Forbidden Flowers (23 page)

PART TWO

THE USES

OF

SEXUAL FANTASY

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CHAPTER FIVE

DAYDREAMING

Life can be seen as an effort toward equilibrium. If we are hungry, we eat. Tired? We rest. If we've been using our minds too strenuously, we long for physical exercise or a walk in the woods. This is also true of our inner selves … although many of our mental efforts at maintaining equilibrium hover on the border of unconsciousness. Daydreaming while going about the ordinary chores of the day is one of these activities.

Usually, our daydreams pass out of our mind without leaving a trace behind. A chance question from a neighbor, the ringing of a telephone – and suddenly we are focused on the here and now, the large part of our idle reveries forgotten.

Unlike unconscious fantasies, however, it is usually not too difficult to re-summon and examine our daydreams. If we do, they can tell us a lot about who we are and what is missing from our lives. This is most obviously truce in the Walter Mitty kind of daydream indulged in by the average-man-lost-in-the-crowd. In his reveries, the most overblown ambitions come true. The unusual thing about sexual daydreaming is that the daydreams do not often come to women who have no sex at all.

When repression is that total, sexual daydreaming is pushed underground too. Much more often, I find that women's erotic daydreams are not so much about sex itself but are about a kind of sex they have not had, or will not allow themselves. It is the effort of their imagination to supply something that is missing from their real lives.

I bridle when people try to dismiss daydreams as unimportant because they are “unreal.” They are just as real as the experience of reading a novel, listening to music, or looking at paintings. They are all efforts of the mind to present us with a more satisfying order of reality, a beauty we might otherwise never have known. Jane Eyre never existed in the real world, but I am the richer for Charlotte Brontë's story about her. (After 156

all, couldn't a novel itself be described as a disciplined daydream?)

Ordinarily, our daydreams of happiness are abruptly followed by feelings of disappointment and/or guilt. The pendu-lum is swinging back toward equilibrium, but goes right through the median point of stasis. We overreact; it is as if we cannot find a balance again until we have paid with mental rue and regret for the fantasized pleasures we have just pictured for ourselves. Talking about the anxieties aroused in us by our imagined actions or delights, Dr. Erik Erikson
(Childhood and
Society)
says, “… our irrational worry … our fear of having aroused actually quite disinterested, and antagonized quite well-meaning people, our fantasized atonements and childish repetitions, may well surprise us.”

The barriers to our happiness, the limits we allow ourselves, are more often within ourselves than outside. For fear that the man we love may think badly of us, we hesitate to ask him for simple sexual pleasures we have every right to. In our own minds, we change him from a lover to a critic … even worse, we make him a critic so harsh that
we
know in advance
he will disapprove. Therefore, we avoid the test of reality and never ask him, never give him a chance to show us how much he himself might welcome our requests for as yet untasted pleasures. It is our own unnecessarily strict, even sadistic, consciences that keep us from sexual pleasure we have every right to enjoy.

In her very romantic letter, Lulu describes an event that she could not allow herself to have, even though the time, the place, and even the man were “right.” She entitles her fantasy,

“An Ideal Sexual Encounter.” But at the peak of the event in real life, “my automatic `No, thank you' intruded …. Were I to have enough courage, I would have whispered a simplèYes, I want to.' “

Lulu's letter then goes on to describe a simple daydream of happiness. While she may regret that she denied herself the fulfillment of this experience for the rest of her life, in her daydream it is hers after all. An effort of the imagination has re-paired the torn fabric of the past.

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Lulu

I enjoyed your book and found the honest exposure of sexual impulse very freeing and enlightening myself.

As you can see, I was quite reserved and conflicted prior to becoming married, but the impulse and fantasies were very much alive.

P.S. I am thirty-two, married for the second time, and
very
happy.
I have a master's degree and am employed full time in my profession. No children are planned in our future.

An Ideal Sexual Encounter

In truth, my ideal encounter is the cherished memory of my second date with my husband. We met at church, purely by accident, and I was immediately repelled by his frankly sexual look at me – in church, no less. Our first date was a disaster.

He invited me to go sailing. I refused unless other persons were to be present for fear of being “trapped'.” alone with this hairy-chested male. My preoccupation was clear. A slight innuendo at sexual encounter casually made, and again I was thoroughly upset… I realize now I was reacting too intensely for it to be genuine protest.

My fascination with him grew,' as I saw him now and, then around church and again at a party at which he was thoroughly charming, funny, and very interesting. His casual arm around my waist and a whispered, “Stay here with me,” sent me scurrying into a kitchen full of gossiping women.

After agonizing months of watching him at church, I forced myself to speak to him first (a brave step forward for me), and he asked if I'd like to go for a hike to a wooded area soon to be destroyed by installation of a highway. Terrified, and delighted, I agreed. We had a pleasant walk through the woods to a wa-terfall, he handling my anxiety by easily chatting about his many varied and amusing experiences on his world travels. I was uneasy about even holding his hand over rough terrain.

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Needless to say, I was struggling with my own sexual attraction to him which I couldn't control.

Bravely, I ventured forth that I'd like to see his pictures sometime, to which he suggested that same evening would be fine. We arrived at his neat, comfortable, masculine duplex in a quiet, wooded area overlooking the lake. I was immediately impressed with his tasteful accommodations, but also with the fascinating portrait of a beautiful woman on the living-room wall – her hair loose, eyes shut, and head thrown back in an ecstasy of pleasure – clearly at the peak of orgasm. I felt helpless – caught alone with this male in a web I had woven for myself. I wanted to go home. The other side of me decided within minutes after arrival that I wanted to live here forever with this man whom I really didn't even know.

Tony flicked on the radio to a quiet station and in the darkening evening built an intimate fire for two. The enormous sofa, spread with a soft alpaca coverlet (picked up on a recent trip to Peru), was pushed close to the raised hearth on which he spread cheeses, crackers, marinated mushrooms, and two glasses of scotch. The wooden bases were intricately carved mahogany which he had created himself. Then he returned to a bright kitchen to prepare dinner. I stared into the fire trying to recover my composure. The portrait of the woman seemed to be mocking me … .

Shortly thereafter, Tony settled on the sofa, cheerfully announcing dinner would be ready in about two hours. His special spaghetti sauce requires that long to sunnier. Inwardly gasping at such a long period of unstructured time, I asked if he were going to show me his pictures.

He did. The pictures were vivid and intriguing scenes of the ancient Incan ruins of Machu Picchu, Peru. In contrast to this presentation, he showed fantastic pictures of Antarctica: icebergs, roaring seas, glorious sunsets, and his work and col-leagues' on board ship. I was enchanted with this all-male domain in an environment I saw was as rugged and as naturally beautiful as the men themselves.

Dinner was served at the hearth: spaghetti, salad, red wine, and I was getting tipsy. Afterward, he snuggled close, and we kissed. I loved it. Tony is a superb kisser, passionate and yet 159

tender. Rubbing over my body with his hands, he talked of how much he enjoyed sex, enjoyed active women, and liked to kiss their genitals. He mentioned his previous wife did not like her clitoris touched. I clinically offered she had childhood prohibitions against masturbation. He visibly brightened and happily remarked he was so glad that I “did it.” I vanished behind my professional mask and told hum I was discussing
her,
not
me!
Tony looked puzzled and said
he
was discussing
me
.

We kissed often and longer that evening, me getting extremely slippery and hotter and hotter. Tony's erect thrusting penis felt so good against my pubic area – it had been so long since I'd been with a man!! I was as famished for sex as for the meal he served.

Tony's body was becoming hot also, and he began to sweat and took off his shirt. I lightly caressed and rubbed his back and, out of irresistible curiosity, softly reached around to touch the mass of delicious hair on his chest, exploring until I accidentally (?) touched his erect nipple. He whispered, “You can stay here all night if you want to.”

[My encounter is true to this point. My automatic “No, thank you” intruded here, even though he later showed me his bedroom, complete with huge waterbed, fluffy down-filled comforter (from long unheated winter nights in Europe), heat lamps over the bed for comfort, and another “delight” I later learned to enjoy was a vibrator. I did want to stay!]

Were I to have enough courage, I would have whispered à simple “Yes, I want to.” I would have undressed him, pulling off his belt, spanking his buttocks playfully and briefly with it, untying his shoes, slipping off his socks, very slowly unzipper-ing and dropping his trousers, letting them tickle his inner thighs as they went down. Then I would remove my top, shoes, and slacks to black lace bra and black lace bikini panties. In the firelight, with him standing, I would slowly pull off his underwear, letting the elastic tickle his stomach; and when his enormous, engorged, erect penis burst forth, I would kiss it gently and tenderly up and down the shaft, cradling his balls, gently pulling on both occasionally. Then I would lick the tick-lish spot underneath, around the tip, caressing the “eye” with 160

my tongue. He begins pushing toward me, and I allow it in my mouth, sucking and swallowing as much as possible. Tony moves to and fro in spasms of pleasure ….

Tony lets down my long hair and buries his face in it, kissing my neck. He quickly pulls off my panties, undoes my bra, admiring my figure in the firelight, running his hands lightly across breasts, stopping to pull and knead them, then quickly on to belly and teasingly up the vaginal crack, allowing his finger to slightly touch and tease the vagina and deliciously tickling my clitoris in passing. An intimate tongue in the vagina and more delicious tickling the clitoris with his tongue, and he picks me up, carrying me to his bed, which is already warm from the heat lamps.

Intercourse begins. I am frantic for the weight of him, for the determined shove of his member into my, warm waiting body, pouring forth water as the falls we had seen that afternoon. With groans of pleasure, he begins thrusting deep, pressing the cervix, each of us releasing pent-up emotion that only the single (or I) can accumulate. I, sweating and crying, respond to his passion with clutching hands, heaving hips, back arched in anticipation, and burning pleasure in my cunt.

My mind runs over and over the thought, “Fuck me, Tony, fuck me.” And then it goes blank ….

I am torn between the fear of the animal passions released and desperate desire for the raging fire spreading over me. I have no choice now. Tony's urgent thrusts are my own, and together we are both driven madly toward the final shattering moments when we surrender to our lust. Gasping, arching, I am consumed in Tony's manliness and exist alone no more. I have no words to express my feelings at our union, only cries from my shattered soul.

Sobbing into Tony's neck and shoulder, I regain consciousness. He holds me tenderly, kissing my neck, rocking me slightly. I feel tremendous relief and gratitude toward him. I am floating with joy. He is mine, and I am his. A tiny fire burns within me still which he caresses with his fingers to full flame. I have a series of minor orgasms, only reflections of our first passion. Grateful and exhausted, I fall asleep in his encircling arms…

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We are all used to seeing magazine advertisements or television commercials of a woman daydreaming at the window or while looking into a fireplace. If a man lost in an idle reverie of pipe smoke were asked what dreams he sees suspended before his eyes, he might well laugh and say, “Sophia Loren, who wants to seduce me.” But a woman is taught, by these exercises of salesmanship, that
her
correct answer is that she is dreaming of a whiter laundry than her neighbors, or finding a baby food that will make her child grow six feet tall. We are not allowed the uses of erotic reverie that reinforce us in our own minds as sexual beings. No wonder so many women who can think of themselves only in the role of Mrs. Supercon-sumer, resist seeing themselves in any image that smacks of eroticism.

Fernando Sanchez is the designer of some of the most feminine, beautiful lingerie in America today. They are truly the stuff of which a woman's most sensuous dreams can be made

… lovingly cut peignoirs with panels of lace … negligees that entrance the beholder with the grace and erotic promise of the female body. And yet Mr. Sanchez recently told me, “Our big problem is to educate women to seeing themselves in seductive clothes like these. They may stop and admire a tempting nightgown on a model in a store, or in a fashion magazine, but even in these liberated times, the woman will usually just sigh and say, `That's not me,' and head for the drip dry counter.” But if she's not an erotic woman, who is she?

One letter from a woman named Cheryl is an example of how women are conditioned to fight their own sexuality. She was so inhibited in her own mind that she never once climaxed during the three years she lived on and off with a man to whom she was engaged. “Before him,” she says, “I was a virgin and tried masturbation.” But even that did not work for her. Defeated, she writes forlornly, “I gave up trying.” It was only recently, at the age of twenty-four, that she met a new young man and “could finally relax completely, enjoying my new freedom, and Ìcame' for the first time ever.” As if to further underline the distance she had been taught to keep be-162