing their own gender identity or role in some way. For example, some participants expressed an interest in cross-dressing. These folks reported that donning the garb of the other sex—or being forced to do so—is a sexually arousing act, like this straight guy in his twenties who told me that his biggest fantasy is simply to have sex in women’s clothing: “I would like to have sex with a girl while I am dressed in women’s clothes (like a dress, nightgown, bra and panties, etc.).” A man in his thirties who identified as “mostly straight” went a bit further in his fantasy, wanting to be feminized from head to toe: “I want to be feminized by my partner. I want her to turn me into a girl by dressing me in girls’ clothes, keeping my body shaved, making me wear make-up. I want to be subservient to her, with her in control of whether or not I can have sexual release.” As the latter example illustrates, there’s sometimes an element of dominance-submission and/or humiliation involved in cross-dressing fantasies; however, in cases like this, it is almost exclusively men who want to be “feminized” by a dominant female partner—I didn’t read a single fantasy about a woman who wanted to be masculinized by a male partner. Thus, at least for men, fantasies about cross-dressing may sometimes be viewed as an extension of a more general interest in BDSM.

That said, other folks’ gender-bending fantasies went well beyond cross-dressing and involved a desire to physically become a member of the opposite sex, or to at least have the genitalia of the other sex. In other words, we’re talking about fantasies that involve people transforming their sexual anatomy. The imagined transition can be grounded in reality, such as by undergoing genital surgery, or it can be a work of science fiction, like waking up in someone else’s body (just as happened in the films All of Me and The Hot Chick ). The arousal in these fantasies is often based on how transforming into the other sex makes them feel. For example, a woman who fantasizes about being a man may enjoy the feelings of dominance and power that go along with switching to a new gender identity, such as this “mostly straight” woman in her twenties described:

Other times, however, the arousal may stem from an attraction to the opposite sex that is essentially turned inward, such as when a heterosexual man is aroused by the prospect of having a woman’s body, like this “mostly straight” guy in his twenties: “I am a male but have autogynephilia; the attraction to thinking of myself as a woman. Although I have never cross-dressed and do not desire to ever do so, I experience some of the most intense sexual desire when I imagine myself as a female. This is often imagined in a sexual capacity with one or more female partners…. Rarely does the desire to have sex with a fellow male come up, but will occasionally during these fantasies.” I’m sure most of you aren’t familiar with autogynephilia, a term that literally means “love of oneself as a woman,” but some sex researchers have argued that this is what motivates a subset of biological men who seek gender affirmation surgery (formerly known as sex reassignment surgery ). 15 We’ll explore this concept in more detail later in the book, including some of the controversies surrounding it. However, for now, I just want to make the point that the fantasies I received about transsexualism paint a different picture than the narrative we’ve heard in the media, which suggests that transsexualism is only about “women trapped in men’s bodies” and “men trapped in women’s bodies”—a narrative suggesting that transitioning from one sex to the other is about only matters of identity, not sexuality. This is all we’ve ever heard reported when celebrities, like Caitlyn Jenner, publicly announce that they’re changing genders. While I believe this media narrative is true in most cases, my survey results support the idea that, at least sometimes, transsexualism may be driven by sexual arousal at the thought of changing into the other sex.

Now, let’s talk about the other class of gender-bending fantasies. Rather than bending one’s own gender, these fantasies involve having sex with a partner who is bending their gender role or expression in some way. For example, this can mean having sex with someone who is cross-dressing, or who is being forced to cross-dress, as this “mostly straight” woman in her thirties described: “I dominate my male lover, make him wear lingerie. I have sex with my other male lover, who is young and fit and beautiful. I also make my lingerie-clad lover have sex with him.” As you can see, when women fantasize about having sex with a cross-dressing male partner, there is sometimes an element of BDSM to it, just as we discussed in the case of men who fantasize about being cross-dressers.

Beyond desires for cross-dressing partners, some folks fantasize about having sex with persons who are transgender or transsexual, or who have both male and female genitalia. Of those participants who fantasized about this, the key thing that most people seemed to find arousing was the juxtaposition of masculine and feminine body features. For instance, one bisexual woman in her thirties described her desire to have sex with a partner who is biologically male below the waist but female above: “My ultimate fantasy would be to have sex with a transgender pre-op male. I love the look and feel of a woman-on-woman encounter. And I enjoy the penetration of a man. The visual of a female and the feeling of a man is a big turn on for me.” A straight man in his fifties described his desire for a partner with a similar body:

I meet an attractive lady with long hair, nice round ass, sultry looking. She and I immediately desire each other and then she says she’s different. She mentions she has a cock and that doesn’t bother me. I lean over and we kiss passionately. We go up to a hotel room and she undresses, nice satin panties and beautiful tits. I rub her panties and feel her get erect. Pulling out her cock I stroke it and she moans. Laying on her back I keep stroking and then she takes over jerking off until a huge load shoots on her belly. She turns over and offers me her plump ass, I stroke myself erect and enter her, it’s tight and firm, she starts stroking her cock again while I fuck her. I feel her starting to cum again and she tightens around my cock. After she cums again I pull out and I start stroking my cock, she fingers my ass and I explode all over her.

By contrast, a gay man in his twenties told me about his desire for a partner who had the reverse physical appearance—biologically female below the waist but male above: “Missionary position with a FTM [female-to-male] transgender person in which he fully resembled a man but had the female genitalia. This is the most recent and most intense fantasy that I can remember. I am a gay male and this is not a fantasy I thought I would ever have.” All of these fantasies are examples of what have been dubbed erotical illusions, cases in which sexual cues are combined in a unique way that tricks the brain into feeling intense sexual arousal. 16 We’ll return to this idea a little later in the book.

So just how common are all of these gender-bending fantasies we’ve been talking about? When looking at my participants’ favorite fantasies of all time, gender-bending was relatively low on the list; however, when I asked whether people had ever fantasized about it, it turned out that a surprisingly large number had. For instance, about one-quarter of men and women had fantasized about cross-dressing, and nearly a third had fantasized about trading bodies with someone of the other sex. In addition, about one in four men and one in six women had fantasized about sex with a cross-dresser, and even more (about one in three men and one in four women) had fantasized about sex with a transsexual partner. My findings revealed that virtually all gender-bending fantasies were more common among men than women, for reasons we’ll explore in the next chapter.

Let’s now consider those participants whose favorite fantasy of all time was sexual flexibility, or sex acts that are seemingly inconsistent with one’s sexual orientation. The most common words used to describe these fantasies included “lesbian,” “gay,” and “bisexual.” Therefore, what we’re primarily talking about here are fantasies in which people—usually heterosexual—are aroused by the thought of having sex with someone of the same sex. This includes heterosexual women who fantasize about having sex with other women, such as this woman in her thirties: “I am a heterosexual female but I enjoy fantasizing about lesbian sex most often. I picture women going down on me or vice versa.” A straight woman in her twenties expressed similar sentiments, though hers was based on a past real-life experience: “To have lesbian sex with my best friend, or to have lesbian sex with an experienced partner, without having romantic feelings/relationships/affiliation afterwards. I want to feel what it would be like to have casual lesbian sex. I often picture sucking my best friend’s nipples at a sleep over and making her wet and rubbing our pussies together. I have mutually masturbated one of my good friends and I would love to do that again without feeling awkward or shamed.”

Of course, there were also straight men who had fantasized about what it would be like to have sex with other men. Interestingly, these fantasies most commonly took place in the context of a threesome that also involved a woman, such as this straight guy in his twenties who told me: “I’m a straight guy, but I really want to have sex with a man and a woman at the same time. I want to be with the man as well, touch him, and have sex with him.” Same goes for this straight twentysomething dude:

I describe myself as straight. However, I’ve always wanted to participate in a bisexual threesome with another man and a woman…. My fantasy does include giving and receiving oral sex to/from both the male and female participants. Also, me being between the male and female on my hands and knees going down on the female while the male is giving me anal. I would also enjoy giving the male anal. I would also like to be having vaginal intercourse with the woman while I’m getting it in the ass…. I would also like to be the male giving it to the other male in the above situations. It would be important for the woman involved to enjoy what was taking place between myself and the other man, as that’s a huge turn-on for me.

It’s interesting to note that, in both of these men’s fantasies, the guys were quick to first establish their heterosexuality before declaring a desire to experiment sexually with men—but they really only wanted to do this experimenting in the presence of a woman. Why? Perhaps because it somehow feels less gay to have sex with a man when you’re also having sex with a woman. In other words, maybe this scenario is less of a threat to these men in terms of how they view their own sexuality and/or sense of masculinity.

Although homoeroticism was the most common type of sexual flexibility fantasy, it’s important to note that some people who identified as gay or lesbian said they had fantasies about heterosexual sex—in other words, lesbians who fantasized about sex with men and gay men who fantasized about sex with women. Case in point, a lesbian woman in her forties described her ultimate fantasy as “heterosexual sex. Male domination without violence. The male has to work hard to get the female to engage in sexual activity. Male is an alpha male with an athletic body. The female can’t resist his sexual advances.” Likewise, a man in his forties who identifies as “mostly gay” simply said “as a gay man, I often fantasize how it feels to penetrate a woman.” As you can see, sexual flexibility is far from unique to heterosexuals—many gays and lesbians apparently find “heteroeroticism” appealing!

Sexual flexibility fantasies appear to be very common, especially among heterosexual women. In fact, 59 percent of the women I surveyed who identified as exclusively straight reported having had fantasies about sex with women! By contrast, just 26 percent of exclusively straight men I surveyed reported fantasies about sex with men. I should also say that lesbians were more likely to have heterosexual fantasies than were gay men, but overall, gays and lesbians were less likely to have heterosexual fantasies than straight folks were to have gay fantasies. Why is that? To some extent, these fantasies reflect basic curiosity about different kinds of sex, and gays and lesbians probably don’t have as much curiosity about heterosexual sex as straight persons have about gay sex. The reason for this is that so many gays and lesbians have heterosexual experiences before coming out. In other words, the curiosity factor is likely to be lower for gays and lesbians because many of them have already experimented with heterosexual sex.

One other point I’d like to make here is that, while women had more fantasies about bending their sexual orientation than did men, men had more fantasies about bending their gender than did women. There are some fascinating psychological theories that can help to explain this gender difference, which we’ll explore shortly.

Again, to be perfectly clear, I’m calling these fantasies “normal” in the sense that they are common. This is not to say that everyone who has one of these fantasies should go out and act on it—that’s another matter entirely. For one thing, there are potential risks inherent in acting on any type of sexual fantasy that are important to consider—risks to both you and any relationship(s) you might have. For another, while perfectly normal to imagine, some of these fantasies would be illegal to act out (like voyeurism and sex in public) and/or have the potential to cause harm to others. Thus, we don’t just want to start gratifying our ids no matter what they’re telling us—but at the same time, we don’t want to overcensor our ids, either, because that’s a recipe for sexual dissatisfaction and frustration. We therefore need a delicate balancing act between the two, and how to accomplish that is something we’ll come back to toward the end of the book.