Forbidden Flowers (7 page)

Sometime later, he returns from a similar experience, and I comfort him. The sexual turn-on for me lies in the various tests performed, but this man is still an essential part of the fantasy; it occurs to me that maybe he is the safe place I can return to when sexual feelings have become too strong and, therefore, frightening to me (it is the loss of control I fear).

I have a couple of other remarks:

1
: I think for me it's true that certain fantasies stem from childhood. I can remember having feelings reading the parts of
Tom Sawyer
where the schoolmaster switched children. I was raised a very strict Catholic and would never allow my “sexual” thoughts in my head. But thoughts of spankings and pain, which turned me on, didn't fall into that category, because I was too young to recognize those pleasurable feelings as sexual, or at least sensual. Likewise, a movie scene in which a 43

group of rough men were ordering a woman in a bar to undress of they'd kill her male friend (knife at his throat) turned me on at almost age twelve, and my rape-type fantasies have this theme. The force is never raw strength, but psychological domination, threat of what they might do to someone else who is there (a male friend of mine) if I don't go along.

2
: I would like to believe that the domination desire stems from the freedom from guilt which that situation provides. I very much identified with the woman in your book who said that the domination thing grew as her involvement in women's lib grew … the same thing happened to me, and it seemed like such a contradiction: the more liberated I felt in my day-to-day life, the more I fell back on and needed my domination fantasies during sex. Perhaps women's lib helped me to believe in my right to sexual feelings and experiences, but it's too difficult to forget all that guilt at once … so domination lets me have the pleasure without the guilt.

3
: I liked the distinction you suggested between pain for pain's sake and pain as an instrument of domination. As you noted of other people, real pain turns me off; in fact, torture scenes in movies, etc., have made me upset to the point of nau-sea. I can't stand to hear people screaming, etc. But the thought of my bare ass being spanked as a preliminary to sex really turns me on, especially as the means by which a male forces me to suck him (which I have ambivalent feelings about, but am really turned off at the thought of doing it till he comes …

something I've never done).

4
: I found that fantasies of faceless people and unknown environments never made me feel guilty. But thinking of someone else I
know
while screwing with my husband still does, possibly because our marriage is not all that secure right now.

However, I don't feel as cheap and shitty as I used to, having read in your book how many women do think of other men.

Thanks. I don't have the nerve to sign this with my real name. If any of the comments are helpful to you, let them be my way of contributing something in return for what I gained reading
My Secret Garden
.

44

Bonnie

Thank you for the first book. I couldn't believe how turned on I could get. by reading, and ever since, I use your book to arouse myself before masturbating. Sure, I've got fantasies,
lots
of them! I'm twenty-one, lost my virginity at nineteen to someone who fell in love with me, have had sex with maybe seven or eight guys, no serious relationships, and over one hundred forty “dates” and casual affairs. I discuss sex and fantasies with my Mom and turned her on to your book (as well as EVERY woman I know). I love sex, anytime, anywhere, and am in the beginning of a beautiful relationship with an incredible guy who is a fabulous lover and who is very open about everything.

The one fantasy which started when I was about ten, has become a well-developed, detailed, and (excruciatingly) arousing little plot that I embellish whenever I want to. However, the theme is always domination, and I always get spanked. One important detail is that the guy is smoking cigarettes – I guess this adds to his
macho
appearance. I only go out with very sensitive men who are in the creative field, but they've all been fairly dominating (but in a gentle, considerate way). I won't take shit from any guy and refuse to be told what to do. However, enough autobiography, here it is:

I am reading a book in his bed, wearing a fly-front skirt, button-down shirt, and only underpants. He comes in wearing jeans, a denim shirt, open very low down, and with a fitted leather jacket (collar up, of course). He comes over to the bed, sits down next to me, and tells me to put the book away. I refuse. He puts out his cigarette and takes the book out of my hand. Everything is done slowly, especially the stamping out of his many cigarettes, which elongates the fantasy and arouses me even more. I play innocent and do nothing except yawn or consistently refuse. He lights up another cigarette and makes a telephone call to his agent (he's an illustrator), and while on the phone unbuttons my shirt and takes it off. He rolls me over on my stomach and very slowly lifts up my skirt and pulls down my underpants and leaves me like that while he leaves the 45

room to get a number for his agent. (As he puts the phone down, he whispers, “If you move, I feel sorry for you, and you can forget about sitting down for tonight.”) When he comes back, I have sat up, pulled up my underwear, and pulled down my skirt. He hangs up and makes me stand in front of him while he sits at the edge of the bed and takes off my skirt. As I stand in front of him in just my underpants, he makes another phone call. While on the phone, he grabs me and puts me over his knee (by this time I probably have come about twenty times) and slowly pulls down my underpants. After the call, he spanks me very hard, but I refuse to cry. Then he fingers me while he makes another call, which lasts for maybe twenty minutes. After that one, he spanks me again, always in between each slap saying what a spoiled brat I am and how I've had this coming to me for a long time He continues until I cry.

Then he tells me to lay down and wait for him. He goes into the kitchen and comes back with rope and ties me up. He takes off his leather jacket, and rolls up his sleeves (this turns me on even more) and
teases
me for a long time (I love to be teased), then he unties me, and we make love all night, but he NEVER

apologizes.

My thighs are locked together as I write this, and I'm trying to figure out how to get my boyfriend to do it He has spanked me, but not long enough and not slowly; he also said he would act out my fantasies.

Hope this has helped, although I don't see how it could, it's too typical! Thanks again.

P.S. I'm an art student.

Sophie

Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your book,
My Secret Garden
. I am twenty-five, single, and have had numerous lovers, all male. I have a master's degree in French and am a teacher by profession.

I have been fantasizing sexually since I was about five or six, when I began to masturbate. I was always ashamed of my fantasies – they were my private secret – up until about two or 46

three years ago, when I underwent therapy with a psychiatrist.

He practically had to drag these fantasies out of me – I didn't feel comfortable enough to tell him about them until I had been in therapy for close to two years. When I finally did tell him, I felt great relief that he accepted them and didn't recoil in horror and disgust when he heard them. Since that time, I have become much more relaxed about masturbating itself, enjoying it much more than before (now I can honestly
admit
that it is pleasurable), and I now also realize that sexual fantasies aren't dirty and disgusting, that indeed practically all women have them. I still masturbate regularly and enjoy that sort of

“naughty” or even “dirty” feeling that used to repulse me. I also like to feel naughty and dirty when I'm screwing.

I realize that if I had not undergone therapy, I might never have discovered how pleasant and natural such fantasies can be, and that guilt feelings are not a necessary psychological

“payment” for such pleasurable, but forbidden, thoughts. I hope that by reading your book, other women will draw the same conclusions about their fantasies, without the aid of a psychiatrist.

Thank you for your outstanding contribution to the liberation of the female sexual psyche.

I think I may attach some of my own fantasies to this letter.

You may use them as you wish.

P.S. I read your book while at work (I'm doing temporary secretarial work during the summer) and beat off
three
times yesterday during the day, right at my desk!! Once I almost got caught, and it was ever so exciting!!

Fantasy 1
: This one's an oldtimer – I used to use it exclusively, but now I usually use variations on the same theme, two of which also follow.

I am walking in the woods, enjoying the green scenery (I'll bet the shrink would say this is like walking through pubic hair), when all of a sudden I fall through a hole in the ground into a sort of laboratory. Inside the laboratory are lots of men in white coats (I guess they're doctors or something). I am undressed, weighed, and then put on some sort of cart which 47

wheels me around to the various departments in the laboratory.

First, I am examined and proclaimed healthy (internally, that is), and then the doctors determine that I am orgasmic and suitable for experimentation. The last stop is a big room with a kind of observation balcony. There are lots of men up there watching me, all extremely interested in so lovely a specimen as myself. The head doctor, or whatever he is, comes on the loudspeaker and announces that the gentlemen will soon wit-ness a female orgasm. Then a large man comes in – he's usually very strong-looking, and although he's not physically dirty, he is perspiring and has a gleam in his eye that tells me he's going to do a job on me. This man has been trained by the lab, so that he knows precisely how to drive a woman into crazed ecstasy. I am strapped onto a table, my legs wide apart. The big man approaches me, explores me with his finger, smiles wickedly, nods in approval to the head doctor and the men observing the scene, then comes down on me, flicking my clit with his tongue. The whole time this is going on, the doctor is giving a blow-by-blow account of how I'm feeling and how turned on I'm getting over the loudspeaker. He tells the men that I'm getting very close to coming. Finally, the big man sucking my cunt can't stand it anymore himself, and so he drops his trousers, revealing a large, erect dick, and he fucks me for all he's worth, while at the same time flicking my clit with his finger, until I come, come, come, all over the fucking table.

Fantasy 2
: This one has the same setting (sometimes I skip the beginning part and just find myself in the large room I described above). Now the men who were observing before are taking turns trying to turn me on, all this happening under the head doctor's watchful and approving eye. Each man tries his own special technique for exciting me, and the all-knowing doctor can tell who does the best job on me. The men try hard, because they know what the prize of doing the best job is – me (who else?). At some point, the doctor tells one of the men he has won me. This man then wheels the table I'm strapped to into another room, where he uses his technique to bring me to explosive orgasm by sucking, feeling, and fucking me.

48

Fantasy 3
: Again the same background, except that now I've been at this laboratory for some time and know what to expect.

I have come to enjoy this experimentation so much that, this time, the doctor announces over the loudspeaker, I have begged him to let someone work me over again. Same scene, same ending, except that this time I asked for it.

I just want to add that these are all fantasies that I use while masturbating. I don't normally fantasize too much while fucking, except that if someone's eating me out, I'll usually use one of these old standbys. I love to be fucked from behind while having my clit manipulated, either by me or my partner, and lots of times I can't come unless someone's playing with my clit. At any rate, I have my best orgasms when someone's fucking me and playing with my clit at the same time.

Dr. John Harrison

As you can see by the letterhead above (which I must ask you not to reprint, for obvious reasons), I am a psychoanalyst.

This letter is to tell you that your book,
My Secret Garden
, is already having highly beneficial spinoffs in my therapeutic practice. For example, a young mother says, “I can't reveal my sexual fantasies to you directly, but if you will look on page xx in Nancy Friday's book, you will read one that is something like mine!” As you might guess, by the conclusion of therapy, I hope she will be able to talk to me directly about all her sexual fantasies in complete detail. That would denote self-acceptance, maturity, responsibility,
and a giant step toward a
more fulfilling life
.

Your book provides a most welcome generalizing example that encourages people to come to terms with themselves and perhaps seek some of the excitement of which they dream.
It is
known, for example, that people with true psychosomatic illnesses, such as ulcers, hypertension, etc., are sadly lacking in
the capacity to fantasize
. If they can learn to fantasize, their nervous stress, strain, anxiety, and frustration may be given an outlet in that manner, and not have to be expressed as destructive forces within their own poor bodies.

49

One other comment: many neurotics are entirely unconscious of their most important sexual fantasies. Psychoanalysis helps them make these conscious and acceptable. Most people are genuinely unaware of what really excites them, but from your “catalog” (if I may use such a shorthand term), they can find one very similar to their own previously unrecognized fantasies. In psychoanalysis, we find again and again that this basic fantasy had once been known and treasured, but then repressed out of shame, etc. I would compare your book to a jukebox with old, forgotten favorite tunes which, when played, bring back all the feelings of yesteryear.