The same week in 1973 that Cosmo published an article stating that women were scientifically incapable of having sexual fantasies, My Secret Garden was released to the public. The book is a compilation of women’s fantasies. 

Nancy Friday, the author/compiler, grouped the fantasies by subject but didn’t edit a one. A work of its time, it includes things I never thought trying to get off about. Gauging from the stories, and much to my relief and confusion, my fantasies were normal if not a bit on the boring side. These realizations wiggled and writhed around inside of me. Thanks to a churchy upbringing, I’d always related to my fantasies and masterbation like they were dirty little things that I shouldn’t do but that I couldn’t help doing because of some personal malfunction. It turns out that what’s in my head getting me off is a customized version of what’s in other women and AFABs heads getting them off. 

My fantasies included power play, stingy spankings, and yawn… being forced to do things. Control over my body was completely taken away and I would have no choice but to endure orgasm after orgasm. The people raping me were faceless and sometimes they didn’t have genitals. 

My fantasies were a guilty little snack that I alone consumed. I’d been masturbating since I was four and had been using some form of fantasy almost the whole time. Now that I was normal-if-not-a-little-boring, the surefire scenes in my spank bank weren’t being fueled by the guilt or shame that had always accompanied them. 

I slowly pulled the barbell out of my vagina and felt its heat, my heat, in my palm. I clicked off the vibrator. I climbed out of bed and put the toys in the bathroom sink. My mood matched the gray winter sky. I hadn’t climaxed and this was unusual. Aside from party nights of years past where I’d come home drunk and masturbate myself to sleep, I never didn’t climax. Even if it took an hour, I stayed the course. I had tried the usual scenes, the ones that always worked but I felt tired and frankly kinda bored of being raped so I got ready for work instead. My fantasy circuits were blown. I could feel myself metabolizing this new knowledge: normal-if-not-a-little-boring. Years of guilt about needing to be hit and raped to get off had melted away. I felt exposed, tender, and tired. I hadn’t known this normalization would happen so I hadn’t planned for replacement fantasies. I hadn’t known until reading My Secret Garden that the guilt and shame had been part of the fantasy. Now that I was normal-if-not-a-little-boring, they weren’t fueling the sex in my head. My faithful favorites that worked solo as well as with a partner were falling flaccid. So now what to hitch my orgasm to? 

You may have heard, as I have, that it’s better not to fantasize at all but rather immerse yourself into sensate stimulation only. This works for me sometimes but not always and I’ve never understood it’s being classified as a higher means to orgasm. I shouldn’t need a nasty fantasy of being spanked and held against my will as a sexual plaything to get to an orgasm. But why not? I don’t know if I would actually want a waking-life scene of that, to bring it out of my head and onto a day or evening of my life. But why not think about it while masterbating? 

Many times, trying not to fantasize leads me down a spiral of its own, one that doesn’t land in orgasm but rather carnal frustration and whatever the term for blue balls is for people with vulvas. And my wrist gets tired. This “higher, better” admonition feels like a version of the church’s puritanitis (suffering from puritanism) that was nonconsensually inserted into me as a very young kid about what it means to be someone with a vulva, what I was allowed to do with that vulva, and what I was supposed to want because of it. And to this I say a clear and concise, “Ew.” At least in my nasty yet normal-if-not-a-little-boring fantasies I’m the one controlling how much of me is controlled. 

We are beautiful blobs of consistent energy patterns. Our cell walls are intelligent, knowing what to take in and keep out, and we don’t disappear or accidently become a pine tree when sleeping but rather wake up as the same person. And this is awe-some. Our temple of guts, blood, bones, and the rest of our physical body houses our mind, heart, and spirit. And I suppose there are good cases to be made that our spirit is actually housing our body, mind, and heart. Why wouldn’t we want to engage all of that inherent wisdom in sexual arousal and orgasm? 

The way Betty used fantasy to manifest the Bodysex groups resonates with me. She had a temple priestess fantasy where she was leading a group of women training to be sexual priestesses. This fantasy eventually became the Bodysex groups. I was able to study Bodysex because Betty manifested the groups while jerking off, fantasizing. It’s so beautiful I shed a tear every time I think about it. We can use our imagination to manifest things we want in our lives. I’m not very good at doing this yet but I’m practicing. 

Bodysex was the first place I learned the fullness of my pleasure anatomy. Orgasm is a natural response to stimulus and it WILL happen if given the right stimulation (right stimulation of course is a little different for every person). With this knowledge in mind, I began to play. 

What was it I wanted to manifest? The downfall of capitalism is hard to put into a sexy scene so I tried out my own version of being a sex priestess instead. We trained at the Moon Temple. It was rigorous and included elaborate ceremonies. This was pretty hot to imagine but my mind kept trying to fill in the practical details of how the temple was run and operated. Hard as I tried, my years of event planning would eventually pop in and interrupt the sex ceremonies. Maybe it was someone from the front office handing me a time sensitive post-it note and suddenly I was no longer a sex priestess but an administrator of the temple. 

My Secret Garden included a whole section about dogs. I tried this on but every dog I’ve ever known eats poop and I just couldn’t get aroused about a dog. Instead I tried large cats, specifically leopards or panthers. While stroking my vulva, I walked through the savannah of my mind, listening to the bugs singing and leaves shaking in the wind. We saw each other from a distance and locked eyes. The night was bright from the moon and warm and the leopard was on top of me. I was pinned down by their strong body. My heart raced. I was scared and exhilarated. I could feel their breath on my collar bones and paws pressing me down. Soft growl and a cat tongue. I let my hands explore their warm body, their tongue and mouth explored me. I was surrounded by fur and heat and earth. We felt around each other’s bodies, petting and panting together. This was pretty hot to think about but I’m also allergic to cats and I’m not sure if this includes the large cats or just house cats. Surely it’s all cats, right? 

Seeing Carlin’s glass dildo in videos made me lust for one of my own. I also ordered a smokey quartz yoni wand. The package was heavy and I cut open the thick wrapping with scissors. When it tumbled out of the bubble wrap into my hand I was immediately turned on. It was smooth, about seven inches long, and thicker than some of my silicone dildos. The shape, the girth, the weight. I introduced myself, washed it, and we climbed into bed together with some jojoba oil. I massaged my vulva and then massaged the stone. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. I rocked and rolled with it. 

Suddenly an image of a cenote brightened in my mind. The rock walls were alive and breathing, they glistened with passion and desire. I ran my hands along the cave wall, and the stone seemed to moan. From my animist’s viewpoint it made sense that rock has consciousness and spirit, but I’d never thought about their desires. I softened my edges and let the smokey quartz wand show me around the bright cave. 

The water was blue-green and I could walk all the way around the natural pool. I dipped my toes in. The stones were shimmering and panting, they needed to be fucked as much as I needed to fuck them. I rubbed myself on the rock walls and the rock walls pulsed back as if they were also rubbing themselves on me. In this cave my entire body was erectile tissue and every part of me that touched the stone pulsed with desire. I walked through the fantasy with curiosity, licking the walls and feeling them pulsate with passion. 

The wand and I have taken each other three days and counting. Each time we’ve fucked I’ve let the quartz take me to the cenote and share with me the wanting rocks. We fuck each other until we’re both panting and climaxing. The feeling is otherworldly and erotic, so different from anything I’ve experienced before. 

Photo by Nick Chung on Unsplash

Emily is currently in training as a Bodysex Coach. 

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