Gillian Anderson explores women’s hidden sexual fantasies

In 2023, actress, producer and director Gillian Anderson, best known for her roles as FBI agent Dana Scully in The X-Files and therapist Jean Milburn in Sex Education, called on women to share their sexual concerns with her to send fantasies:

I want women all over the world and all of you who now intrinsically identify as women – queer, heterosexual and bisexual, non-binary, transgender, polyamorous – all of you, whether old or young, regardless of your religion, whether married , single or otherwise, to write to me and tell me what you think of when you think about sex.

Anderson promised that all submissions to her proposed anthology would be treated anonymously. “I will of course attach my own letter anonymously,” she added. “I look forward to reading yours.”

The resulting submissions were carefully selected and compiled by Anderson and published in Want, a collection of anonymous sexual fantasies from women around the world.

Review: Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous – edited by Gillian Anderson (Bloomsbury)

Anderson describes the project as a 21st century sequel to Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies (1973). In her introduction, she states that she wanted to find out whether the kind of sexist constraints that structured women’s fantasies in 1973 had diminished or had merely changed form.

The check-in seems particularly relevant now that Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court ruling on abortion, decided in 1973 and overturned in 2022.

One of the main themes of Want is that women’s desire has historically been silenced. Anderson speculates that women in the 21st century are still subject to patriarchal assumptions that portray their desires as at least private and at most shameful – particularly non-heterosexual and non-reproductive desires. The fantasies in Want often struggle with shame, but the book itself is designed to counteract this.

But if internalizing fantasy as a private phenomenon harms women, Anderson also notes that the privacy of fantasy worlds is one of their most liberating dimensions:

For some of us, the sex we have on our minds may be more stimulating than the physical underpinnings of any connection, no matter how steamy.

In fantasy we can be as transgressive as we want. We can take on any role and imagine our bodies and the bodies of others in new shapes and forms. Each fantasy presented in Want represents both eroticism and a fragment of data, which together form a kind of overview of women’s most secret and hidden desires.

Brief explanations at the end of each entry list contributors’ ethnicities and nationalities, religions, annual income, sexual orientation, relationship status, and yes or no to children. What’s noticeable is that age isn’t listed – perhaps it’s impolite to ask women their age?

Multiple races, ethnicities, nationalities and religions are represented, with whites and the middle class clearly predominating. As Anderson hoped, there are also many genders and sexual identities, including lesbian, queer, trans, polyamorous and asexual.

The stories themselves range from the exotic to the banal. There are entries that find eroticism in tentacles, a Bigfoot-like figure, and sex with trees. One particularly speculative story imagines new body textures and shapes: “She attaches her morphing alien genitals to my genitals.” One author wildly imagines her husband saying he hired a cleaner and did the grocery shopping.

The book is a truly collective effort, and the cacophony of voices is one of its most striking dimensions. Reading it is an intense experience. “Want” is a book meant to be flipped through rather than read from start to finish. Its 13 sections—with titles such as “Rough and Ready,” “To be Worshiped,” “Strangers,” and “Gently, Gently”—allow the reader to choose based on mood or personal preference.

fantasies and realities

Anderson wrote an introduction and overviews of the sections. These occasionally read as a series of allusions to her own acting roles. She mentions Margaret Thatcher, Agent Scully, Jean Milburn and Stella Gibson by name. There’s also her own anonymous fantasy somewhere in the book, which will no doubt inspire fans to play guessing games.

Without pretending to be an expert, Anderson explores questions about the relationship between fantasy and reality. How do fantasies shape reality and how do realities shape fantasy? The book shows the complexity of this question.

Fantasies can both reflect and subvert reality, often both at the same time. Many women contrast their fantasies with their everyday lives or construct antidotes to their real-life roles, although one author writes of a scenario that “involves the dentist’s chair and the bondage” that she would probably be “deeply upset” if she did actual dentist tried that. The book has a lot of humor.

Many of the stories speak of the attraction of transgression. Non-consensual fantasies are included. As Anderson notes, there is more than a little evidence of the influence of EL James’s erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey. Several self-proclaimed feminists admit to having fantasies of domination or exploitation that do not align with their real-world values.

Articulating women’s erotic lives does not always result in the overturning of patriarchal norms that portray men as active agents and women as passive recipients. Fantasy is not easily separated from the worlds in which it is thought and imagined.

This could be why danger and unequal power are recurring themes in an unequal world. One author writes, “Is it crazy that feeling safe is my wildest sexual fantasy?”

The four selections in the “Captive” section show not entirely consensual terror scenarios. Anderson does not claim to have the necessary expertise to explain these, but is careful to point out that they should not be understood as “normalizing any form of kidnapping or violence against women.” To reconstruct consent, she recommends readers decide whether they want to read these four inclusions.

Many voiced wishes

Want lets out some fantasies. The guidelines ban anything that is racist, sexist, homophobic, or advocates activities that are illegal in the UK. In an article on LitHub, Ellie Broughton asked whether this intervention might impact Anderson’s ability to provide a comprehensive view of women’s true desires.

But as the reader moves through Want, it becomes clear that while the guidelines were restrictive, they were also enabling. The book has a lighter tone than Nancy Friday’s collection. Normative or harmful sexual fantasies are not the focus. Elsewhere, there are already extensive archives of racist, sexist and homophobic fantasies, as well as sexual fantasies that find pleasure in the non-consensual and harmful.

In Want, women write about queer, disabled, twisted, multi-voiced desires that are unusual, provocative and sometimes really new. Fantasies about sex between women are commonplace, as are lesbian fantasies about sex with (or as) men. Sex, gender and sexuality become fluid, both literally (blood, urine and excrement are interpreted as erotic) and metaphorically: “Sex and gender are confusing and continue to be a journey with changing destinations,” writes a young author about her emerging desires.

Binary files are pleasantly noisy. “The ability to seamlessly switch between perspectives that are normally mutually exclusive – such as below/above, disabled/enabled, passive/active – is at the core of my most intimate fantasies,” writes a Danish lesbian with “a severe neurodegenerative disease.”

Some of the most striking fantasies are based on disability. Instead of being ignored, it is carefully and deliberately treated as erotic. Wheelchairs, assistive technologies, scars, and even illnesses enable and facilitate certain types of pleasure. As the Danish lesbian adds: “An electric wheelchair seat and other mechanical aids can be useful.”

The deficiency is great: sometimes clichéd and sometimes subversive; sometimes feminist and sometimes traditional. There are stories of solitary pleasure and stories of caring for others. There is embodiment and detachment, brutality and subtlety, wild fiction and raw, gritty honesty.

Ultimately, the book shows one thing irrefutably: many, many women love the idea of ​​sex, even though some don’t love the actual sex they get.

Perhaps one of the most valuable things about a collection like this is the sense of recognition it can provide. “I would give anything to know if anyone else has the same thoughts, just so I know I’m not alone,” writes one contributor.

It’s likely that many will find evidence on Want’s pages that they are not alone. Others will find new and exciting scenarios to borrow and embellish. In Want, readers can discover the sheer diversity, joy, and intensity that lies beneath the controversial label of “woman.”

As Anderson writes in her conclusion:

I realized that there is no specific type of fantasy, just like there is no typical “woman.” […] We are all different, we all contain multitudes.