firmly embedded in your conscience – your sense of right and wrong – than you realize. Reading a book or magazine article is not enough to free you to do everything you previously felt was forbidden. Behind the facade of enjoying the group sex her husband has talked her into, Mrs. Warren (above) seems really to have been getting off on fantasies of submission to her husband’s wishes. If she loved what he was making her do, why was there so much anger? Warren found that persuading his wife to act out his sexual fantasies was the end of a marriage he experienced as “eleven wonderful years.” Christopher’s letter (above) raises an important point: even after talking about your mutual fantasies, there may not be a true meeting of minds. Once passions are aroused by putting fantasies into action, unexpected and possibly dangerous energies may be released, if only because even in the wildest of sexual scenes something in us resists saying exactly what we mean. Fuck me from behind , Carol says to Christopher.
She means vaginal penetration. In the heat of the moment, Christopher isn’t going to slow down and parse out her euphemism. He acts in the way his enflamed senses most Nancy Friday
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want to understand the words. He fucks her in the ass, inflicting great pain. Of all fantasies to choose to live out, S&M
scenarios are the ones to be approached with the most caution, the most careful setting out of safeguards first.
In a sense, there is a measure of magical thinking in Christopher’s conduct, a kind of wish fulfillment imposed on reality, allowing him to do as he wishes. “If I like it, she will, too.” This is usually called projection, an extremely narcissistic way of dealing with the world. Other people aren’t seen as entities in themselves, with their own wishes and fears. Instead, they are seen as mirrors of the narcissist. Says a psychoanalyst colleague of mine: “Half my work involves people who do not correctly perceive signals they get from other people. They can only see what they want to see, and that is usually in their favor. It leads to them bungling what goes on between themselves and others.” Warren (above) says he doesn’t think the women who sent me their fantasies are typical. In fact, he suspects they are really men. He has never met this kind of woman (or did not recognize her if he did).
Therefore, she does not exist.
MURRAY
Not until a few years ago did I have any idea that my wife’s fantasies were the center of her sexual fulfillment. I discovered this one night after we had attended a movie starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
Even in the darkness of the movie house, I became aware that my wife would go into a kind of trance whenever Mr.
Newman was dominating the action or was the center of attention. When we got home, we had a few drinks, and we talked. My wife could not stop discussing how well Mr.
Newman played his role.
Seeing her excitement and how stimulated she was becoming just remembering the film, I took it upon myself to pretend to be Paul Newman in our bedroom. I tried to stand the Men In Love
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way he did in the movie; and I spoke to my wife, using some of the phrases we had just heard him use. I even encouraged her to call me “Paul.” Between my (amateur) acting ability and my wife’s (very strong) fantasies, I was a box office smash hit. The night ended early the next morning – sunrise, as a matter of act with two of the world’s most sexually satisfied people. My wife has told me about some of her other fantasy men, and I have told her my fantasies about women.
Our reward has been each other’s love.
PATRICK
First of all, I am thirty-four years old, married and a schoolteacher. My home sex life is rather dull, which accounts for the vivid imagination that I’ve managed to develop over the years, especially as I work with many gorgeous young women.
My fantasies always revolve around some of my students, who are aged from sixteen to
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