My Secret Garden – Women’s Sexual Fantasies by Nancy Friday (Review and Quotes)

Right off the bat she gets into one of the craziest fantasies I’ve read, just to give you a taste of things to come. Now don’t get the book wrong, it’s not just a collection of fantasies… well it is but it’s more than that. It’s something every woman should read to get some awareness.

A book men would be very uncomfortable or very aroused with and a confessional for women where they get to realise that other women are on the same boat. A big theme in the whole book is women explaining themselves or justifying their fantasies instead of just embracing the fantasies as part of them and what gets them going. I personally enjoyed it and have to admit to extending my bus journeys sometimes to read more… and sometimes because it would not be appropriate to stand up at that specific time.

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Parts that stood for me:
– Here is some incidental data on the subject of fantasy and masturbation that I found interesting: Most of the women I talked to remember their first sexual fantasies and their first masturbation to have occurred at about the same time, usually between seven and eleven (for reasons I don’t understand, these two ages, seven and eleven, are the specific years most often mentioned). Also, when they do masturbate they don’t fantasise about the same things that they do during sex.

“The Road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom,”
William Blake.

– And this part of the book that I just don’t agree with. In my experience it’s always been the opposite. ‘Ever since Adam, men have rolled over onto their side of the bed, lit a cigarette, and asked, “What were you thinking about?” And the woman has answered, “Nothing.” Or the more outspoken, “You.” How can men have really believed them all this time?’

– The whole big black man fantasy is amazing as a fantasy and not as fulfilling in reality.

– The one thing that threw me back was the ‘Women do look’ pages.

Quotes
– No man can be really free in bed with a woman who is not.
– Who said “ladies” don’t use words like “f**k” and “c**t,” or that one doesn’t use them around “ladies”? Maybe not when you’re having lunch with a lady, but when a lady’s f**king, she’s not having lunch.
– Rape does for a woman’s sexual fantasy what the first martini does for her in reality: both relieve her of responsibility and guilt.
– Inside every adult male is a denied little boy.
– I think biologically we are attracted to more than one person, but given society and our needs, monogamy works better.
– I’m sure it’s why I’m such an odd duck in my feminist generation, because I’ve always been equally fair to men.
– For many women, fantasy is a way of exploring, safely, all the ideas and actions which might frighten them in reality.
– Assume we are all in favor of that, of anything that leads to sex.
– We women are traditionally prone to and expert at fantasy.

Contents
– FOREWORD by “J,”

– CHAPTER 1 – “TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE
THINKING ABOUT,” HE SAID

– CHAPTER TWO – “WHY FANTASIZE WHEN YOU HAVE ME?”
Frustration
Insufficiency
Sex enhancement
Foreplay
Approval
Exploration
Sexual initiative
Insatiability
Daydreams
Masturbation
The lesbians

– CHAPTER THREE – THE HOUSE OF FANTASY
Room number 1: Anonymity
Room number 2: The audience
Room number 3: Rape
Room number 4: Pain and masochism
Room number 5: Domination
Room number 6: The sexuality of terror
Room number 7: Thrill of the forbidden
Room number 8: Transformation room
Room number 9: The earth mother room
Room number 10: Incest
Room number 11: The zoo
Room number 12: Big black men
Room number 13: Young boys
Room number 14: The fetishists
Room number 15: Other women
Room number 16: Prostitution

– CHAPTER FOUR – “WHERE DID A NICE GIRL LIKE YOU GET AN IDEA LIKE THAT?”
Childhood
Sounds
Women do look
Seeing and reading
Random associations

– CHAPTER FIVE – GUILT AND FANTASY, OR, WHY THE FIG LEAF?
Women’s guilt
Men’s anxiety

– CHAPTER SIX – FANTASY ACCEPTED
“Of course I fantasize, doesn’t everyone?”
Fantasies that should be reality
Acting out fantasies, pros and cons
Sharing fantasies

– CHAPTER SEVEN
Quickies

– AFTERWORD – “IN DEFENSE OF NANCY FRIDAY” by Martin Shepard, M.D., psychiatrist

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