My Secret Garden (Women Sexual Fantasies) (45 page)

The only "labeling" process that has impressed me in recent years came from a woman I met who only recently began enjoying her life. Painfully self-conscious during her first thirty-eight years, she woke up one day "and decided to stop criticizing myself. I resolved, instead, to
label everything I do as

`good.’
Since then I’ve been doing exactly what I want to do and enjoying every minute of it." Self-conscious female fantasizers have more to learn from this woman’s labeling process than from many of the followers of Sigmund Freud.

The greatest weakness in analytical evaluations of these fantasies, however, is that such
intellectual dissections represent
a rational approach to what is essentially an irrational process.

For fantasies, like dreams, arise from the twilight zone of ancient experiences, future expectations, social conditioning, unfinished business, and complex biological and biochemical processes. The separation of these elements is possible if one recognizes that we make these evaluations as an intellectual challenge – much as one can find satisfaction in solving a crossword puzzle. But to suggest that such evaluations yield "truth" is either pretense or folly

348

3. My Secret Garden Is Nothing More than
Thinly Disguised Pornography

Paul Krassner, in his satirical newspaper
The Realist,
once wrote a story about a pornography case appearing before the Supreme Court. If the Justices got erections while reading the material, it was declared pornographic. This raised a very ticklish question. Might the Court next be asked to rule on whether or not Vaseline was pornographic?

Krassner’s exaggeration was funny. Yet the reality of the situation is apparent. Society often considers that which turns you on to be wrong. Unless there is a "redeeming social function,"

such turn-ons are seen to be a threat to the morality or the fabric of our society.

As I write this I find myself in somewhat of a box. I do think that
My Secret Garden
performs a useful service in that this open sharing of various sexual fantasies might allow many readers to accept, without shame, guilt, or anxiety, various fantasies of their own. Yet, even if that were not the case – even if every purchaser of this book bought
it solely
to be sexually turned on – I would also say, "Well and good."

What is wrong with healthy erotic responses? Why should anyone have to justify a desire to "turn on"? If you believe in the right to turn on to your own fantasies, don’t you also have the right to turn on to the fantasies of others? Is turning on some evil that requires a
"redeeming social function"
to justify it? I see more moral harm being done,
not
by the authors or publishers of

"sexy" material, but by those censors and critics who attempt to foist and enforce
their
values upon others.

Bernardo Bertolucci, defending his film
Last Tango in Paris
against charges of pornography, put it well when he said,

"Pornography is not in the hands of the child who discovers his sexuality by masturbating, but in the hands of the adult who slaps him."

349

The demand for a "redeeming" aspect of frankly sexual material puts those who would simply enjoy erotic pleasures on the defensive. For we then have to justify that which should be our birthright. We are told that an absence of erotic censorship would lead to social add cultural decay. But if that is so, why is it that so many members of our cultural aristocracy can and do respond to unadulterated erotic material?

The current craze over the movie
Deep Throat,
which consists of a thin story line to account for endless scenes of fellatio, underscores not only the absurdity of our anti-erotic critics but the absurd conditions that those who enjoy the film must also endure.

Throat
is an "in" film to see, and as such has been reviewed and commented upon by serious critics. Doctors, lawyers, members of Mayor Lindsay’s administration, jet setters, and businessmen have been turning on to this movie for months. Yet they still remain productive members of society. And how do they justify their attendance at
Throat?
By pretending that the film is making a serious social point – that it is commenting on the morals of the day and/or poking fun at our sexual foibles. Serious film critics have gone to court to make this very point. No one seems willing to be quoted outright as saying the simplest truth: "I went in order to turn on."

Throughout Nancy Friday’s commentary, the gentle message is: sent to
accept
these fantasies for what they are – poetic/erotic daydreams that provide enjoyment for the fantasizer. As a mental-health rule, such a message makes eminent sense.

Also, Nancy Friday attributes to fantasy the functions of foreplay, excitement, and the allaying of anxiety – thereby allowing excitement to grow. Fantasies can also be used, as she points out, as a rehearsal – a situation worked through in imagination before one actually lives it out. It is also true that fantasy can be used as compensation for a most dreary existence or as an escape – a way of procrastinating or avoiding taking more affirmative action in the outer world. Monica (Chapter 350

Three, The Transformation Room) is a case in point. Described as a short, messy-looking overweight nineteen-year-old who has toyed with the idea of suicide, Monica would rather fantasize herself as her beautiful sister than attend to prettying herself up.

Yet, even here, one can say "Why not?" After all, what alternatives are left? You can’t make someone else’s fantasies disappear anyway. And even if you could, would that cause Monica to make herself more attractive? Or would robbing her of a precious daydream make her even more despondent and more unkempt? Rather than discouraging her fantasy, I world prefer to see her live it out.

II

There are some types of fantasies that I’ve shared with others that have not found their way into print. This is no criticism of this book, for it does not claim to be a definitive encyclopedia of female sexual fantasies, but rather an attempt to show the range and variation of such material. One common fantasy left out is that in which the fantasizer thinks of herself as part of a machine, as an animal, as having the body of a man, as some creature from another world, as insect, or as God, or a part of the Buddha, or the petal on a lotus.

Many fantasies of this type occur under the influence of psychedelic agents (marijuana, hashish, mescaline, psylocybin) and are accompanied by exquisite sexual pleasure. So "real" are these fantasies that one truly
becomes
them – is not aware enough of "self" to realize that a fantasy is occurring until after the orgasm, which is often explosive and felt, seemingly, in every cell of the body.

351

III

While I feel quite strongly that the fantasizes ought to allow herself to accept, enjoy, and fully give herself over to her reverie, I also feel a word is in order lest
non-fantasizers
feel self-conscious over their lack of reverie. One should no more feel pressured to produce fantasies than be encouraged to avoid them.

It is, for example, quite possible and quite "normal" to be totally free of fantasy while making love. There are states in which a man or a woman may be so lost in bodily sensations that not only are daydreams absent but such people could not tell you where or who they are at that moment. This is not to say that such sexual experiences are better or worse – merely that they are different.

Finally, it is my belief that our interest in matters sexual – be it as critic or defender – is related to something far more basic and
inclusive
than deciding whether stimuli are "decently erotic,"

"pornographic," "perverse," "scientific," and so on. Whatever we are attracted by, we are always
looking, exploring, thinking.

These are the constants.

And these three constants have to do, I think, with the never-ending, unsolvable, and therefore always intriguing questions of creation and ego transcendence. How is it that motion and friction upon a small part of the body can make people for a moment oblivious of themselves, can cause – what the French refer to the orgasm as –
le petit mort
(the little death)?

If we are intrigued by the sexual appendages of the world, what could be more natural? We were all sired by an ejaculating penis, grew in the womb, passed through the vaginal vault, emerged between the labia, were nourished at a breast, and will most likely re-create again when we perform the rites of procreation ourselves. That the mysteries of life, death (ego transcendence), and intense pleasure are so closely linked with 352

our sex organs is what, to my mind, makes these organs objects of perpetual curiosity.

My Secret Garden
allows an important aspect of this natural curiosity to emerge from a locked closet. The bigger "secret,"

however, remains.

353

• C_0671019872.jpg
  
• Nancy Friday - My Secret Garden (Women Sexual Fantasies).pdf
  
  • Title
    
  • Table of Contents
    
  • Foreword by "J,"
    
  • Chapter 1- �Tell me what you are thinking about�, he said
    
  • Chapter 2 - "Why fantasize when you have me?"
    
    • Frustration
      
      • Madge
        
      • Dot
        
    • Insufficiency
      
      • Louella
        
      • Irene
        
      • Annette
        
      • Maria
        
    • Sex enhancement
      
      • Patricia
        
      • Suzanne
        
    • Foreplay
      
      • Bertha
        
      • BeIlinda
        
    • Approval
      
      • Sally
        
      • Vicki
        
      • Francesca
        
      • Sondra
        
    • Exploration
      
      • Karen
        
      • Abbie
        
      • Hilda
        
      • Heather
        
      • Kitty
        
    • Sexual initiative
      
      • Carol
        
      • Faye
        
    • Insatiability
      
      • Clarissa
        
      • Annabel
        
      • Iris
        
      • Nora
        
    • Daydreams
      
      • Corinne
        
      • Molly
        
      • Alicia
        
      • Lily
        
      • Eliza
        
      • Esther
        
      • Shirley
        
      • Lillian
        
      • Viola
        
    • Masturbation
      
      • Patsy
        
      • Norma
        
      • Adair
        
      • Mary Beth
        
      • Elizabeth
        
      • Mary Jane
        
      • Amelia
        
      • Alix
        
    • The lesbians
      
      • Marion
        
      • Jeanne
        
      • Lisa
        
      • Zizi
        
      • Kate
        
  • Chapter 3 - The house of fantasy
    
    • Room 1: Anonymity, or, "Taken by the faceless stranger"
      
      • Linda
        
      • Pamela
        
      • Marie
        
    • Room 2: The audience
      
      • Caroline
        
      • Elspeth
        
      • Mary Jo
        
      • Melanie
        
      • Celeste
        
    • Room 3: Rape, or, "Don't just stand there, force me!"
      
      • Julietta
        
      • Gail
        
      • Dinah
        
      • Sadie
        
    • Room 4: Pain and masochism, or, "Ouch, don't stop!"
      
      • Barbara
        
      • Edith
        
      • Rose Ann
        
      • Amanda
        
    • Room 5: Domination, or, "How humiliating! thank you"
      
      • Nathalie
        
      • Poppy
        
      • Heather
        
      • Ingrid
        
    • Room 6: The sexuality of terror, or, "Help! I'm out o control, thank God!"
      
      • Johanna
        
      • Anna
        
    • Room 7: The thrill of the forbidden, or, "No, you must not! ...Here, let me help you"
      
      • Emma
        
      • Donna
        
    • Room 8: The transformation room, or, "Life can be beautiful"
      
      • Monica
        
      • Betty
        
      • Phyllis
        
    • Room 9: The earth mother room
      
      • Vivian
        
      • Marina
        
    • Room 10: Incest
      
      • Bella
        
      • Dominique
        
      • Lola
        
    • Room 11: The zoo
      
      • Jo
        
      • Rosie
        
      • Dawn
        
      • Wanda
        
    • Room 12: Big black men
      
      • Margie
        
      • Raquel
        
      • Lydia
        
    • Room 13: Young boys
      
      • Evelyn
        
      • Victoria
        
    • Room 14: The fetishists
      
      • Faith
        
    • Room 15: Other women
      
      • Christine
        
      • Dolly
        
      • Bee
        
      • Venice
        
      • Lilly
        
      • Rita
        
      • Mary Beth
        
      • Viv
        
      • Lee
        
      • Willa
        
      • Dana
        
      • Cara
        
      • Celia
        
      • Theresa
        
      • Tania
        
      • Michelle
        
      • Sandra
        
      • Patty
        
    • Room 16: Prostitution, or, "Sadie Thompson, doesn't live here anymore"
      
  • Chapter 4 - "Where did a nice girl like you get an idea like that?"
    
    • Childhood
      
      • Theda
        
      • Lindsay
        
      • Fiona
        
      • Felicia
        
      • Sonia
        
      • Phyllis
        
      • Marlene
        
      • Kay
        
      • Trudy
        
      • Mona
        
      • Stella
        
    • Sounds
      
      • June
        
      • Nina
        
      • Meg
        
      • Holly
        
      • Evie
        
    • Women do look
      
      • Fay
        
      • Sukie
        
      • Constance
        
      • Deana
        
      • Anna
        
      • Vera
        
      • Una
        
      • Lois
        
      • Liz
        
      • Winona
        
      • Rudy
        
      • Gale
        
      • Imogene
        
      • Francine
        
      • April
        
      • Myrna
        
      • Laurie
        
      • Jeanie
        
    • Seeing and reading
      
      • Mary Jane
        
      • Miranda
        
      • Margaret
        
      • Alexandra
        
      • Stephanie
        
    • Random associations
      
      • Susie
        
      • Adrienne
        
      • Doris
        
      • Lulu
        
      • Daisy
        
      • Kit
        
      • Flossie
        
      • Josie
        
      • Brett
        
      • Sarah
        
      • Maud
        
      • Gelda
        
  • Chapter 5 - Guilt and fantasy, or, why the fig leaf?
    
    • Women's guilt
      
      • Christiana
        
      • Hope
        
      • Lil
        
      • Alison
        
      • Clare
        
      • Penelope
        
    • Men's anxiety
      
      • Tina�s husband
        
  • Chapter 6 - Fantasy accepted
    
    • "Of course I fantasize, doesn't everyone?".
      
      • Gloria
        
      • Hannah
        
      • Sophie
        
      • Bobbie
        
      • Paula
        
    • Fantasies that should be reality
      
      • Martha
        
    • Acting out fantasies, pros and cons
      
      • Sylvia
        
      • Babs
        
      • Elizabeth
        
      • Winnie
        
      • Loretta
        
      • Sheila
        
      • Claudine
        
      • Jocelyn
        
    • Sharing Fantasies
      
      • Lynn
        
      • Jacqueline
        
      • Doris
        
      • Bonnie
        
      • Jessie
        
      • Esther
        
      • Posie
        
      • Marx
        
      • Joan
        
      • Adele�s husband
        
  • Chapter 7 - Quickies
    
  • Afterword - �In defense of Nancy Friday"