Forbidden Flowers (24 page)

tween herself and her own sexuality, she says she wasn't even certain she had experienced orgasm with this new man – or at least, didn't “realize it fully until a short time ago.” One of the healthiest aspects of human nature is that it does fight for equilibrium; once repression has been lifted, it can work with the speed of a coiled spring to right the balance.

Now that Cheryl accepts her sexual self, her old bugaboos seem to be vanishing. I find her closing very moving: her new sexual self-confidence, she says, has made her “very proud of myself … .” She feels she is a woman at last.

In her letter, Jackie also writes that facing her own sexuality frankly has been an important step forward in life. She writes that she and her older brother used to play sexual games as children. This is hardly unusual for young siblings; nevertheless, she found these activities so disturbing that “I used to hide my head under the pillow to make the reality of the responsibility go away.”

If Jackie disavowed her sexual experience by hiding her head under the pillow, another form of denial is to have sexual events take place as if you yourself were just a spectator. It's not happening to you, but to somebody else. In Samantha's poetic fantasy, which she calls “The Blue Star,” this is exactly what happens. The entire fantasy is told third person, as if it had no relation to Samantha at all.

It is easy to see that this method of sexual fantasy is a strat-egy for avoiding guilt; it is a daydream about having the most marvelous sexual experience – but experiencing, the whole thing vicariously in the third person.

In Connie's fantasy too, the same emotions seem to be the basis for the sexual scenario she invents. “Faceless, hooded, sexless people are tightening straps to my wrists and ankles,” she writes, describing the circumstances of her favorite fantasy, in which she enjoys sex without responsibility, without choice.

These sexual fantasies, which seek to combine the maxi-mum of erotic arousal and satisfaction with the minimum of guilt, reach their logical conclusion in fantasies in which the woman is given absolutely no choice in the matter at all …

fantasies of force or rape. “The doorbell rings,” Elaine writes of one such fantasy. “A good-looking young man pushes his way 163

in, grabs me … .” The sexual act takes place, but it is not the woman's fault: She “did not ask for it.” What we must remember is that for most women, who have never experienced rape, the word just represents an abstract idea; combining rape with sex in their fantasies is just
using
rape, almost as a theatrical convention – it is a means toward an end. When understood this way, rape becomes code language for, “It wasn't my fault,” or just as simply, “He wanted me so much, he overpowered me. You can't blame me if I am such an overwhelmingly sexually attractive creature that I drove him mad with lust
despite all I could do to fight him
off!”

If the women who fantasize about rape were really turned on by the ugliness and brutality of it, in their imagined scenarios they would describe the feelings of disgust, shame, and degradation ensuing from this physiological and psychological assault. But on the contrary! When you read these rape fantasies, which, after all, have been entirely created by the women concerned for their own pleasure, the elements of force and brutality are seen to be not important at all. What happens instead is that the force and ardor of their rapist-lover allows them to release all their own pent-up sexual force, power. Every thrust of his powerful hand, forcing them down, is returned by a thrust of their own – which can be read as protest, but which is clearly a sexual release on the woman's part, as guiltless as it is powerful. The man's demands on her body are the demands of a lust she has always been too inhibited to respond to with all the sexual force and vibrancy of her own body; fantasy allows her to respond at last like some kind of sexual animal to his animal treatment – a most unladylike way to behave, even un-womanly, unless you can mask your “aggressive” actions as protest.

If the women in these rape fantasies were concerned with the pain of rape, if they even elaborated on the pain involved, the fantasies could be called masochistic. But these aren't fantasies about the pleasure of pain. They are imaginary scenarios speaking of a romantic desire for unromantic sex: these women don't want love (at least this one time) in a bower of flowers in 164

a tender lover's arms. They want sweat, roll-around, knock-about thrust-and-counterthrust, with no holds barred. They want sex that transcends any limits they have ever known with a man who won't take less than a woman is capable of giving.

And most women are capable of giving a hell of a lot more sexual thrust and emotion than they think most men want, or that they themselves are capable of (being “nice” women). The fantasy of rape solves all these problems, provides all this pleasure. Rape? These women don't want rape. They want release.

But before we leave this subject, let me add one very strong proviso: we must be clear that enjoying an emotion in fantasy does not necessarily mean you want to live it out in reality. If you become angry, for instance, you might say to someone, “If you do that again, I'll kill you!” The words may even be accompanied by a very satisfying quick image of the offender lying dead at your feet. But no one – least of all you – really believes that these fantasies of violence are ideas that you have any intention of carrying out. You just wanted the momentary release of
expressing
strong emotion, but only in words, merely as an idea. Fantasies from women like Jackie, Samantha, Connie, Elaine … fantasies of being sexually forced or raped … are in the same category: they may be satisfying to think about, they give the woman license; at least in her imagination, to enjoy herself sexually, and they remove her from any feeling of guilt, because she never had any choice in the matter – but there isn't a woman I know who wouldn't ran a mile if she thought there was the slightest chance it would happen in real life.

There is a safety in fantasy. In our minds, we can test certain situations to see how they might feel; we always know that no matter how sordid the emotions we are dealing with, no matter how angry, gigantic, or demanding the characters, they are all puppets of our own invention. If any of these ideas ever become too frightening, we can turn them off like turning the pages of a book. This, I believe, is the final ingredient in the glamour that rape holds in some fantasies. In the safe play-ground of our minds, we can toy with the male's most danger-165

ous, most aroused emotions – and use them for just the whim and fancy of our idle moment. He may be raging, threatening, or even hurting us in the fantasy,
but in
reality we control him!

Jackie

Throughout the reading of your
Secret Garden
, I
was wa-vering between hope and fear that at the end you would (not) request more fantasies. Reading of other women, I found myself wishing you had a group going where I could tell everyone mine.

I am twenty-nine, never married, highly intelligent (150 IQ) well educated, and overwhelmingly fat and frustrated. I did not discover myself, as some of your contributors state, but at the age of five my brother discovered me. We were hiding in a clothes closet, and he pulled down my panties and explored me with a flashlight – giggling excitedly and urging me to be quiet. I was afraid of my brother even then, and was – although I did not understand it – horribly humiliated. After that, I became curious about myself and would masturbate. My mother effectively made me feel guilty about this: each morning, she would smell my hands and say, “Your hands smell like they've been in the wrong place.” She couldn't, however, stop me – or my brother.

One of my earliest fantasies occurred when I was four years old and would sleep on my parents' bed until their bedtime. I would dream that a doctor came in to give me an injection. I remember screaming in my fantasy for my mother, but she would not save me. It was a terribly exciting idea, this fearsome happening. Perhaps this sexual preoccupation stems from my brother or from the fact that I slept in my parents' bedroom until I was five.

My brother and I played many sexual games – doctor and actress, doctor and patient, husband and wife, and we had ample opportunity, since both my parents worked. When they were around, we would fight and hate each other. One disturbing aspect (to me it still is) is that we never kissed or spoke to 166

each other. I used to hide my head under the pillow to make the reality of the responsibility “go away.” My brother is four years older than I and was always stronger. When we fought, he hurt me (am I rationalizing?). I mentally refused to accept any responsibility for our acts. We continued until I was eighteen, and he got married. I was very upset and depressed about his marriage – but couldn't fathom why. In fact, I never understood this whole thing until I went into analysis.

Since he married, I had other men, but never have an orgasm (we never had one when we were kids either). Each case is similar: I always feel horribly humiliated and hate myself afterward. I have never really been in love. I can't achieve orgasm even when I masturbate.

My fantasies as a child were usually about doctors telling me what a brave little girl I am while they “examined” me sexually. Usually in groups of three or four I have once or twice

“caught” myself having a lesbian, fantasy, but stopped because I was afraid it would make me a lesbian. I say “was” because since I've read your book, I can see that it is not freakish, and I feel more free. I can't thank you enough for publishing your book.

As I grew older, my fantasies about doctors ceased, and I remember really getting turned on at college lectures by just imagining myself screwing with the professor. Later, I had fantasies about my analyst, though not really sexual. Mostly, I wanted to be a little bird that could nest in the hair in his armpits. I used to despise women, but that is changing now. I find I have more respect for other women … but only if they are intelligent. I'm still seeking a meaningful relationship with a man, and I'm not afraid anymore. In truth, I think I was afraid that both men and women only wanted to use me, hurt me, and degrade me. Knowing my sexual fantasies has helped me to reach my new self-acceptance. Your book has made me feel so much better about myself. Thank you.

167

Ethel

I too thought I was crazy, because I had these fantasies, but now I know it is normal, because I read your book. I am no lesbian, but I have thought a number of times about this particular fantasy. I would daydream that a man with a knife would knock on my door, and when I opened it, push me in and then tell his two women to come in. He would tie me up, and then the two women would undress me. One is black, and one is white. The black woman has a whip and is naked with only black boots on. She would tie me to the bed, and then the white one would spread my legs, and the black one would get on me and start eating me out. When finished, the black one would get off and sit on my face so I could eat her, while the white one inserted a vibrator into my cunt. After a while, she takes it out and tongue fucks me and after a while would place her finger in my juicy wet cunt up and down till I had an orgasm. The man would be masturbating while watching. After this, they would all tie my legs up strongly, and the white girl would open my mouth while the man let me blow him and the black chick is fingering me. Wow, I'm horny now. I have more to tell, but it would take a book. Thanks for letting me talk.

P.S. Believe me this is no joke. I am only eighteen with one boy aged two, and a husband aged thirty-two.

Samantha

The Blue Star

The room was guarded by statues of marble, shadowy figures in the outer halls. The silence was penetrated slightly by eerie music, unearthly in form.

Inside the huge doors, carved by a sculptor's patient hand seemingly, lay a magnificent room. It had a cathedral quality –

high vaulted ceiling, ornate gilded walls, immaculate stone floor. And at the very peak of the room the ceiling's center, there was a glorious, thick, glass Star of David. The sapphire 168

blue was almost smoky, but light, played through in drifting waves.

The girl lay underneath on a long, ceremonial table, tied hand, foot to the four corners of the rather wide rectangle. She was naked save for a wooden crucifix around her neck. She lay meditatively intent upon the pulsating star in the center of her vision. At times, she almost luxuriously strained her limbs against the coils of rope on her wrists and ankles. But her gaze never changed. Nor her expression. She lay hypnotized by the glazed star; it burned her eyes and heart.

Silently, four rows of men took their places around the table.

She felt their presence intimately like a stabbing wound. They were dressed in simple garb, a long robe of sackcloth knotted with a length of rope. They began a chant, low and soft and pure, that made her feel strong, almost pure, highly exalted.

The light was dimmer now. She flicked her tongue over her lips, feeling warm moisture fill the cleft between her legs. Her nipples began to harden, and as though this were a new experience, she began to softly groan, her eyes still fixed on the blue star above her head. The chant grew louder.

One of the monks took his place at the table's end. He touched the soft white feet delicately, then climbed on her full length. He kissed the small red mouth and lay still. The harsh sackcloth rubbed against her, stinging the fair skin, but as his erection grew, she lost herself to the feel of his hard manhood against her stomach. He rolled aside suddenly and removed the garment. She tamed her head slowly and saw him, a tall and strong David, white and ruddy. He had dark, curly hair that curled around his erect penis as well. He looked at her kindly as he sensed her amazement at its size. She began to feel long-denied urges penetrate her to the core, strange and drifting blue.

The man climbed on her again, kissing her from her feet to her willing hungry mouth. The men began their low chant again. As they did, he inserted his penis into her. It reminded her vaguely of a knife being put into its sheath.