just ordinary, the circumstances are larger than life, so it would still be very difficult to do what I fantasize, impossible really to fuck with maybe ten men in full view of passersby. Even going around without panties can be risky, although I realize that a great many men, including my husband, are turned on by the idea of women doing this, so that when I do have intercourse with another man it is usually under fairly conventional circumstances, which I later enlarge on in fantasy. I have at times been able to have sex in some degree like my fantasies, but invariably it has been contrived to some extent, so that it is not quite the real thing.
We have tried group sex for this purpose, and in this way I have had sex with up to five men in one evening. I do not want to make too much of the panties thing, but going back to the original incident I read about, which was not only before tights but before minis too, it simply said that her dress was lifted, without any reference to whether she wore anything below, as if they were the wide-legged type that would not get in the way. But whatever, there was no obstacle, and this is very important in my fantasies. I have read of girls saying they go out every day without panties, but frankly I haven’t the nerve for this, although my husband supports the idea, so I tend to pick occasions when I feel there will be no danger, as when I am in the company of people I know will approve. Simply, I love sex, but I don’t want to be raped.
I would just repeat that I get much pleasure from my fantasies, and wish you well. [Letter]
33
FOREPLAY
In my desire to lessen the anxiety about fantasy during sex, I don’t mean to imply that if you don’t have sexual fantasies there is something wrong with you, or even that you yourself may not prefer it that way. What I am trying to do is establish a more acceptable climate for fantasy, so that women who do fantasize will not feel so alone, so estranged, and will realize that there is nothing wrong with it – that in fact, for them as well as for women still unaware of their fantasies, a more conscious use of them can add an exciting new dimension to sex.
But we all respond differently to different stimuli, and some people, I realize, do not fantasize, just as there may be some rare people who do not dream. I happen to believe, however, that most do – and that while reading this book, many will, in fact, discover theirs beneath the thin skin of childhood training or prudery – call it what you will.
I’ve already said why I think women’s fantasies are often far richer and more adventurous than men’s. They are a true women’s underground. But just as some people do and some do not fantasize, some fantasies are meant to be shared and others not. By opening up the underground, I am not suggesting we have to tell or act out all our fantasies to be sexually happier; just accept them without anxiety for what they are.
For example, no one objects to the idea that certain props like a martini, music, low lights – elements outside the man – can get a woman "in the mood"; then why should he feel threatened by what is going on in her mind? Some people get warmed up looking at erotic pictures or reading a bit of porn; does it matter that the people in the pictures are other people or that the words that excite her were written by another man? Then why should it matter what, or of whom a woman is thinking? A woman doesn’t need an erection to have sex; she can be entered at any time, and a man can have an orgasm while his wife’s thinking about the 34
grocery list. Is that preferable? Wouldn’t they both enjoy it more if, say, at the outset, during the preliminaries, she deliberately changed mental reels, put on something a little more highly charged than what to give the kids for supper tomorrow? And would it really matter whether her imagery were a rerun of one of their own earlier more erotic sessions together (such as in