3 November 2014

How common is your sexual fantasy?

by Will Parker

What constitutes an "unusual" sexual fantasy? Canadian researchers have just published a study that attempts to answer that question, describing in the Journal of Sexual Medicine exactly how common a variety of sexual fantasies are.

The new research was based on data obtained from 1,500 Canadian adults with a mean age of 30. In general, the researchers found that sexual fantasies are varied and few fantasies can be considered statistically rare or unusual.

"Clinically, we know what pathological sexual fantasies are: they involve non-consenting partners, they induce pain, or they are absolutely necessary in deriving satisfaction. But apart from that, what exactly are abnormal or atypical fantasies? To find out, we asked people in the general population," said the University of Montreal's Christian Joyal, lead author of the study. "Our main objective was to specify norms in sexual fantasies, an essential step in defining pathologies. And as we suspected, there are a lot more common fantasies than atypical fantasies."

The key findings included:

• Men have more fantasies and describe them more vividly than women. The study also tells us that a significant proportion of women (30-60 percent) evoke themes associated with submission (e.g., being tied up, spanked, forced to have sex).
• Unlike men, women in general clearly distinguish between fantasy and desire. Thus, many women who express more extreme fantasies of submission (e.g. domination by a stranger) specify that they never want these fantasies to come true. The majority of men, however, would love their fantasies to come true (e.g. threesomes).
• The presence of one's significant other is considerably stronger in female fantasies than in male fantasies. In general, men in couples fantasize much more about extramarital relationships compared to women.

The study also reported how common (percentages, by gender) a variety of fantasies were.

The researchers say that one of the most intriguing findings has to do with the significant number of unique male fantasies, for example, regarding "shemales," anal sex among heterosexuals, and the idea of watching their partner have sex with another man. Evolutionary biological theories cannot explain these fantasies, the researchers note, which, among males, are typically desires.

"Overall, these findings allow us to shed light on certain social phenomena, such as the popularity of the book Fifty Shades of Grey with women," Joyal concluded. "The subject is fascinating. We are currently conducting statistical analyses with the same data to demonstrate the existence of homogeneous subgroups of individuals based on combinations of fantasies. For example, people who have submission fantasies also often report domination fantasies. These two themes are therefore not exclusive, quite the contrary. They also seem associated with a higher level of satisfaction."

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Source: University of Montreal